I was planning on writing something substantial about episodes 13 to 15 of Gurren Lagann, but frankly I think I’ve left too late in the evening. The reason I wanted to was down to episode 15 being awesome to the power of awesome.
You often see “series composition” given as a credit in anime, but you don’t often clearly feel the impact of that job as you do in this show. The 2 arcs so far have been wonderfully paced and plotted. There’s a sense of climax with 15, just as there was with 8, but this time it’s not tinged with tragedy. But whereas with 8 you had a clear idea of where the end of the next arc was going, now we have the smallest of hints – Genome’s speech and the very first scene of episode 1 – of what lies ahead. Other shows would have milked scenes and emotional arcs for episodes on end, but there’s an economy and lean-ness on show here that you tend to only find in OAVs. Which considering a fair number of the staff have worked on the recent Gainax OAVs should probably not have been a surprise.
Episode 15 furthers the OAV comparison as it is one of the best animated TV episodes you are likely to see. A lot of the credit goes to the animation director, the disgustingly talented Sushio (also the AD on One Piece Movie 6). ADV can’t bring this to DVD soon enough for me, it’s a show I’d definitely go back to picking single volumes up for.