Gurren Lagann finished last week. Here are some thoughts have occupied my mind since it finished.
* Playwright/Stage Director Kazuki Nakashima could well prove to be the best thing to happen to anime writing for ages. For all it’s ties to mecha shows of the past, the story is stripped down of the sort of filler and padding that dogs most anime shows. It arguably fits 2-4 different series into 27 episodes, changing tone to fit the story, but still maintaining core themes all the way through.
* Talking of themes, the story is revolves around what seems an essentially Japanese heroic archetype. The hero isn’t predestined, instead relying on hard work and the help of his friends/team. But there’s an interesting trick Nakashima seems to have done to reinforce this. Littered through the story are hints that things are predestined, that there is some “bigger story” unseen as yet. But there isn’t, in the end it’s clear that it boils down to human nature, and the simple choice of fight or flight.
* But it’s not just the writing, any other year this would be the best animated TV of the year. I’d give that to Dennou Coil at present as that looks to be pushing things forward somewhat. GL, polished as it is, is firmly mired in the imagery of anime from years past. Hiroyuki Imaishi does have a style that I’d like to see him use in a longform work (namely the one used in the ED of Paradise Kiss), but his more commercial style is in the shadow of the likes of Yoshinori Kanada and Osamu Dezaki. As well as borrowing Dezaki’s trademark postcard memory freezes at various times, one key shot is taken directly from Ashita no Joe (which Dezaki animated). In fact it’s kind of sad that the one episode where a director’s own visual style comes through the clearest is the one that was least liked, namely Osamu Kobayashi’s episode 4. At least in the final episode, where Imaishi’s fingerprints are most clearly visible, we get some of the heavy black lines he brought to Dead Leaves and Trava.
* Despite those gripes, the animation is amazing. The disgustingly talented Sushio really comes into his own on episode 15.
* Here’s how much I loved it – I won’t wait for the boxset when ADV release it. There’s enough quality on an episode by episode basis to warrant buying it in single volumes.
* I’ll probably return to it at the end of the year, or at least when I’ve seen all of Denno Coil, Mononoke and Oh Edo Rocket (based on a stage play by Kazuki Nakashima), as I think they bear looking at in comparison with each other, in terms of what they do with animation and story. And then I’ll return to it again when the ADV DVD releases come out as I’d like to do an episode by episode look at it, but the fansubbed versions were admittedly weak in accuracy, so I’d like to do that with a professional translation.