Tengen Toppan Gurren Lagann Episode 1 - Strike the Heavens With Your Drill!!
OP - Sora-iro Days (Shoko Nakagawa) - fairly standard J-rock-esque song with some rather over-frenetic but well-directed visuals.
ED - Underground (High Voltage) - can’t say I care for the song, but the understated animation of Shimon walking is quite good (although I wish there was a bit more variety, it’s a bit nothing-y in the long run).
In the distant future, the people of the subterranean village of Jeeha subsist on the treasures they find whilst drilling underground. Shimon, Our Reluctant Hero, finds a mysterious drill piece, and eventually a giant robotic head, underground; he also gets roped into an attempt by the brash Kamina to break through the ceiling and prove there really is a “land” up there; this involves setting a whole load of boars loose, colliding them in the middle of a walkway and riding the resulting collision to the top of Jeeha. Gotta love those kerazzy anime physics!
Anyway, this all results in great displeasure from the village’s elder, who has forbidden all this, and he locks Kamina away. However, once Shimon breaks him free (as they’re now like brothers, something which Shimon hasn’t had since an earthquake and resulting landslide killed his family) they are confronted by the elder before a giant robotic animal skull crashes through the ceiling from the land above. Kamina attempts to fight it off but is rescued by the buxom, red-haired Yoko, who comes swinging in with a massive gun in tow. After much running around and hyperactive animation etc., Shimon (with the help of a tiny boar that seems to secrete itself in people’s cleavages) discovers the miniature drill is the key to activating the robot head, which functions as a mini giant robot in its own right. Cue fighting and mass destruction, and Shimon and co end up on land about to be devoured by monsters when the episode ends.
Gainax hasn’t really done anything for kids (well, as much as any show with wiggling breasts and gratuitous butt shots can be aimed at kids) for a while now, but they’ve certainly transplanted the FLCL/Diebuster “spazz” style to Gurren Lagann. There’s no doubt that money’s certainly been thrown at this first episode; if you’re a fan of that style of animation, it’s an absolute visual treat, and the storyboarding and colouring is really quite excellent. There’s also potential for a pretty decent story, something I’ve not really been able to say for a Gainax show for a while; nothing earth-shattering, sure, but the setup is certainly for something a bit more in depth than Konomini, for instance (man, that was like, three years ago now! Time flies when you’re blogging…)
However, Gurren Lagann isn’t really to my tastes, unfortunately. I can’t say that it’s “generic” like I usually do - there’s plenty of nice ideas in here, like the robot head, and there’s the potential for an interesting pan-galactic story in here - but it’s mostly that I’m not a big fan of Gainax’s over-the-top otaku-favourite style. Diebuster and FLCL didn’t really do that much for me despite the quality of work in them, and there’s no doubt that the same attention has been lavished here, but for some reason it didn’t click with me. The characters are fairly standard for this kind of show, but it’s not even really that; I just think it’s not really my cup of tea, essentially, although I would be fairly confident that for those people who like the first episode they should be in for a pretty great ride along the way.
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