Anime Reivew: Gurren Lagann

I had heard bits of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann(TTGL) for some time before Anime Expo, but getting there and meeting some of my fellow roomies, two of them were cosplaying from this wonderful series. Another thing that turned me to the series was a very well made AMV using the song "Be A Man" from Disney's Mulan.

The series follows Kamina, a hot-headed, 'no guts, no glory' kind of guy, Simon who is a kid still learning the ways of the world. They start in an underground village where the people have been living for untold generations when Simon discovers a small drill. After an attempted breakout by Kamina and his rag-tag of misfits, Kamina winds up in jail while Simon continues to drill to expand the village, but comes across a large face. Simon comes to rescue Kamina from jail who wants him to see the giant face when a massive earthquake rattles the underground village; falling from the ceiling is a massive monster!

Seriously, that's just in the first 15 minutes or so! Least to say, this episode got me hooked to watching the rest of the series. The motion of the characters and the attention to detail to backgrounds is astounding. Looking through the end credits of the DVD set I found a multitude of other Japanese animation studios that worked with Gainax; for example Production I.G. and Studio Ghibli.

with the release of Gurren Lagann here in the states, I expected the disk to have English voice-overs like most Anime does. However, after everyone started conversing, I found that they were all speaking Japanese; looking to the Language feature on the disk revealed that the only language is Japanese! I believe this is a bold step for Aniplex and Bandai, but I am in favor of subtitled series, since they retain the orginal meaning when translated. Another thing about the two disks, was that they are a little bit cheaper than traditional one disk with dual languages. The English version of the series will premiere tomorrow on the SciFi Channel at 11PM, so if you have cable, check it out.

For anyone getting into Anime, or a longtime Otaku, I recommend this series to all.