Seems like it is finally time to give some life to this little piece of nothingness. To be honest, I've never been too keen on the main execution of AnimeBlogging, the concept is surely good, not like there could be anything wrong with it, but most of those who embark in this geeky task focus on a passive consumption stance towards the screenings and barely touch the production content of their topic itself. As a majority the community tends to focus pointless summarizing the episode, criticizing generic tie-in songs, judging visual production on meaningless beautiful standards or talking on disliking a show based on characters based on archetypal traits. I must say I sometimes fall into the same scheme, but at least for this web-space purpose I’ll try to avoid this kind of comments on what I publish in here. So now that my introduction has finally ended, please be kind and endure my first review:

Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann Episode 1: Strike the Heavens With Your Drill!!

As a summary from my Gurren Lagann's first episode impressions I'll start with a very simple phrase: I’m already in love with the series. It over delivered in the whole extension of the word and that’s saying something as my expectations where enormous. An enchanting and incredibly fun premier full of charisma that while overflowing enjoyment accompanies a very playful heavily classical script with high quality crazy storytelling, trust me I am understating this affirmation, and the best animation so far in 2007, a title I doubt will be taken until maybe when Dennou Coil airs.

First of all, let’s take a look at the content: as a virtuous retake on a time-tested formula it was impossible for me not to find the underlying themes if typical, not like that’s a bad thing before someone jumps over me calling me an silly and pretentious avant-garde snob that needs his anime to be intellectually revolutionary as that would far from the truth for someone whose second favorite from this medium is a long 60 minutes super-fast action scene called Dead Leaves, appropriate and extremely well executed. Kamina’s and Shimon’s relationship felt realistic, in a campy fiction-like way of course, something heavily clichéd in concept and implementation I believe it will turn out to be an interesting point of “dramatic”, still feels wrong to use this word to describe this series even if this premier already had a few developments in this fashion like the epic and memorable climax when the trio exits the underworld and both brothers are able to see the sun for the first time in their lives, foundation for the tradition shounen cheese, with an slightly and very satisfactory graphical twist, you’ll expect from a hot-blooded super-robot grand-scale tour-de-force.

The other major depiction was, already hinted in the paragraph above, the juvenile sense of freedom and refreshingly cool immaturity in both stellar names, an element that even reused ad-nauseaum in Gainax stories feels quite nice in here. Kamina steals your attention with his strong brash personality and his intense desire for changing the reality he was condemned to live in, bored of the shadows on his "platonian" wall and ready to face reality. Simon is a demonstration on how to do young boys looking for an identity without becoming annoying. He isn't sure of what he wants and just follows his sibling along but everything about him hints about an amazing evolution towards maturity. The breaking into the surface motif was not only strikingly cool but also a free of flaws depiction of the major coming-of-age theme running behind the events, something hinted by a prologue of enormous Universe-breaking connotations.

However the principal draw is of course watching Imaishi at the big seat, and he doesn't disappoints with his own concept full of curious promise as the extreme merriness obviously comes from him undebatable abilities at the medium. This is product that couldn't be fulfilled by any other, as lacking the visceral terminology, quick precise cuts in progression that waste no time in meaningless divagations and frenetically paced adrenaline inducing plot introduction wouldn't do any justice to every intention behind the screen.

The visuals are, unsurprisingly, beautifully crafted. Highly stylish and if superficially not on the same atypical gritty level of Imaishi previous graphical madness an excellent example of this director genius thanks to the motion management, which ended up being “softer”, in a good way to be honest, and less edgy than what we could see in Dead Leaves or his Cutey Honey entry yet still as kinetically frenetic, and a camera work with a particularly good, both aesthetically and for its main narrative purpose, mise-en-scène that pretty much becomes a portal for the spectator to join the charming kitsch universe represented in screen. It he first true sakuga series in the year, with the delightfully aggressive movement that characterized Imaishi projects but this time with a singular notion of natural heaviness that appears to fit quite well the original designs.

All this is done in the end for the sake of entertainment, not like anyone was expecting more, something in my opinion impossible to achieve without making the viewers actually enjoy the entity and somewhat care about the players or setting. Whilst it sure is campy and silly you can feel the endearing magic of older journey-anime that really manages to bring excitement to the heart and evokes an authentic mood of adventure I for one hadn’t experienced in a long time. Still not going to be loved by everyone, it can’t be said it’s badly done although preferences vary by person and as the over-the-top Gainax production motto some people aren’t fond-of makes itself strongly present in a not-so-subtle fashion this time a few won’t be able to get the whole package.

Want a numeric scale? 9.5 out of 10, but better go read what I said above.

Labels: gurren, gurren-lagann, lagann, spring anime

# posted by Septimo | 4:24 PM

1 Comments:

• Could I maybe offer a little critique on your writing style?
  
  I think you should use more punctuation. The sentence forms themselves are very erudite, but the length of them remind me of 'Pride and Prejudice', only without the profuse commas.

  By  Mani, at 9:42 AM  

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