I said I'd report back, and here I am to do that, though it took me a day longer to get there than I expected. Thanks for all the encouragement and also to those in solidarity that didn't like the show! It has been very interesting to see those voices speak up that aren't in agreement with the masses.
I've now seen up through about half of Episode 9, and while I think the show took a positive turn in Episode 7, I still think the show is just alright. Episodes 7, 8, and what I've seen of 9 so far
did make the show more interesting. I'm not one of the people that believes you have to
to make a show interesting, but I think they've used it as a pretty decent catalyst for change in Simon, even if it still seems a bit typical so far.
Animation in 7 and 8 was a big improvement from what came before, though in episode 9 so far some of the characters are badly off-model. I guess that budget had to come from somewhere!
At this point, my biggest problem with this show, ignoring all the hype and praise that was heaped upon it, is that it took too long to get here. The first 6-7 episodes should've been completed in three at most. Cut the fat, cut low-quality the filler BS, and drive the story forward. A show that takes 7-8 episodes to get interesting is not a well paced show. If you don't have your audience hooked in the first 2 hours
at most let alone merely intrigued in the first hour, you've basically failed.
So, now my opinion overall has improved, and I no longer think it's a "kind of bad show", but a "decent show, with horrible pacing" so far.
I've read all the comments so far, and I want to address the folks worried I'm comparing it too much to Kill La Kill and am not giving Gurren Lagann a fair shake. KLK skyrocketed past nearly all the shows that I've watched over the last 15-ish years of being an anime fan to make it near to if not at the top of my all time favorites list (others hovering around the top include Ghost in the Shell Stand Alone Complex, Moribito, and Cowboy Bebop). The chances of finding another show that will do that for me is so miniscule-ly small that I don't expect to encounter such a show any time soon.
Here's the thing - as I mentioned before, I tried Gurren Lagann on its own terms years ago when it came out and
didn't like it. I quit after one episode because I was bored as shit. I only came back to it
because of the enjoyment I got out of KLK, Little Witch Academia, and FLCL that I've seen since I originally tried the show, not that I was expecting it to be exactly the same as any of the above. That enjoyment of Imaishi & Co.'s other works combined with the extremely positive reputation the series continues to hold among most anime fans and the continued comparisons by people in the KLK thread that Gurren Lagann cast KLK in a very poor light. I still absolutely disagree with that assessment, and while it is still an admittedly incomplete reference, I would still take the first quarter run of Kill La Kill over the first quarter run any day - the rest of either show notwithstanding.
In the end, Gurren Lagann has won me over enough to keep watching. I'll of course reserve full judgment until all is said and done. A'ight?
I'll report back again after the next milestone (ep 15 it sounds like?), but in the meantime I'm happy to stick around and continue to discuss the parts I've seen so far.
