Gurren Lagann Ramble
Boy, Gurren Lagann sure is great! But do you know what would’ve made it better...? :3
This is not a piece of fanart I drew-sadly. This is from the Parallel Works 15. It’s a combination of Gurren Lagann + All of the Mechs of Team Dai Gurren, combined into this super fighting robot. And damn is it awesome and I hate how we don’t get it in the series OR the movies.
Don’t get me wrong, I love Gurren Lagann. It’s my favorite anime of all time. The only thing I hate about it is that that we don’t get more of Team Dai Gurren.
I don’t hate the story that Gurren Lagann tells from start to finish. It’s a very nice story and I really think it’s good enough for me to go back to and watch from start to end. But it always rubbed me the wrong way that we don’t get more of the minor characters.
Don’t get me wrong, we get plenty of Yoko, Kittan, Leeron, and Nia cause they’re important to the story, and Gimmy and Darry get their moments in the sun in Part 2, but like, the rest of the team-or at least, the Mech Pilots, get shafted.
Like Kid and Iraak. They’re suppose to be the ‘Whirlwind Bothers’ and it’s not clear if they mean ‘brother’ like blood brothers or in the same sense that Simon and Kamina are brothers. So they’re just pleasantly colored fodder.
And what about Makken? He marries Leyte-who is barely even a character in Part 1 and has 3 kids! But he’s barely relevant, just fodder like the rest.
I don’t know what the production of an anime is like, and I’m sure something like Gurren Lagann was hell-a fun and just plain hell to work on, but it always bothered me that, if not the entire team, then at least the Mech Pilots of Team Dai Gurren other then Rossiu, Yoko, and the Black Siblings got any moments to really shine, with the one getting the best treatment being Makken-a background, borderline mute who we just happen to see with a family cause his wife is a super genius.
That Prototype Close Combat Gurren Lagann, at least for me, symbolizes something I REALLY wanted from Gurren Lagann put into a form that honestly still makes me drool after the 3 years I’ve seen it: more time with the side characters so that when they die, it means more to us, the audience.
Kittan at least got the death he deserved.
