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Gurren Lagann isn't really doing it for me
- Thread starter Giolon
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And it makes no apologies for being awesome.
Jex
Member
Jex
Member
That's one thing that I can't quite understand. Although the early arc in KLK didn't actually have bad pacing either, it was just a bit aimless.
pancakesandsex
Member
I think the only real meandering episode in the first 7 is the one where they visit the hot spring. Besides that, every ep either introduces new recurring characters who become more important later on, or offers some pretty important development.
OP: What did you think of forehead's introduction?
OP: What did you think of forehead's introduction?
This show and Kill La Kill to me are shows that you must not take at surface level. Gainax have been doing anime for more than 20 years. They were anime fans when they started and watching Gurren and Kill La Kill, it's obvious they still are. Nowadays though, they have the proven talent and can command the budget they want. At this point, they are just taking the piss at every convention they can think of and doing it with a level of talent few have. If you compare Gurren to Attack on Titan, the satire is even more obvious.
It could almost be said that the lack of animation is a nod to the earliest animes that were just a series of manga slides on screen. Obviously, it's because it's cheaper. But watching the barely animated KLK, I couldn't help thinking about the old old old anime.
It could almost be said that the lack of animation is a nod to the earliest animes that were just a series of manga slides on screen. Obviously, it's because it's cheaper. But watching the barely animated KLK, I couldn't help thinking about the old old old anime.
Giolon
Member
Fortunately, I'm not up on this whole .webm thing so I haven't clicked on it and won't!
Episode 4 is very meandering also. Even though side-characters are introduced in the other early episodes I feel like they could've condense it all by 50%, achieved the same thing, and gotten to the "important" part of the story quicker.
I'm assuming by forehead, you mean Rossiu? The village with the mental cult leader didn't stand out to me as more than boilerplate. I felt the whole sequence about Gimmy and Darry was more cynically emotionally manipulative than authentically effective.
From the earliest moments, KLK's satire on the shonen anime tropes (mysterious transfer school student, School Council & President with inordinate amounts of power, fight the low level baddies to get to the high level baddies) was so blatant that it was obvious to me from the beginning what the creators were going for.
I've seen it a little more as I've gone on in Gurren Lagann, but rather than satirizing mecha-anime, the early parts felt like it was just going by the numbers. As I watch the progression, particularly once they got to Dai-Gunzen, it started to gel a bit better for me, but it still feels more by-the-numbers than satire. As I mentioned before, if you're going to parody or satirize bad games, you walk a very fine line before you end up just having made a bad game - hence No More Heroes worked for some people and not for others.
And I get what you're saying about the old school vibe of KLK. That's one of the reasons I enjoyed it from the beginning is because it felt like "Hey this looks and feels like those crazy anime they used to make before moe and 'cute girls doing cute things' took over!" (No offense to the moe crowd) The style was a little rougher. The lines dirtier. The movements and forms looser.
Nowhere have I said KLK's pacing is perfect, but there were generally enough moments of insanity and general wackiness in each episode that I never felt bored. Prior to episode 7, I was mostly bored of Gurren Lagann.
I love gurren lagann.
It is a dumb show, but it does one thing well and that is PROGRESS.
Things happen, characters die, change.
The action starts small and then gets unbelievably big.
It isn't the best show ever. But, it can be really refreshing to watch a show that is constantly moving forward.
It is a dumb show, but it does one thing well and that is PROGRESS.
Things happen, characters die, change.
The action starts small and then gets unbelievably big.
It isn't the best show ever. But, it can be really refreshing to watch a show that is constantly moving forward.
Auron_Kale
Member
They did it and it was amazing imo. Being able to cut out the filler (a big plus) as well as I think they refined a few moments from the show to have a bit more impact. The pacing of the storyline was much better for me too actually, since there isn't filler to pad it.
I was at AX where they showed both movies back to back and had probably the most fun watching it in a huge room with other people. God I was so pumped up after the ending of the second movie...
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
Feels so good.
It's very good for wanting to relive the magic but not wanting to commit to rewatching 26 episodes. I personally just watch the whole series again whenever I feel that itch, but the movies are great for that as well.
That and they have the better ending.
Skyfireblaze
Member
I'm glad you decided to hang on with the show OP, if you liked it better now chances are you will like it even better now 
I was in a similar situation back then, I only watched about 6 episodes at first and while I liked them I felt like: "Hmm lets watch the rest later..." and only a year later I decided to pull through and enjoy the awesomeness 
And if I'm already in a GL thread, spoilers ahead, don't read unless you finished the series!
I was in a similar situation back then, I only watched about 6 episodes at first and while I liked them I felt like: "Hmm lets watch the rest later..." and only a year later I decided to pull through and enjoy the awesomeness And if I'm already in a GL thread, spoilers ahead, don't read unless you finished the series!
I always wondered, it's been a while now but hat exactly did the beginning of the first episode show? o.o Did I miss something that explains it? Or was it a alternate universe? It pretty much seems like it showed what happened after Simon and co defeated the Anti-Spirals but then again, who were these enemies then?
pants
Member
GL is a loveletter to mecha before, this doesnt make it more than what it is, shallow tripe to enjoy with popcorn.
KlK is supposed sattire, this doesnt make it more than what it is, shallow tripe to enjoy with popcorn.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
I wouldn't say it's directly there to counteract Eva, like a lot of people will say, but that comparison gets made a lot due to Eva being a Reconstruction and Gurren being a Reconstruction. One plays on the tropes of the genre and subverts them from the norm, and the other takes those same tropes and does as many as possible without an attempt to be unique, which ends up making it one of the most unique somehow.
Giolon
Member
Yeah, as I've seen more I see it for the Genre Throwback it wants to be, though I'd say that post Episode 15, it feels like a deconstruction. What would happen to the big damn hero's after the grand victory?
I'm now up to about Episode 20? After Episode 15, and the show's tone and style changes dramatically. It feels almost like the first part would ordinarily have been its own show, and this second part would be the darker, edgier sequel that comes out a few years later. It's a sequel to itself within itself. And while I can say I saw the major twist coming, it's still proven to be interesting. One thing I am enjoying is how they've played with scale, to the point where Gurren Lagann is like an ant to one foe, ready to be flicked away.
I still think Gurren Lagann's biggest failing is that pacing kills the early half of the show. It needs to be accomplished in ~8-10 episodes rather than 15. Beyond that, as it gets into its more interesting half, it's also failed to make me truly care about anybody in the show. Gainax did a very respectable job turning some of the bit players into slightly more realized characters - they've all grown, some have fallen in love, some have gone astray, most are just trying to adapt to living their new lives. But I just don't care about them. The fact that one character became the face of, if not the leader of, the new enemy force, didn't even elicit the bat of an eye. If all of these characters die, I wouldn't think twice about it, compared to other shows where I've grown to love the characters so much that I'm constantly on the edge of my seat wondering if the author is going to kill them off and tear a hole in my heart.
While increasingly interesting, I still wouldn't recommend this as a fantastic show to someone looking for something amazing to watch.
Shouta
Member
You could definitely improve the pace of the first half a bit to really pick it up without losing anything. 4 could've been folded into other episodes and 6 could be cut entirely. That would basically make the first half basically the perfect 13 episode series.
Everything after 15? Well, I've already stated my dislike for it numerous times.
Everything after 15? Well, I've already stated my dislike for it numerous times.
Yeah, it's like a poor man's Giant Robo.
wow....
did you actually feel that way about KLK?
or getter robo. down to the arm-crossing and the drills.
Giolon
Member
I can easily see how someone who loved the first half of Gurren Lagann would HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAATE the second half. It has fan backlash potential written all over it - it's not the show people signed up for when they got on board.
I did. I was convinced that they were going to kill off
Mako and/or Gamagoori for a while before realizing it was going to be a show where they didn't kill anybody off at all
excepting Senketsu, RIP
It's certainly not the only show I've felt that way about. I was terrified for the lives of the characters in Moribito, for example.
I don't really think that's necessary. but the problem with KLK is that there never felt like there was a true sense of danger, it felt like any other shonen show where the stakes are supposedly high but there is never any real loss and, thus, there is no real cause for concern.
Giolon
Member
That is how it turned out, but I half expected Gainax to kill characters off to get a reaction from the audience or just to cause other characters to flip their shit
(i.e. Ryuuko losing her way over Mako, Satsuki flipping out over Gamagoori or other characters flipping out that she's not flipping out.)
But this is the Gurren Lagann thread. I don't want to get it too off track into KLK. We have a whole great KLK thread for that.
That's my big problem with the early half - it didn't even do traditional mecha shows particularly well. It just felt like it was going by the numbers.
May you non-believers get your heavens pierced.
I always wondered why you wear sunglasses in broad daylight.
Edit: I'd actually suggest watching the movies over the single anime eps, the pacing is much better imo.
I always wondered why you wear sunglasses in broad daylight.
Edit: I'd actually suggest watching the movies over the single anime eps, the pacing is much better imo.
Giolon
Member
I finished Gurren Lagann this morning, and I will admit it pulled things together nicely by the end. The final third of the show was extremely well done, taking the opportunity to flesh out what had so far been completely 1-dimensional stock characters and turning them into more fully realized people with different ambitions, goals, and paths in life.
It still remained pretty trope-y, but the final third's constant one-upmanship in terms of scale was entertaining right until the end. The sacrifices and bittersweet ending mostly felt like they came naturally to the story instead of so many that I see that felt incredibly forced just b/c it seems that's the preferred Japanese way to end something (as compared to Hollywood's continual happy sappy endings).
Do I think it's better than Kill La Kill? Well, how do I answer that. The first third of GL I still maintain is a pretty bad show, but it continually builds upon itself in a thematically consistent way, and when viewed as a whole it looks like the entire thing was fully planned out from the beginning. If nothing else, I would say that Gurren Lagann is better produced than Kill La Kill, and by the end it has more realistic characters.
That said, Kill La Kill's level of zany antics from the very beginning and whacky characters imprinted themselves in my mind in a way that nobody from Gurren Lagann did and that no events did until the final two episodes. I came back week after week just to see what these crazy creations would get themselves up to. Gurren Lagann, I didn't really connect with or care what happened to any of the cast until about 20 episodes into the show. So for me, I like Kill La Kill a lot better.
Directly comparing to Gurren Lagann's ending, I can easily see how people who are big fans of that show would be disappointed in Kill La Kill's finale. It is not as good of an ending as Gurren Lagann's, in that it doesn't come together in anywhere near as powerful of a way. The animation is also lackluster compared to the finale of Gurren Lagann, which truly impressed me.
In the end, Gurren Lagann doesn't make it into my top favorites list. It's a good show on the whole, but the weak beginning holds it back. Maybe after taking a break for a while, I'll check out the movies and see how their pacing holds up.
Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to stick with it and championed the cause of their favorite show. You pretty much had a 1% chance of convincing me it was better than Kill La Kill, but I know for many of you, that's the same as 100%.
It still remained pretty trope-y, but the final third's constant one-upmanship in terms of scale was entertaining right until the end. The sacrifices and bittersweet ending mostly felt like they came naturally to the story instead of so many that I see that felt incredibly forced just b/c it seems that's the preferred Japanese way to end something (as compared to Hollywood's continual happy sappy endings).
Do I think it's better than Kill La Kill? Well, how do I answer that. The first third of GL I still maintain is a pretty bad show, but it continually builds upon itself in a thematically consistent way, and when viewed as a whole it looks like the entire thing was fully planned out from the beginning. If nothing else, I would say that Gurren Lagann is better produced than Kill La Kill, and by the end it has more realistic characters.
That said, Kill La Kill's level of zany antics from the very beginning and whacky characters imprinted themselves in my mind in a way that nobody from Gurren Lagann did and that no events did until the final two episodes. I came back week after week just to see what these crazy creations would get themselves up to. Gurren Lagann, I didn't really connect with or care what happened to any of the cast until about 20 episodes into the show. So for me, I like Kill La Kill a lot better.
Directly comparing to Gurren Lagann's ending, I can easily see how people who are big fans of that show would be disappointed in Kill La Kill's finale. It is not as good of an ending as Gurren Lagann's, in that it doesn't come together in anywhere near as powerful of a way. The animation is also lackluster compared to the finale of Gurren Lagann, which truly impressed me.
In the end, Gurren Lagann doesn't make it into my top favorites list. It's a good show on the whole, but the weak beginning holds it back. Maybe after taking a break for a while, I'll check out the movies and see how their pacing holds up.
Thanks to everyone who encouraged me to stick with it and championed the cause of their favorite show. You pretty much had a 1% chance of convincing me it was better than Kill La Kill, but I know for many of you, that's the same as 100%.
Spring-Loaded
Member
For me TTGL got better and better as the show progressed where as KLK got worse and worse for the most part (a few exceptions here and there). By the latter 1/3rd of KLK I was ready to get it over with but with TTGL I was dreading the end of the show because I knew it will be over after that.
I am quite glad you stuck with it! Different strokes for different folks and all, if you still like KLK more than TTGL that's your call, but I definitely think it would've been a terrible decision to give up on the show after only five episodes. It's a crescendo, deliberately starting out small and quiet, two boys just trying to escape their tiny shithole of a village, building up in bombast and volume until it's a war for the fate of the universe and a statement on mankind as a whole. Just from the first handful of episodes there's no way to see that, and it's really difficult for anyone to explain it without spoiling it.
I also really don't think TTGL is a "satire" of mecha anime at all, more of a love letter to the genre if anything.
I also really don't think TTGL is a "satire" of mecha anime at all, more of a love letter to the genre if anything.
Chezzymann
Member
The show itself is pretty much a giant spiral, getting bigger and bigger with each turn. Most people love the show for its crazy awesome ending, thats why everyone is so adamant at people finishing it. I admit I thought it was a boring crappy show at first (And for the first 7 episodes it was) but luckily one of my friends convinced me to finish it, and now it's one of my favorite shows.
Well I wasn't expecting to sway your opinion in terms of placing gl above klk, but I'm glad you seemingly like the show. I just finished klk today and I've got to say it's the complete opposite for me in terms of progression. It started awesome but past the first few episodes it was a slog. Boggles my mind how you can still place klk in your tops but shut gl out when looking at the complete picture gl is a much more complete package. But different strokes I guess.
ymoc
Member
Watched a few episodes.
Liked where the show was going with the bromance despite being very shallow. The fan service was not that cringe worthy and made me chuckle a few times.
We had a somewhat mature female lead
and even though she was quite sexualized, it was still within limits.
Then the show took a 180.
AND introduced a loli princess?!"#%?=)!
After that the entire crew turned pedo-style and started drooling all over this girl and it was time for me to bail the fuck out.
Liked where the show was going with the bromance despite being very shallow. The fan service was not that cringe worthy and made me chuckle a few times.
We had a somewhat mature female lead
and even though she was quite sexualized, it was still within limits.
Then the show took a 180.
They killed off the "main" character
After that the entire crew turned pedo-style and started drooling all over this girl and it was time for me to bail the fuck out.
ymoc
Member
I don't remember ages being mentioned in the anime, but to me the character looks at least 18, so?
Unknown One
Member
I think she's 16. Nia is 14, but I wish she never existed. Yoko fell out of existence with her in the spotlight.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
You should probably spoiler tag some of this.
And the killing off of the main character is the point of the series. A what if scenario of the main character dying and the whiny sidekick having to step up.
I think it was in the artbook that gave a bunch of canon info on the series. At the beginning Yoko and Simon were both 14 and Kamina was something like 18-20. They had no concept of age because they were trapped underground their whole lives.
ymoc
Member
You know I don't even wanna get into age discussion. It's completely irrelevant what age these characters might have been (in the manga?).
The characters in the anime are visually represented as one being a grow-up woman and the other as a prepubicent girl. When the romantic and sexual notions get pointed away from the adult towards a child by grown up men (i.e. the entire crew), that is where I draw the fucking line.
The characters in the anime are visually represented as one being a grow-up woman and the other as a prepubicent girl. When the romantic and sexual notions get pointed away from the adult towards a child by grown up men (i.e. the entire crew), that is where I draw the fucking line.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
I think Nia and Yoko are roughly the same age, Nia just looks younger than Yoko. So it would just as inappropriate for Yoko to be sexualized as it would be Nia.
ymoc
Member
Maybe you missed the point I was making?
It's common in movies that certain characters are played by older actors or are even presented as much older in the actual movie than compared to the source materials. In this case, since in anime the ages are not mentioned, the age gap can be observed visually. Which translates to me, this character is much OLDER.
But you are correct, it is quite inappropriate to sexualize women in general, so I agree with you on that one : )
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
I understand what you were saying, but I'm saying that sexualizing one girl for looking older than another is a horrible precedent. Like that one teacher that didn't get charged with rape because the girl he raped was "Above her chronological age." It's a dangerous and unfair line of thinking.
And sexualizing women is fine and perfectly appropriate, it's just not done to men an equal amount, making it seem more inappropriate.
Snacks the sober sea lion
Member
Nia is moe, deliberately and ridiculously so. Not a "loli princess."
After that the entire crew turned pedo-style and started drooling all over this girl and it was time for me to bail the fuck out.
They only really do that during the mandatory "beach episode" and even then it's rather mild. After that, Nia actually becomes more worldy and strong, especially during her scenes with Adiane, Guame and Lordgenome. Then, of course, there is the
time-skip where she's twenty-one.
The first time I saw the series, Nia really didn't sit well with me. However, by the end I actually liked her if mostly because of how much she meant to Simon and her moments of bravery.
I don't remember the whole crew sexualizing Nia? I took the way they acted more like parental affection, fawning over her like their sweet angel daughter or something.
She looks young (at first), but that's because she's
.
She looks young (at first), but that's because she's
Simon's love interest, so they wanted them to be the same age visually
It's just Getter robo, but worse.
ymoc
Member
What are you talking about? Who are you talking to?! Understand what????
I don't even know what to write tbh.
Let's make it clear. We're not talking about jailbait real life situations here or any other sexual abuse. We're discussing how an animation production represents a character visually and what kind of message that sends to the viewers.
IN ANIME
1. A character is presented as a grown up woman -----------> congratulations, you've established she's an adult
2. A character is prepresented as a prepub girl ----------------> congratulations, you've established that this character is a child
There's no gray area here. Unless we're talking about some otaku level shit, which i think we're not discussing and I don't even want to go there.
It's late here, im going to bed. Jesus dude, read the comment more carefully next time.
Aaron-Lagann
Banned
Yoko. Presented as a teenage girl. Nia. Presented as a teenage girl.
How is one an underage girl and the other not?
How is one an underage girl and the other not?
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