Too Much Gurren Lagann Part 1: That ANN article

As I’ve been writing some future posts on Gurren Lagann this week, let’s pass some comments on the article that’s gone up on Anime News Network today.

Dig For Fire: The Roots of Gurren Lagann

It’s woefully under-researched and subsequently massively unrepresentative of the actual roots.

The conclusion you’d draw from the article is that GAINAX are only inspired by other GAINAX shows. Which is somewhat of a misrepresentaion. Not a total one (yes, they are still recycling shots from DAICON IV), but the main inspirations of Gurren Lagann would seem to lie outside of GAINAX, and a lot of perceived connections drawn between GL and earlier GAINAX shows are due to shared inspirations more than some linear growth.

But I’ll get to what I perceive those to be in later posts.

It’s not all bad though, the article does do a good job of detailing the staff of the show. Though I do think Dead Leaves is a little misrepresented. I’d say there’s more of Takeshi Koike’s fingerprints on that work than a GAINAX influence. And the importance of Kazuki Nakashima on the finished product is a little understated.