TLDR; Gurren Lagann is a series built on spirit and sacrifice; but the solid (albeit grandiose) groundwork laid in the first part is wasted by a timeskip which ruins its main cast and plunges the series into an exciting yet empty headed tale of good vs evil. Its strong foundations however keep this series very watchable, and stellar voice acting coupled with jaw dropping animation and art keep this series in decent stead even at its bumbling, nonsensical worst.
Many of the reviews here praise TTGL for its air of macho audacity, the raw and unshackled courage of its protagonists often being the only shield from certain demise. That much is true, but there's only so much that one can take before the same gory shouts and "motivational" one liners get old. Repetitive. Empty. Meaningless, at times. Being a shonen, you know what to expect from this show — good always triumphs over evil.
As you can expect, the story does not get any huge points for originality. The flow is typical of any shonen, distinguishing itself with a gorgeously diverse set of landscapes and locales. However to its credit, TTGL has a monumental sense of scale — it starts off in the bowels of underground settlements and ends among the twinkling stars of the universe. The story unfolds in a way that enchants you at times. The problem with this series however is not the absurdity, but how it manages to become EVEN more absurd especially towards the end. Episodes 1-15 (Part I) are where most of the emotional impact of Gurren Lagann shine for all to see, where humanity's struggle is more grounded and intense. There are also some great elements of shock, as the series uses a certain shock incident to make multiple characters grow at once, which I consider to be a brilliant call. Part I is truly where TTGL is at its best, throwing characters and building upon their motivations. They are fundamentally, very human like. Whatever credit I give the show comes from these episodes.
After a certain time skip, things go very badly for TTGL's plot. Character motivations change drastically, creating conflicts out of thin air and plot twists that seem almost engineered for convenience. When one looks past the gorgeous character designs, painstakingly crafted battles and jaw dropping animation...even magnificent choreography cannot save Gurren Lagann's plot from taking a nasty nosedive. The mostly catchy OST together with great EDs and OP are matched by some solid voicing for the cast; so as expected TTGL scores very highly on technical merits. It is the travesty of a story that proves to be this show's Achilles Heel.
The result of the second part of the series is a plot that completely abandons pace and unravels into a series of escalating battles until the ultimate good vs evil fight. Even as a large number of recurring characters meet explosive demises, TTGL fails to leave the audience with the desired emotional impact that SHOULD present when losing so many old characters. This leads us to the characters that make up TTGL.
There are four names that stand apart from the rest when it comes to development and good characterisation: Simon (our protagonist), Yoko Littner, Viral and Kamina. Everyone else is pretty much the definition of forgettable: filling certain fixed roles in order to move the plot forward and fuel the absurdity. For example, there's this dumbass that shouts nothing but "FIRE" every time a battle scene erupts — I can use this annoying fellow as an example of the series' utilitarian view on its cast. All he does is push buttons to shoot giant mecha bullets. Many characters fare no better.
Even among these characters, the time skip does MASSIVE damage to Simon and Yoko, who went through some great moments in the first season. Simon turns into a clone of another key character while Yoko completely loses all relevance to the plot. Kitan and Rossiu receive some screen time but also are ultimately fodder. The shocking part is that Simon's pet mole rat (Boota) gets more characterisation than 80% of the TTGL 'main cast'.
Decent, but should have been much better. Personally give it a 7, but for the sake of an honest critique, I rate it as given.
