My Drill is a Drill that Creates the Heavens

[La Maupin]

Wow. I just finished watching Gurren Lagann yesterday.

This is a show that in five years will be rightfully seen as one of the modern classics of anime. It's so over the top, but so beautifully done that despite existing on a scale all its own (in the finale, two mecha the size of galaxies clash to decide the fate of the universe), nothing ever strikes a false note.

The last four episodes are quite probably the most beautifully done (writing, animation and acting) 96 minutes of anime I have ever seen. The sheer amount of carnage in the last four episodes (fully half of the named cast is killed during those episodes) is, I believe, necessary to prevent the writers' exercise in Awesome from overwhelming the sense of reality the show has built up to this point. If I had to voice a complaint, it seems like the ending is a little more rushed, maybe, than it should be - the titular mecha goes through three major power-ups: Arc Gurren Lagann, a mecha several miles tall; Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, the size of the moon; and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the galactic-sized ultimate form; in the span of six episodes (the last two forms only come in the last three episodes), and as a result, none of the three really gets the kind of screen time that I'd like to have seen.

Still, that's a minor quibble, and this show is an instant classic.

[Koolaidkirby]

Gurren Lagann is epitome of over the top mecha anime.

Galaxy sized mecha throwing galaxies at eachother like ninja stars?

Awsome.

[White Haven]

..Sucks for the inhabitants of those galaxies...

[Darth Raptor]

..Sucks for the inhabitants of those galaxies...

This was like a magic artificial pocket universe. I highly doubt they were inhabited, or that everything was necessarily to scale.

[Vendetta]

The finale takes place in some kind of alternate dimension (Anti-Spiral Space) where willpower is made manifest. And, since the entire premise of the series is that sufficient quantities of heroic willpower will overcome anything (the laws of physics are the first casualty of this series), the results are appropriately epic in scale.

[Vendetta]

Also: Spiral energy is green.

[DPDarkPrimus]

How can you have watched the entirety of Gurren Lagann and then mangle the phrase in the title so terribly?

[Vendetta]

Because that's actually the line. The fansubs got it wrong.

Ore no drill wa ten no tsukuru drill da!.

[Vendetta]

Ghetto edit to elaborate: The mondegreen comes from the first episode, where Kamina says "omae no drill de ten no tsuke" (pierce the heavens with your drill). Simon's line in the finale is very similar in Japanese (tsuke/tsukuru), and easy to mistake when translating by ear like a fansub, but means something very different. The contrast is important though, because it shows the difference between Simon and Kamina even to the end.

Really, if you've only seen the fansub of TTGL, do yourself a favour and go and buy Bandai's DVD sets, the dialogue is much improved, and the better translation in the finale and especially Simon's big speech in episode 11 make the scenes far more meaningful.

[Ryushikaze]

Do they properly explain why, despite being created as a spiral entity by the anti-spirals, and supplying spiral energy of her own to the final battle, Nia suddenly has isn't one any more and must summarily flicker away?

They never adequately explained that one, and it seemed like gainax ending for the sake of a gainax ending, and was the only really sour thing about the series. Not that she went away, just the poor way it was handled.

[Molyneux]

Let me put my appreciation for this show in this fashion:

I am a big fan of TVTropes. They have turned me on to shows I otherwise would never have heard of, and they are very, very rarely wrong in the collective assessment of shows, especially where a show's level of awesomeness is concerned.

There is a page on that site, titled "Crowning Moment of Awesome". It is exceedingly large, and has been split into sections by genre - television, literature, and the like.

More recently, certain specific series proved to contain too much awesomeness to be stuffed into their respective genre pages, and had to be given their own. The show that started that? Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

It has an entire page dedicated to the moments of sheer overwhelming amazement it has provided - moments that, in most other series, would be sufficient to provide the climax of the story, something that would make a show stand out in the minds of fans and clamor for a sequel. There are, on average, more than one of these moments in TTGL per episode. A show with twenty-seven episodes has thirty-three distinct entries on that page, not counting the AMV entry.

Hell, it's got an additional ten entries on the "Crowning Music of Awesome" page, because there are very few tracks in Gurren Lagann that will not make your head explode with joy on first hearing them.

It's still not my favorite anime - Cowboy Bebop got to me too early for this to displace it - but it'd take something pretty damn cool to ever displace this from my second-favorite slot. Megaman shooting shurikens and lightning, with tits, and on fire couldn't come close to TTGL.

[Bounty]

You are honestly using TVTropes' Crowning Moment pages as an argument? Those are just block after block of text of fanboys jerking off to the dumbest of scenes that somehow morphed into being 'awesome' - and there's a word that hasn't been overused - in their own little fanboy minds. Somehow I don't think many of the Toppan thingy lagoon entries are going to be all that 'awesome' when read by someone who doesn't automatically cream his pants when he hears about a Japanese cartoon with *groan* "galaxy-sized robots".

[Darth Raptor]

Somehow I don't think many of the Toppan thingy lagoon entries are going to be all that 'awesome' when read by someone who doesn't automatically cream his pants when he hears about a Japanese cartoon with *groan* "galaxy-sized robots".

I thought it would be stupid, too. I was convinced I would hate it (especially considering I hate pretty much everything Gainax has ever done). I had never been more negatively prejudiced against a series. I was forced to eat my socks.

[Molyneux]

You are honestly using TVTropes' Crowning Moment pages as an argument? Those are just block after block of text of fanboys jerking off to the dumbest of scenes that somehow morphed into being 'awesome' - and there's a word that hasn't been overused - in their own little fanboy minds. Somehow I don't think many of the Toppan thingy lagoon entries are going to be all that 'awesome' when read by someone who doesn't automatically cream his pants when he hears about a Japanese cartoon with *groan* "galaxy-sized robots".

TVTropes is, at its core, a wiki, with all that implies.
Granted that not everything on the CMoA pages should objectively be there - but your little mini-rant there shows the paucity of your ability to comprehend wonder.

"Awesome" is an overused word, but there are times when it is just fucking spot on. You artless, gutless troglodyte.

[Nephtys]

I don't get how 'penetrates' or 'pierces' or 'breaks' translates into 'creates', but whatever!

Anyway, TTGL has been a really good series. It has a good pacing, unique atmosphere, nice theme and thoroughly enjoyable characters. The fact that it's ridiculous is a plus as well, just because it was so well done.

[Vendetta]

I don't get how 'penetrates' or 'pierces' or 'breaks' translates into 'creates', but whatever!

It doesn't. The fansubbers translated the last episode wrong. Bandai got it right.

[La Maupin]

I don't get how 'penetrates' or 'pierces' or 'breaks' translates into 'creates', but whatever!

Anyway, TTGL has been a really good series. It has a good pacing, unique atmosphere, nice theme and thoroughly enjoyable characters. The fact that it's ridiculous is a plus as well, just because it was so well done.

It doesn't - the point was that the Japanese words for "to pierce" (tsuke) and "to create" (tsukuru) sound similar to Western ears, and as a result, the fansubbers mistranslated it. Unintentionally, but it was still a mistranslation. Mistranslated fansubs happen all the time, especially in the modern era of digisubs where fansubbers have at most a week to get their subs out on the net before people start complaining, even more so when it's a subtle variation on a line that's been used repeatedly throughout the series.

Having access to the scripts (because they licensed the work), Bandai could afford to do a more leisurely and more accurate translation.

[Bounty]

Somehow I don't think many of the Toppan thingy lagoon entries are going to be all that 'awesome' when read by someone who doesn't automatically cream his pants when he hears about a Japanese cartoon with *groan* "galaxy-sized robots".

I thought it would be stupid, too. I was convinced I would hate it (especially considering I hate pretty much everything Gainax has ever done). I had never been more negatively prejudiced against a series. I was forced to eat my socks.

I've never seen the series and can't comment on it - it just baffles me that someone would want to point to TVTropes of all things to show the show is 'good'. I'm pretty sure TVTropes has "WTF this is teh awesome!!!" entries for anything short of the evening news, making it completely meaningless.

[DPDarkPrimus]

Ghetto edit to elaborate: The mondegreen comes from the first episode, where Kamina says "omae no drill de ten no tsuke" (pierce the heavens with your drill). Simon's line in the finale is very similar in Japanese (tsuke/tsukuru), and easy to mistake when translating by ear like a fansub, but means something very different. The contrast is important though, because it shows the difference between Simon and Kamina even to the end.

Really, if you've only seen the fansub of TTGL, do yourself a favour and go and buy Bandai's DVD sets, the dialogue is much improved, and the better translation in the finale and especially Simon's big speech in episode 11 make the scenes far more meaningful.

I assumed the OP was using fansubs because of that line. If it was in fact different in the last episode perhaps I just don't recall because of the rest of the fuckawesome that was happening.

[Ford Prefect]

it just baffles me that someone would want to point to TVTropes of all things to show the show is 'good'.

It's pretty ridiculous. You would think a person would use examples of simple but powerful and charismatic characterisation and a fun, uplifting theme as an example of why TTGL is any good, or otherwise. Strictly speaking, it's actually quite ridiculous; personally, even though I really quite like it, it really succeeds despite itself. The tongue-in-cheek writing helps too - 'Increase fighting spirit to 55 000%!'.

[La Maupin]

Ghetto edit to elaborate: The mondegreen comes from the first episode, where Kamina says "omae no drill de ten no tsuke" (pierce the heavens with your drill). Simon's line in the finale is very similar in Japanese (tsuke/tsukuru), and easy to mistake when translating by ear like a fansub, but means something very different. The contrast is important though, because it shows the difference between Simon and Kamina even to the end.

Really, if you've only seen the fansub of TTGL, do yourself a favour and go and buy Bandai's DVD sets, the dialogue is much improved, and the better translation in the finale and especially Simon's big speech in episode 11 make the scenes far more meaningful.

I assumed the OP was using fansubs because of that line. If it was in fact different in the last episode perhaps I just don't recall because of the rest of the fuckawesome that was happening.

Well... that's almost an apology...