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.