Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (General Discussion thread)
 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v2...x/gurren1a.jpg

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann (Maiking Break-Through Gurren-Lagann)
Broadcast: April 2007 on TV-Tokyo
Episodes: 26
Site(s): Official, Gainax, Konami, TV Tokyo
Trailer: trailer (3.5mb)

Cast:
Katsuyuki Konishi as Kamina
Marina Inoue as Yoko
Tetsuya Kakihara as Shimon

Gurren-Lagann is Gainax's highly anticipated new mecha franchise, helmed by Hiroyuki Imaishi (animation director of FLCL), script and storyboard by Shouji Saeki (one of the directors of FLCL). Mecha designs by Yoh Yoshinari (Dead Leaves, Melody of Oblivion). Character designs by relative unknown Atsushi Nishigori. In short the cream of current Gainax talent.

Story:
Mecha wise, the Lagann of the title is a face section of the main Gurren-Lagann unit piloted by Shimon. The design is rather old school, but Enki's design is oddness. The character designs are funky and colourful, Shimon, is the Renton-esque hero, Kamina is the rockstar cum passionate leader and saucy looking Yoko contributes the Bounce. Also there's a odd little mascot, a mole called Boota.

What to expect? Eye-candy. Insanely well animated eye-candy, packed with tons of nods and homages to other Gainax animes and others beside. This is Gainax's next big anime, their first original idea since FLCL (I think?), and there's a lot riding on it for the studio. I have a huge amount of confidence that Hiroyuki Imaishi (and Gainax as a whole) will deliver. I love Gainax's work like Diebuster, FLCL and Nadia, so I'm looking forward to an epic, fun and unforgettable ride. :p

Huh? FLCL director was Kazuya Tsurumaki, who is currently working on the new Evangelion movies. Still a great staff, though. Imaiashi <3!

Yes true, but Shouji Saeki is credited as one of FLCL's directors as well. Though which bits he was responsible for I don't know.

Imaishi is godly, but I am somewhat jaded by the kids on mecha genre. It just doesn't get me excited anymore, despite the promise of really good animation.

BTW, speaking of Imaishi, I am currently looking forward to Atsuya Uki's "Cencoroll". Uki is, for all intents and purpuses, Imaishi, Shinkai, okama and Falcoon all rolled into one. 8)

The Leeron character gives my Paradise Kiss vibes. :D

This is the problem isn't it - over familiarity. How to inject life into the genre and get jaded anime fans watching. The same can be said for Giant Robo and Reideen and indeed all the new shows coming in the Big Mecha Revival of 2007. Gurren-Lagann will no doubt be great fun though.

Uki's an astonishing talent, his art style reminds me of Kenichi Yoshida a little. When I saw the promo for Cencoroll I thought if this guy can do this on a limited budget using only the resources of a small design studio heaven knows what he'd do with money and an experienced creative team like Madhouse for example.

No holds barred popcorn entertainment
 

This production probably wont have too much in it for non mecha fans. Plus I seriously don't expect anything really challenging, serious or ground breaking from this show at all. Pure shonen cheese is probably all it is, but it will be intresting to see Imaishi and his team's take on shonen cheese. Not to mention it (along with Denno Coli) sounds like a godsend for sakuga anime freaks (of which i am).

Btw am I the only one who thinks the design for the main robot KICKS CLINICALLY DANGEROUS AMOUNTS OF ASS?!

I like the mecha designs solomon, but I think the characters are what sold this to me, look stylish and edgy, like a softer, maybe more anime-like, take on Dead Leaves or Trava.

I don't know about bigger studios being better than smaller independient ones, even for animation, but I was very impressed by Cencoroll trailer, the movement of the creatures, their design and the coloring were specially amazing. Would've loved a Bokurano with that artstyle.

Bring it on.

I mean, I don't have exactly big expectations towards this but the premise, the apparent style they're going for and the staff working on this is enough reason to get me quite curious.

Although I do agree with MrProphet, the mecha-shounen genre has probably become too repetitive and predictable that it's pretty hard to get real positive feedback from any of these shows. And probably as Sonhex said, this might simply be a pure eye-candy show (kinda like Diebuster) and nothing more. We'll see.

Finally some info. I think I heard about this show ages ago before I even heard of Code Geass which was ages ago but no information came until now.

Finally a trailer (3.5mb)! Looks fantastic and great fun to boot. I think Gainax have a winner here :p

Can you view the trailer?

My wmp shows this and i can´t press the play button :confused:

I couldn't view it either, but duckroll (who may or may not be the same duckroll from this forum, if so, thank you) has it on YouTube.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jC_lSGooF1Y

Thanks a lot ;)

A ton of GL eye-candy here...

woo woo! I like Gainax. The animation quality for their series are usually very good, and they also understand the need for fanservice, mixed with crazy comedy for fans who may not watch a show just becuase it has angsty teenagers who get to show off their shiny mecha.

AHHH, these grabs look great, looks more fun then a barrelfull of monkeys! Look's like the perfect show to look forward each week during a busy college schedule

It does look fluffy, but even haughty, conservative, curmodgeonly types like me need some light entertainment now and then. Plus it's a highly skilled and wildly creative staff, so we'll probably get some highly skilled wildly creative fluff here.

Followup
 

HOOOLLLY GUACAMOLE!!!!

Just saw the trailer, naturally the show looks great, it has Imaishi all over it. And MY WORD Katsuyuki Konishi sounds tottally friggin awesome as Kamina, I really wasn't feeling him as Bleach's Keigo or Blood+'s Haji, or maybe im biased to hammy shonen type acting with delcarative statements yelled at the highest of decibles, but man he sounded cool!:D

So it's airing at 8:30am? What's with all of the original mecha shows migrating to morning timeslots now?

I dunno.

Personally, I wasn't that thrilled with the trailer. First of all, I hate the art style. Animation was... well, passable, but if that's just a snippet from the first episode, just watch and see it plummet later on. Nothing that made me go WOW, in short. 8)

The mecha were fairly trippy though. Maybe I'll watch it for the pure cornball factor ala Gun X Sword (which also had a "head" robot).