Once upon a time, or not too long ago, there was one anime that people hailed it for “piercing the heavens”. Most of us agreed with it, and it was named “Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann”.

When the TV series ended, it enjoyed massive popularity. Many people loved it, and like every other popular shows, comes with some pointless haters who hate the show just because it’s overrated, etc. But they cannot deny that it’s a show that makes your adrenaline pump, though how much is totally subjective. To put it simply, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann enjoyed massive success from it. People loved it, I especially loved it, Gainax is happy.

Then it comes the movie version. Honestly at first, I was skeptical.

Personally, the after feeling of watching TTGL TV series was rather sweet – but perhaps it’s so sweet, my mind formed a very defensive opinion of how the movie version, especially 2 hours of the length trying to cover half of the whole TV series seems to be rather pushing it and will not match up to the TV series counterpart itself. Gurren was on screen last year which at that time I wasn’t at Japan to watch it yet (or I missed it), so I caught myself up by downloading BSS fansub of it.

(And the rest below would be spoilers, onwards – and it’s a long ass entry, read it at your own risk)

Gurren chapter did not disappoint, to say the least.

However, most of us here already know that Gurren is a form of alternate retelling of the TV series with the story flow remained the same from the TV series counterpart. Many of the scenes changed, and some removed. Kamina’s death did not change, and while I do not have objections on how they are trying to retell the story in the length of 2 hours (almost sharp), some of their “rushed gothrough” left a rather unsatisfying taste to my mouth. The introduction to Kittan might be acceptable if it’s rush because episode 4 itself was a filler – but for Rossiu, Gimmy and Darry : I don’t really like how they rushed it off, but I suppose it’s rather understandable. Some of the scenes in the movie followed the manga adaption and I welcome the fresh change of it.

Then Kamina died, I cried manly tears again, only not so much from it’s first.

However, the last part of the battle was somewhat of “Hey, we do not have much time left, so we throw all the remaining 3 Generals into one big finale battle during Simon’s cure from depression and end the show with a bang!” kind. It wasn’t bad, it wasn’t terrible, and it was certainly enjoyable (especially the Giga Drill Breaker Dai Gurren Dan Shoot, I had to rewind that part a few times to enjoy it fully) but what’s the complaint?

Not enough.

Perhaps I asked too much, but for some unknown reason I felt odd that they try to mix episode 11 to ep.14 into at most 20 minutes of sequence was rather itchy and I don’t know why I just didn’t get that much kick from the previous enjoyment I had from the TV series itself. Maybe in the end, I just want the movie to go beyond 2 hours, even if it’s just 20 or 30 minutes extra. Now THAT, they can rather expand and divide the story instead of trying to cramp everything and modify it. Hey, 2 1/2 hours of movie is NOT impossible, doesn’t matter whether it’s live action or anime.

But nonetheless, I still enjoyed Gurren-chapter. Yoko’s physical fight with Adianne was well done for one – and I welcome more Yoko’s badass action. And the story itself, even with odd pacing, still retains a good, enjoyable storytelling of Simon’s adventure and his growth – from the coward self to a man of steel, just like how it was in the TV series.

Lastly, I got stunned for a good 5 minutes when they didn’t continue the fight with Lord Genome and had to leave it for Lagann chapter. And I was saying “HELL SUCKS MAN WHAT THE HECK IS THIS”, Only to realize that I was wrong to even think that to begin with.

That is, after I watched Lagann-chapter.

Now Lagann-chapter is AWESOME. (Long story will be long, but that’s as good as telling you how the movie goes anyway)

Basically Lagann is retelling the story with a totally alternate route but maintained the same story structure. It’s almost as if watching both Gurren and Lagann chapter itself can be considered almost totally standalone without having the need to watch the TV series beforehand. If you rated a disappointed marks for Gurren, then your loss for watching the incomplete thing at the first place, unless Lagann-chapter doesn’t satisfy you as well.

They waste no time by startng the battle with Lord Genome and his henchmen – with scene going to and fro, by to by. It didn’t change much until the end of the battle – we got detailed of it’s aftermath. Like what happend after the battle, how they rebuilt the city, advance the civilization, scrap off Gunmens to build a more useful stuff for others to use, how the Grappals are built, how Simon became the leader of the people, how Rossiu spent his time studying and gain knowledge and gain his asshole arrogant attitude (AAA!) from there, how Gimmy and Darry owned Viral and get him arrested to jail (Hey! That was episode 17!), How Dayaka and Kiyoh got married, how the city keeps getting bigger and bigger, and finally the first space satelite got launched (we all know it’s to investigate the moon because Rossiu became worried about Lord Genome’s last words) and the title finally came out after 10 minutes into the show.

Long? Nah, Zone of the Enders 2 will make you jizz in the pants more.

- Episode 17 – 21 -

We have Nia’s new hobby of writting diaries, but however it’s mainly addressed to the special dead person called Kamina and she starts writting about how everyone was doing. And as we all would have guessed, Yoko’s life as Yomako-sensei and her students became almost non-existant at all. It became a filler!

Of course we had the Simon proposal and Nia’s refusal, but one big point about it was that, by the time that happens, Kiyoh already born a child, thus making the “1 million population triggering Human Annihilation program” concept totally moot. So how did Nia became a Anti-spiral messenger?

She changed when Nia accepted Simon’s proposal and just when the two are about to share a kiss, and I tell you – what a coincidence. Poor Simon, he witnessed her change right in front of his eyes.

However, Nia isn’t like her TV series counterpart. Instead of trashtalking humans all the time. She actually summon the Mugans and order them to attack as if she is controlling puppets. Of course, the fight happend, Simon came to save the day, all was well when Simon defeated the Mugans and we thought it would be peace. But as we already know, the others are not happy with the destruction caused to the city. But I certainly did not expect that the riot became more dramatic than it was in the TV series. What a radical change on that. Simon got it worst, but others don’t seem to get any different either, and the the Team Dai Gurren got insulted and critisized by people around – which is new.

Rossiu’s character assasination act was rather brief, and the scene where Rossiu confronted Lord Genome’s head got totally cut-short and modified, of course we get an explaination, by Rossiu himself this time.

Simon’s life in prison was surprisingly changed – We see him get insulted, beaten up, but yet he didn’t fight back (that’s new…) and guess what? Viral came to save his day! Though both got held down after (no they didn’t fight each other this time round). Viral kept questioning his hesistated attitude to fight back – which Simon kept answering that there is no longer anything that he can do, and Rossiu will follow up his will after. But however he created a surprised reaction from Viral when he realized that Simon’s hand was glowing with Spiral power, even without the core drill with him.

Things don’t get any better when Rossiu openly announce the execution of Simon and the evacuation of the people from Kamina City to Arc Gurren. So yay people cheered for Rossiu and people move to Arc Gurren….Not by going through a thousands of Mugan coming up from nowhere suddenly. Team Dai Gurren needs to help the people and the Arc Gurren! And by that they need Simon.

Back in the prison, Simon managed to confront Nia again for another arguement, though this change amuses me a bit, I’m so amused by seeing Viral trying to confront Nia while asking/encourage Simon to stand up (and run, but I forgot the exact dialogue now) while getting beat up by Nia and her sphere energy attack. Don’t worry, he’s immortal, and if he can stand on Adianne’s sadist slap I’m sure Nia’s bitchslap is nothing to him.

Though even so, Yoko came to the rescue in the end and got Simon fired up to save the Arc Gurren. And the rest catch up.

- Episode 22 to 23 –

Battle wise, the first half of the battle remains somehow same with minor adjustments, but things got radically changed after Arc Gurren Lagann is formed. Instead of the moon crashing on to Earth as we know it, the moon automatically crack itself open and a 10x bigger than Arc Gurren Lagann Ganmen attacks, and a new Ganmen is introduced – Cathedral Rasengan, which is actually Cathedral Terra with the possessed Anti Spiral powers (Anti Spiral managed to control it). Arc Gurren Lagann tried to hold Cathedral Rasengan’s punch on Earth but barely. And one little crack scene came up, it’s undescribeable so you better off watch how Lord Genome’s attempt to hack the Cathedral Rasengan’s inner computer system with it’s squeeky voice on your own.

But that’s what trigger’s Arc Gurren Lagann Giga Drill Breaker and it pierces Cathedral Rasengan all the way to the inner computer system. The rest is kind of obvious from there but I’m quite surprised that Simon would actually kill Nia if he is left with no choice – but of course we know he didn’t do it. And Nia finally goes back to normal. In the TV series, Gurren Lagann was the one that turned Cathedral Terra back into normal, but in the movie, it was actually Arc Gurren Lagann instead.

The aftermath was cut surprisingly short. There was no Earth scenes and all of the scenes took place inside Cathedral Terra itself. But we have a long conversation between the Team Dai Gurren with Viral entering the group as well. I kinda like how all of them ended up having a tea drinking ceremony. As if all of them are swore to live and die together as a team. And instead of Rossiu getting punched by Simon. Kinoh slapped him hard instead. So that scene is totally modified. In the end even before the depart to final battle, Cathedral Terra was left in the mecha state than the spaceship state, which is another change from the TV series itself.

- Episode 24 – 26 -

On this part, only Kittan died, the rest survived. As the result, the sequence of the battle is changed drastically.

Instead of fighting larger scale Gunmens first, Cathedral Terra got hit with a tsunami instead and got drowned into the deepest pit. Team Dai Gurren escaped, so Kid, Iraak,  Zorthy, Jorgan, Balinbow, Makken escaped their deaths.

Though what remains unchanged, would be Kittan’s death.

And when Chou Ginga Gurren Lagann got formed, Everyone silently raged, without hesistation, thousands of enemies got swiped in a minute. But the battle got abruptly ended when Anti Spiral (He’s in your galaxy, peeking you fight!) rips off the universe and shows himself, while sending the rest of the Team Dai Gurren into another dimension. I actually went wow when Viral actually showed resistance a little before submitting but Lord Genome and the others got sent over when the TV series was actually different – and because of that, Boota did not change into his human form.

The rest remains the same. But sometimes I actually wonder if it’s better if the casts are killed off, because Kittan look awfully lonely inside there. And here I thought it would be some epic scene of whatchamalit popping up from the box when the dream Simon opened the box, only to found that Kittan sitting there and Kamina had to ask WHO. I swear Gainax, put in some corny music and I’ll sue you for being a mood spoiler…

Some new scenes are inserted during the wake up scene – Zorthy and Kid : Stock market, Jorgan and Balinbow : Nursery house, Makken along with his wife and Lord Genome, Boota with Gimmy, Darry and Dayakka, Iraak with Leeron and Attenborough (this one I’m not sure).

Lastly, Instead of Nia getting tortured with the Anti Spiral costume on, in the movie, she is tortured NAKED. What a perverted Anti Spiral here…

- Last Battle -

Beyond epic. We have TTGL VS Grand Zamboa sure. But the last battle is considerably extended. And we have?

We get to hear Viral calling Nia “Ojou-sama”, which is the ever first and last(?) I got to hear that line.

We get to see EACH AND SINGLE OF THE CAST HAVING TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN VERSION OF THEIR MECHAS. (Yoko – TTGL Space Yoko W Tank, for example)

We get to see Nia’s mecha – Sol Bania (ソルバーニア) in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann form.

We get to see Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Dai Ganzan

We get to see how Grand Zamboa dissected Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann into pieces and BLOOD, BLOOD BLOOD.

We get to see Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which is….okay, to make it easier to understand, Let’s say Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is 200CM tall, TTGL is ONLY 20CM. Get it?

We get to see Super Grand Zamboa

We get to see BOTH Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and Super Grand Zamboa uses GIGA DRILL BREAKER. The battlefield no longer took place in universe anymore, but instead, a void.

We get to hear how Anti Spiral sounded MORE human and aggresively hotblooded in it’s evil way. Though I don’t even know what I’m talking about with this.

We get to see both Yoko and Nia naked. Fanservice! There goes your chance in hoping TTGL movie makes it’s way to Malaysia (tee hee)

We get to see a FIST FIGHT between Simon and Anti Spiral. Hand to hand, and blood splatters. Of course, the end? Simon’s hand turned into a drill and he performed a human Giga Drill Breaker on Anti Spiral. Epic.

The rest? Wait till you get to watch it.

- Epilogue -

Nia’s death is not changed, so? Cry. What else?

At least she managed to leave a DIARY, that’s something.

At the epilogue, we are shown Simon wearing Nia’s ring as a necklace. And work as a driller that benefits the people around him (he is shown drilling a somewhat burried fountain and brought the village water, which the villagers are happy for it).

The rest is rather obvious, but we don’t get to see Rossiu and Yoko anymore like what we saw in the TV series.

So how was it?

I was awed.

So awed

There were claps from the audience, there were sobbing sounds from the audience (especially when Kittan died), and me? I was left totally awed by watching my favourite show in a retelling form on a BIG screen and fantastic surround sound. My legs went shivering for a long 10 minutes and my heart kept beating fast (bad, this is bad, adrenaline rush is bad). And thank god it wore down. But for a movie that made me have these kind of experience – I have two conclusions to make

Either they overdid it, or it was totally myself that made such a big fuss out of self that I got those “side effects” in the end. But nonetheless, I enjoyed the movie oh so much that I do not mind paying another 1,500yen just to watch it again. So in conclusion, it’s just THAT worth it. Guess I understand why some 2-chan people would go watch it again and again. They just couldn’t get enough, period.

In the end, Gainax made another successful masterpiece again that will definitely put Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann as one of their masterpiece work. It will stay so for a period, and I don’t think it’ll end easily.

And thanks to that, I got myself a long ass entry. If you read it up to here, Thank you for having such wonderful patience. お疲れ様！

Tags: Anime, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

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