Kita ze Inbou! - キタぜ陰謀!

[ Episode 27: All the lights in the sky are stars.]

Well, now that was something wasn’t it? I’m not evening going to delve deep into this episode because if you haven’t seen it by now then you should DO SO RIGHT NOW. I will, however, point out the parts that I loved. Firstly, I loved how they finally showed us Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. That thing was pretty damn massive and just radiated with power. I loved how the battle was displayed to everyone on Earth. They had the best tickets in the universe for the battle for existence. The best thing in this episode was the entire fight, especially the ending. Seeing Simon go through Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to Chouginga Gurren Lagann to Arc Gurren Lagann to Gurren Lagann and then finally to the Lagann was absolutely epic and brilliant. I don’t think they could have ended the battle any better than that.

As awesome as this episode was it really ended up being bitter-sweet in the end. I knew something was wrong when Nia flashed in the cockpit with Simon and it was pretty damn sad to see her fade away on such a beautiful wedding day. I really thought that she and Simon would live together happily but that wouldn’t be the case, unfortunately. I think it only would have been worse if Simon had freaked out but he knew beforehand that it would happen since they did defeat the Anti Spirals. The epilogue was quite satisfying as well. Seeing Darry, Gimmy, Viral, Yoko, and Simon brought an indescribable feeling within me but I can say that it was warm and had me smiling. It proved sufficient closure to what has been an amazing ride this past season. Although I wished that Simon and Nia had a brighter future and that he and Yoko stayed with the rest of the Dai Gurren Dan 20-years after I really don’t have any complaints about this episode or the ending in general.

[ Final Thoughts ]

I’ll try to be brief because my final thoughts for this show are so scattered and great in volume that it would all just sound like fanboying and babble. When I first started this show I was pretty excited. Knowing that GAINAX was jumping back into the mix with a brand new show had me jumping for joy and I couldn’t wait to see what all of their creative minds had crafted. I didn’t expect to be blown away so hard by their efforts week after week nor did I expect to be moved by the message it was conveying so fervently. The music, while I did expect it to be good, was a blessing to my ears. Every track was perfectly suited for TTGL’s unique pacing and made sure that there wasn’t any odd silence where it didn’t belong. The animation reached new levels in my eyes and, with the exception of one episode (episode 4), was consistently fluid and displayed things such as explosions and transformations flawlessly.

If you’re looking for something that’s tons of fun with lots of GAR and don’t care about things like being scientific accuracy (like that ever matters in anime/manga in general) then you owe it to yourself to watch TTGL. “Epic” describes this show perfectly and no one can tell me different whether it’s now or some time in the future. Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has been highly entertaining from the start and will forever be an absolutely amazing experience that I will hold dear to my heart for a long time to come.

[Overall series review: 95/100]

EDIT: After much thought on my previous score of 90/100 and internal discussion with, well, myself I’ve decided to re-score Gurren-Lagann at 95/100. The reason being simply because I felt bothered by the previous one and felt that I personally didn’t express the full impression I had of Gurren-Lagann in my heart. With this score I feel that it reflects my thoughts more accurately.