This anime, like many of Gainax's works, is an emotional roller-coaster that will have you at the edge of your seat with anticipation of what will happen next. Which is somewhat funny based on the fact that this is basically the epitome of a super robot anime. When I say this I mean that the action is so completely overblown that it stretches the boundaries of what a super robot can do. As I said earlier people have already said what I want to say in other reviews, so i'll just get on with addressing the criticism.
I feel that one of the reasons this anime is criticized so much is because it combines a ton of story elements from previous robot animes! putting aside things like Gunbuster and Diebuster that were made by the same company this show borrows heavily from older shows such as Getter Robo. People tend to get caught up in this and dismiss it as a clone of these super robot shows. That is not the case, TTGL is meant to be an homage to the super robot anime genre as a whole. it takes alot of the best elements of various super robot shows and crushes them together which, you may think, would result in an entirely unoriginal anime. This is not the case as TTGL embraces these elements and ends up making them its own. It takes the familiar and modifies it into something unique and original.
This show also gets a lot of hate for its mecha designs. Before I had watched this series I had given the mecha designs a look and hated them! I love the more realistic designs from shows such as Gundam and Code Geass, and at the time the design of the gunmen looked stupid. However after watching the show they began to grow on me and now Gurren Lagann might be one of my favorite mecha designs of all time. They are an acquired taste but certainly shouldn't put people off from watching this fantastic anime!
If you can get past both of those things definitely give this show a chance. Its a fantastic super robot spin on a boys ascent to manhood and all the challenges that come with it.
