Nov 28, 2024
Gurren Lagann does not deserve the praise it gets
Gurren Lagann is widely regarded as one of the greatest anime series of all time, and people will frequently cite it as their favorite.
When I dislike an anime, I can almost always understand how someone else could like it. For example, I did not enjoy Konosuba, Samurai Champloo, or Paranoia Agent, but I can absolutely understand how others could love them.
This isn’t the case for Gurren Lagann.
Characters: The characters are almost all extremely one-note with a clear archetype that they rarely stray from. Kamina is the macho gung-ho alpha male. Rossiu is the level-headed straight
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man. Nia is the ditzy, cheerful princess. Simon is the stock shounen protagonist who goes head first into every fight and never gives up. The villains are almost all just outright evil, giving viewers little reason to understand where they’re coming from at all. The exception is Viral, who was probably the most interesting character as he at least showed some level of personal depth. The characters were uninteresting at best, and grating and bothersome at worst. They were very unrelatable and difficult to root for. If you like intelligent characters who feel real and show their deepest emotions and weaknesses, then you won’t like these characters. If you prefer characters like Eren Yeager who use “will” and brute force to go through life, then these characters are right up your alley.
2/10
Plot: The plot was interesting at the beginning. A world where tons of isolated societies are situated underground, oblivious to that which exists above them. I thought the concept was cool, and when the main group made it above ground and began learning about other societies similar to theirs, I thought there was a lot for the show to work with. The “villain of the week” nature of the first cour got stale pretty quickly though, and the show fumbled a great base plot by turning it into a story we’ve seen dozens of times. The time skip really helped to rejuvinate the setting, and for an episode or two it seemed we’d see a major shift to make the plot more compelling, but Gurren Lagann fell back into the same over-the-top action sequences littered throughout the first 16 episodes. The plot was interesting in theory, but the show ultimately did little with it and focused too much on meaningless fights and too little on character relations and existential questions that would surely be dominating the characters’ thoughts.
4/10
Design/Animation: The animation was good; above average for its time for sure. Art style is subjective, but it wasn’t my cup of tea. A very retro 90’s atmosphere calling back to battle shounens of old. I prefer cleaner, more modern styles with heavy shading. Stuff like Terror in Resonance, Steins;Gate, Chainsaw Man, and so on. But this is my own personal taste, I can’t fault the show for that.
6/10
Sound: I was not a fan of the soundtrack, but it was objectively not bad by any means. Nothing stellar, but it was acceptable. Voice acting was done well, and the characters’ voices fit the vibe of the show. Really no qualms here.
7/10
Conclusion: Gurren Lagann wasn’t the worst thing I’ve ever watched. But it absolutely doesn’t deserve the amount of praise it gets from the anime community. It was an average mecha, with exaggerated characters and a mediocre story. Gurren Lagann is One Punch Man before One Punch Man.
5/10
Reviewer’s Rating: 5
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