[Shinndou]

Just finished watching episode 8.

Holy crap...

Spoiler for episode 8 brief summary:

Just a couple of random points about this episode since I'm still a bit speechless after having watched this.

First off, regarding the kiss scene. It was actually Yoko who "surprise-kissed" Kamina, when he suddenly turned around, facing Yoko (during their discussion). Then after that quick kiss, and after being a bit surprised, Kamina immediately kissed her back to repay her affection. This would all be good if it wasn't for the fact that Simon witnessed the two kissing while hiding behind the trees, and he obviously gets shocked since Yoko is her crush (and ironically Simon was about confess to Yoko right before the kiss scene with Kamina, although he couldn't find the courage to do that). Whic causes Simon to be bothered by these thoughts, making it hard for him to concentrate and properly control the Lagann.

Fast-forward to Kamina's operation/plan to take the huge ship. He basically explains the crew that him and all the other members will distract the ship and all the enemy ganmens, and at a certain point Simon with his Lagann will suddenly pop out of one of the walls of the canyon where the ganmen ship is trapped to combine itself with the ship and gain control of it.

The battle begins and they seem to have the upper hand over the beastmen, and when it comes Simon's turn to do the surprise attack, he manages to combine with the ship, but something goes wrong, as he cannot find enough concentration (since he's still bothered by the image of Kamina and Yoko kissing) to complete the union with the ship, taking too much time and putting his comrades in trouble. Kamina understands this so he rushes towards the Lagann at the top of the ship, he gets out of Gurren and goes to punch Simon directly in the face to "wake him up" and to confort him (Kamina does not know that Simon watched him and Yoko kiss, so he just thinks that Simon is scared/nervous as usual). He succeeds in clearing Simon's mind, and Simon finally finds the concentration to complete the gattai with the ship, but just as Kamina boards again on Gurren, a spear, thrown by the personal ganmen of the monkey/beastmen's leader (the one who controlled the huge ship before Simon would "steal it", and who left the ship's control room to board his own personal ganmen) suddenly comes out from the inside of the ship and pierces the Gurren right in the middle, wounding Kamina. If that wasn't enough, immediately after that Viral and the leader beastmen team up with their ganmen and keep attacking the Gurren tearing it up to pieces and then piercing the central part once again, inflicting a mortal wound. Upon witnessing this, Simon goes berserk and loses control of the ship, that suddenly starts attacking anything and anywhere. Viral gets knocked out in the distance by one of the ship's hands. While everybody is shocked and doesn't know how to stop the berserk-ship, Kamina finds enough strenght to stand up again, this time throwing one of Gurren's arms toward the Lagann to punch it and wake Simon again. As Simon realizes that Kamina is still alive he finally calms down and regains control of the ship, but Kamina asks Simon to have Lagann separate from the ship and combine with Gurren to form the Gurren-Lagann and finish off all the ganmen around now that they took control of the ship. Gurren-Lagann is formed, and with furious rage they get rid of all the ganmen with one move, and then they finish off the leader's ganmen with a gigantic sword-like drill. Right after though, Kamina warns Simon again with his usual quote, although reversed ("Believe in yourself. Don't believe in me who believes in you. Don't believe in you who believes in me. Believe in yourself"), and passes away, due to the mortal wounds that made him lose too much blood. The next scene has Simon, Yoko, and all the Dai Gurren-dan crew completely speechless, crying tears in front of Gurren's cockpit open, showing Kamina's dead and smiling face.

Well. This was really an intense episode. We all sort of expected this would happen, but it was really sad to see Kamina part away so soon. Although he did die fighting until the very end, so they sort of gave him a glorious "end", atleast. Technically-wise this episode was top-notch just like the previous one, from the animation, storyboarding, music, and voice acting. The last scene where Gurren-Lagann powers up and destroys the last ganmen piloted by the leader beastman is absolutely jaw-dropping in terms of animation-quality, camera angles and sense of motion. It's incredibly dynamic (actually the whole battle was tremendously dynamic). All of these things would make this a fantastic episode if it wasn't for the fact that most loved male character of this show is now sadly gone. It makes me wonder how Gainax' staff will manage to keep this show intersting from now on, and how they will handle Simon's character development. One sure thing is that next episode will most likely contain lots of angst in the form of Simon still being depressed over Kamina's death. The preview for episode 9 shows a few shots of Nia, and a visibly shaken/depressed Simon.

[Edit]I edited a few parts, I've typed this quite in a hurry without checking it back and it's pretty late over here 3:33 AM . If there's any sentence that makes no sense I apologize.
[Edit2] Thanks to 7th for the correction, I guess I am still a bit shocked by this episode.