Gurren Lagann isn't your run-of-the-mill kind of Mecha anime. It's the Mecha of Mechas. Watching this anime alone has been proven scientifically that you could bloat your testicles if you have one, and if you don't, then be prepared to wear a bigger pants because your junk will be satiated and grown to form a bulge, metaphorically. Just when you thought, "Oh man can't we have a much profound symbolism in Mecha nowadays? It's always about fighting and getting about boring dialogue". ALTO! Hold your tits you little runt, cause Imaishi had just climbed up into the producer's desk and shook his testicle and thus given birth to the best thing that could be animated in the screen and for us to enjoy, (no sexual innuendo here)
In an hindsight, there are many themes concurrently conjugating and weaving together in this anime. You can't vouch to say which one is the profound among the rest. There are Friendship, Spirit and determination, Human's Comportment and of course dealing with your life when nature decides to screw it. One way to see it is that this is an all-round anime without irregularities when forming the circle. Anyone can just sit through the whole series without feeling bored.
If I were a father, I would force my kid to watch this as an early media for them just so that they can soon grow to be a REAL MAN! (keyword : If).
1. Story
Basically, the whole anime is mainly about growing up and dealing with the dead-ones and move on. You must think, "Oh c'mon, we already have buttloads of that Anime scattered around already" which comes to my gratitious reply of "Do they have a fighting mecha?". *Angels descending with an inscription of FTW behind me*. I don't want to provide spoilers, but I'll leave this an ambiguous case to anyone who haven't watched it yet. This anime takes a whole new step in killing many characters in the show. Nope, they won't come back. Once the living were grovel down six inch feet, there's no way that they could resurrecting them to live again unless of course you got Phoenix Down (won't work with Aerith though), convinced Jesus to do it or some dude tuning in to the Thriller music. But I digress, this is almost the same par with George R.R. Martin styles of writing, cause the next time you like the character, THINK IT OVER!
It's not just that, the Anime also prevails our Human's core to the deep root. I never liked one of those anime that starts with the dialog, "In the beginning, there was a big bang.. then human starts to killed each other",
uhh.. am I watching Nova science show or an Anime. Gurren Lagann makes its grand debut of how this stuff should be pulled off by any story-writer without lodging 3 ass episodes on some crappy philosophy that any nards of homeless man can conjured up or some cheap ass stuff that you could enumerate in reddit or 4chan but a tip of your ingenuity of creativity to display it. When humans starts to yonder ways of thinking, their mind will tremble in fragility. If you think you're civilised enough, well.. again, THINK IT OVER!
Sounds like a deep Anime? Well, this is not your EVA's slice where they spent the ending worth of whole 20+ episodes on something stupid and irrelevant like being inside of Shinji's mind or what-not. Rest assured, Gurren Lagann have its ending, and its worth it. Sad? Happy? WHAT THE HELL DO YOU THINK THIS ANIME IS??! WATCH IT NOW!
I would like to think the truest and stands above of all themes of this Anime is purely of Spirit of Unity. Standing together no matter what with a like-spirited group to defeat the odds.
2. Graphics and Animation
Little sunny-side to a western animation, methinks? The Key Animator should be showered with all sorts of praise after what he had done to the Anime. The graphics and animation are still good to date, if you like the robust and funky style of fighting sequence from FLCL (Fooly Cooly), Fullmetal Alchemist and Kill la Kill, then you are on a roll. The same funky and fun to watch theme were being implemented in Gurren Lagann. They went from being a normal mecha fighting to a cuhrayzee combination and nonsensical name till the end. Will it intercede the enjoyment? Oh please, this is like the best thing in the Anime actually.
I think Imaishi, the Key Animator has a quite distinct style of any anime that he handled upon. Anyway, apart from 14 years old growing a huge jug of boobs, the character design of each of them were unique. The names are easily remembered and you could really tell apart each character even by their personality and characteristics and this isn't even with the inclusion of their design yet. The characters in this Anime are rich and for each time-skip between events, you could really tell that they are growing and thus developing more pronounced facial features like Simon had. There are little to no CGI in this Anime except for some Mugann during the human extermination thingy going on during a certain period of Fighting Session which is easily blown up by the lagann, this fact remains the obvious answer to why it's CGI-ed and not hand-drawn. So, you don't have to grit your teeth and keeps thinking if there's any choppy and awkward CGI to be blended in the Anime.
3. Characters and Characteristics
"Aniki~!!" -Simon
Just hearing this, greatly reminiscence me of how great David Hayter's VA in Metal Gear Solid where he shouted, "FOX~!!" before Gray Fox charging in to destroy the radome and put it on huge disadvantage point. Just pure VA skills could sewed a tight fabric of bonding between 2 characters. This is what it means by VA skills. You could tell what they have been through before just by hearing their calling to each other. In a sense, it has a best VA to date, not your usual cutesie and plain acting, but a lavish at its finest. I dunno, it's just that vibration in their voices that makes it memorable to me.
The protagonist and antagonist have a very clear reason to fight between each other, a solid reason and each of it were being explained to dot of why they're doing such action. It's never the reason like, "I have to fight you Naruto, cause the fans demand it and we're having more pages to waste at the ending of this volume..".
That's another thing about Gurren Lagann, it's not about the main crux or themes that they are trying to present but rather elaborating the deep brotherly connection to each other and how good they are connected to the extent of goes full vendetta on the king himself, oh and when I said "KING" in this anime context it could mean 'God'. Yup, they take the whole phrase of "Our drill will penetrate the heaven" too literal I think.
Many Anime did tried to produce the same theme but fails for the outcome. Gurren Lagann did it without being too cheesy and in the end, you felt bad for the character and roots for it 'till the end of the series which is rare occasion to a man like me.
P/S: You'll be surprised at the ending just to see who's the narrator actually for the whole time of the Anime.
4. Sound and OST
This goes without saying that this anime has one of the best Musics and OSTs. Have you heard the music, 'Thrust through the heavens with your spirit'? Have you heard the OP and ED? They are just vernacularly AWESOME! The OSTs are fitting on each scene and flows with the atmosphere. Wants to jam along when these Lagann are threshing the bad guys? sure.. wants a motivational soundtrack to raise your chin up from depression? HELL YEAH~!
Note: I think I might be elaborating about sound and whatnot on other sections above, so I'm not gonna re-iterate.
Overall:
There are 2 ways that you can watch this Anime, one would be its idea and story about humanity and the other is of course, the cuhrayzee battle sessions of each lagann. Of course, you could just watched the series to ogle at Yoko's boobs but really, there's crapload of H-portal for that. Either way, this is a splendid series, I think they done every explanation that is needed and some of it are left to fans speculation especially about some elements in it.
I'm sorry if there's any misinformation or grammar mistake(s) in this wall-text and I have tried my best of not putting any spoilers in it.
