ROW, ROW, FIGHT THE POWAH!!! Gurren Lagann complete simulwatch

[Neil.T]

Catching up on a catch-up.

Episode 8:

I don't think it made me cry the first time but it did this time, dammit.

And more power to you, man: that's just how brilliantly done that moment is. I feel the upset every time I've watched.

Simon's line right at the end, right after seeing the still of him on his forearms and knees in the pouring rain, frozen in a silent scream, is often the thing that pushes me over the edge.

Episode 9:

My Lagann knowledge is far from comprehensive (I'm sure Neil will tell me ) but I'm guessing guest director?

Hah, well, I wish I could, ayase.

I noticed the different art style as clear as day, but oddly this was the first time I had. I feel like I've seen those unusual, quite simplified, character proportions before (particularly noticeable in the scenes of Yōko at the rifle range, and of Simon standing at the kirameki★Nia box), but I just can't put my finger on where.

The Gurren Lagann Fandom page for episode 9 gives Hiroyuki Imaishi as the main director...

Episode 9

"What, Exactly, Is a Human?" is the 9th episode of the Gurren Lagann anime. It first aired on May 27th, 2007. The death of Thymilph has brought about the concern of the Spiral King (Lord Genome). Adiane the Elegant declares that she will go defeat Team Dai-Gurren. Meanwhile the Great Gurren...

gurrenlagann.fandom.com

... so it's probably that the episode has a different animation director, as was the case with episode 4 and its unusual look, since Osamu Kobayashi filled all the big roles (director, animation director, storyboards...).

Anime Limited's Blu-ray doesn't have translated end credits to help identify the animation director either, so I even got as desperate as to read a MAL forum thread for episode 9.

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Episode 9 Discussion

So...depressing episode... Nia was...interesting...glad she's not a wimp or anything. The other chief beastmen/the Spiral King are interesting, glad we got to see them, and I'm glad Chimiruf really died, haha. Still not over Kamina. :( I'm glad they kept a pic of him in the ED though, the OP...

myanimelist.net

That thread (from 2007) has not aged well at all. There are users complaining of characters acting too "emo" in the wake of Kamina's death.

Such are the MAL forums, I understand.


Episode 10:

No relation?

Looking at your evidence, I'd be highly surprised if there wasn't some inspiration drawn there; Gainax were a bunch animation fans themselves after all, so surely there must've been some Slayers fans mixed in.

On a not-really-related note, something that's struck me during this rewatch is just how much Yōko and her sharpshooting seems to have directly inspired Mari's role in Evangelion 3.0.

Episode 11:

Simon's moment of self-realization.

One of my very favourite moments in Gurren Lagann, that sequence (obviously). I absolutely love the bit that immediately precedes your screen grab, where Simon has that look of resolve on his face, even as tears stream down his cheeks. That gives me chills. And that quote:

"My bro is dead. He's gone. But he's on my back! He's in my heart! He lives on as part of me!"

In Japanese, that last sentence is more akin to "Combined as one, we continue living", which ties nicely in to what the two of them once did to form Gurren Lagann.

Episode 12:

the fan service, gave Yoko some jealousy vibes of Nia

Yeah, this was what I meant in an earlier post about episode 12 being rather tonally misjudged. It still feels rather soon after Kamina's death (and therefore a bit cheap) to be indulging in petty jealousy over who's getting the most attention in their swimsuit, but that's just my individual perception.

(It reminds of that bit in episode 2 of Bubblegum Crisis where Linna's friend Irene feels much better about the death of her fiancé after a good shopping trip, because... that's... how women think. )

(Your cue, ayase? )

 

[Ian Wolf]

Episode 12

My main question regarding this episode is this: How come, in a post-apocalyptic society, people still remember the concepts of beach volleyball and watermelon splitting?

 

[Neil.T]

My main question regarding this episode is this: How come, in a post-apocalyptic society, people still remember the concepts of beach volleyball and watermelon splitting?

That's the kind of explanation that writer Kazuki Nakashima would probably come up with.
. . .
he really doesn't do plot holes.

Well, so much for my big grandstanding claim there, then.
Bugger.

 

[Lordhippos]

Episode 12

I don't really have a lot to say on top of what was already said so fair today.

I liked seeing how the dai-gurren basically became a canoe boat with the top half becoming the rower. Actually throwing the depth charges around with the arms was a nice touch!

Adiane is so crazy, I love it. Reminds me a bit of Midari from Kakegurui.

There is no problem a drill can't fix apparently, I think this is an important life lesson for all of us.

 

[ayase]

Episode 12 - It never rains but it pours

Dear lord, that's over 150 atmospheres of pressure!

There are many anime that have killed off my best girl. There are many anime with fan service beach episodes. But Gurren Lagann holds the dubious honour of being the only anime to date that has killed my waifu during a beach episode (sure Yoko is still here, but she’s been eclipsed now, it’s not the same any more). I feel your pain, Viral. Two episodes? That was all we got? Our time together was too short my love, we will see each other again when you drag me to Hell to punish me for eternity (though that might rather be missing the point of Hell).


Disgusting, Gainax, forcing me to frame-by-frame this in software totally not designed for it for no pay-off.

Yeah, this was what I meant in an earlier post about episode 12 being rather tonally misjudged. It still feels rather soon after Kamina's death (and therefore a bit cheap) to be indulging in petty jealousy over who's getting the most attention in their swimsuit, but that's just my individual perception.

The tone shift itself doesn’t seem too bad to me, as it brings home the idea the characters can never really relax, which has been there ever since Yoko told Simon and Kamina how life on the surface is a never-ending fight. But yeah, everyone does seem to have completely gotten over the loss of Kamina to the point they can have stupid fun very suddenly here. I guess we don’t know exactly how much time has passed by now though, as Simon (understandably) seemed to be carrying that weight a lot longer than everyone else.

I liked seeing how the dai-gurren basically became a canoe boat with the top half becoming the rower. Actually throwing the depth charges around with the arms was a nice touch!

You just beat me to that, Dai-Gurren’s sea-going modification is a delight, as are its flailing arms and baseball pitching of Gurren Lagann. I think I enjoyed that more than the beach outfits. A very nicely animated episode all around (perhaps that’s why Adiane had to go, her facial expressions were taking up too much time and resources) and the boys learn that petty jealousy does not necessarily make girls want to murder each other. In summary, more mech shows should be set at sea and underwater, it was a whole lot of fun.

I'd be highly surprised if there wasn't some inspiration drawn there; Gainax were a bunch animation fans themselves after all, so surely there must've been some Slayers fans mixed in.

Heh. I wasn't being entirely serious, but then there was essentially a Naga mech in Slayers: Great...

 

[Dai]

Episode 12
Standard-issue beach episode. Nia gets a haircut.

 

[Lordhippos]

Disgusting, Gainax, forcing me to frame-by-frame this in software totally not designed for it for no pay-off.

MPC-HC lets you do frame by frame skipping with ctrl-left or ctrl-right.

I notice you have a new avatar!

 

[ayase]

MPC-HC lets you do frame by frame skipping with ctrl-left or ctrl-right.

I notice you have a new avatar!

Playing blu-rays in MPC is a bit too much of an ar*e about for me right now given that I’ve got it set up with a lot of post-processing and upscaling on so SD doesn’t look like absolute crap on my 4k monitor. My PC would probably catch fire if I left it that way and tried to play a BD, plus it never seemed to like playing a lot of discs anyway (and I’ll never remember the settings if I change them now).

Yeah, I had to really, didn’t I? We’ll still get to see plenty of Yoko but Adiane is gone ;_;

 

[HWR]

Episode 12
Life’s a beach. The canoe mode looked cool too.

 

[Lordhippos]

We’ll still get to see plenty of Yoko but Adiane is gone

The candle that burns 10 x as bright lasts 1/10th of the time ( ;°Д °)

 

[Ian Wolf]

Episode 13 (Can't Cook, Shouldn't Cook, She Still Cooks)

Spoiler

The little comedy subplot about Nia deciding to cook is a fun one. Of course, fun comes in many different forms. If you are mole pig, it comes in the form of diving into a big pair of boobs as Boota does once more in this episode. Viral getting the news of Kamina's death is one that I had forgotten about - for some reason I hadn't twigged that Viral was under the belief he was still fighting Kamina.

One of my personal favourite moments is the brief seen between Simon and Yoko as the sub is setting following their battle, which changes to a different pace for the animation which in turn changes the mood to make the scene more poignant.

 

[ayase]

Episode 13 - Kittan summarises the episode


Dammit Yoko, don't fall for the "breakfast is important" meme (ayase's dietary tip of the day: It was invented by cereal companies to sell more cereal. Simon is in the right here, you're better off foregoing it as it means you're hungry by lunchtime, hunger being nature's useful sign of when you actually should be eating). That said, the Team Dai-Gurren members do get plenty of excercise.

So after that little playful interlude of swimsuits and volleyball and waifu murder, we're back to acknowledging Kamina's passing again. So yes, in hindsight the tone-shift is a bit odd. This is around where my memory of the show starts to become more hazy, so I am looking forward to seeing it again with fresh eyes. Even Boota finding his inner Kamina was nice, as was Gurren giving Yoko her own pilot icon (it knows she wears shades even when she's not wearing them, I notice). All of the stuff with Yoko and Simon was nice development and seeing them move on in a positive way from Kamina while still keeping his memory alive, and this really would have felt better placed before the beach episode.


Believe in the Boota that believes lives in your cleavage

Top-notch action this episode, from the sea to the skies. We're Mobile Suit Gurren now. I don't want to overload this thread with images so I'm limiting myself to three per post, but man, I could have put a dozen screencaps in here and not even bothered with any words. Highlights included Gurren Lagann playing monkey bars with the airborne gunmen, Enki kicking Gurren Lagann out from under Yoko and of course, Dai-Gurren kicking Dai-Gunten and then floating back home hanging onto its engine. This was certainly a jam-packed episode and every minute was engaging even with the cookery sub-plot.

Viral continues his ascent in the "compelling character" stakes. He's proving more insightful and more principled than his generals and it's not only keeping him alive but granting him new awareness. It's interesting that while Kamina will go down as legend in all his balls-to-the-wall glory, Viral's survival (and perhaps even the knowledge of Kamina's death) presents him the opportunity to change and grow from the hothead he was introduced as.

MPC-HC lets you do frame by frame skipping with ctrl-left or ctrl-right.

Little update on this, I decided to attempt it anyway (because it would make my life easier) but sure enough, MPC doesn't want to play. I get a bar with chapter markers, but no sound and no picture. Hey ho.

 

[Neil.T]

don't fall for the "breakfast is important" meme (ayase's dietary tip of the day: It was invented by cereal companies to sell more cereal. Simon is in the right here, you're better off foregoing it as it means you're hungry by lunchtime, hunger being nature's useful sign of when you actually should be eating)

Hehhh??!!

Really?? I honestly couldn't even function without breakfast.

(And then I'm still hungry for lunch. )

Highlights included ...

I love the bit as well where Gurren Lagann assimilates the flying Gunmen and becomes flight-equipped. That's a great sequence.

And yes, Viral's moral complexity as a character and his sense of honour. Fantastic writing.


Out of curiosity, has anyone been wondering about the specifics of the word Gunmen? The Gurren Lagann Fandom site gives the kanji used to write it as 顔面. Taken on their own, the first one is read as kao, meaning "face", and the second is men for "surface". Together they're pronounced ganmen, which is rendered as "Gunmen", surely as a pun on Gundam.

Don't believe anybody (the writer of that Fandom page included) who tries to tell you that the singular is "Gunman". It's not: the singular and plural are the same.

One of my personal favourite moments is the brief seen between Simon and Yoko as the sub is setting following their battle, which changes to a different pace for the animation

Yeah, I noticed the very smooth animation as well. It looks to have been made using the full 24 frames per second rather than anime's typical 12. The only other example of that that I can think of off the top of my head is the band performance scene in episode 12 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, "Live Alive".

I'm sure there's another one rattling around somewhere in my memory, but I can't quite seem to grab hold of it, annoyingly enough.


As for my own little observations of episode 13, Evangelion's influence on anime continues with the aforementioned airborne enemy Gunmen resembling the flight form of the Eva Mass Production Units in The End of Evangelion, as well as the Sachiel-like (Third/Fourth Angel) skulls in the room where the Spiral King fills Viral in on the truth behind the Beastmen.

There were also crucifix-shaped explosions yesterday in episode 12 when Adiane was defeated and she and Viral's mecha were destroyed.

 

[HWR]

Episode 13
Some deadly cooking and another Divine General appears to try their hand at fighting our heroes.

 

[Dai]

Dammit Yoko, don't fall for the "breakfast is important" meme (ayase's dietary tip of the day: It was invented by cereal companies to sell more cereal. Simon is in the right here, you're better off foregoing it as it means you're hungry by lunchtime, hunger being nature's useful sign of when you actually should be eating).

I can't even pretend to be human before I've had breakfast. Anyone standing between me and my cereal at 7am would probably get their face chewed off. And god forbid I ever try to drive before eating; I'd wind up wrapped around the first lamp-post I came across.

Yeah, I noticed the very smooth animation as well. It looks to have been made using the full 24 frames per second rather than anime's typical 12. The only other example of that that I can think of off the top of my head is the band performance scene in episode 12 of The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, "Live Alive".

I'm sure there's another one rattling around somewhere in my memory, but I can't quite seem to grab hold of it, annoyingly enough.

Clannad used 24 fps for its 'other world' scenes. I'm curious if those used automated frame interpolation, since the motion seemed unnervingly artificial, and all of the movements tended to occur at the same pace, like they were making sure not to trip up the software. Anime often goes well below 12 fps, especially TV anime. 8 fps isn't unusual.

Episode 13
Damn it, why do I have to be envious of a pig-mole? Boota once again boldly goes where no man has gone before. I wonder if Yoko starts to regret letting him do that once he takes on humanoid form. I can just picture them avoiding eye contact for the rest of their lives.

Some top notch action this episode, with that flying kick probably being the highlight, or Gurren Lagann using a squadron of flying gunmen as monkey bars.

 

[Neil.T]

Clannad used 24 fps for its 'other world' scenes.

Oh, interesting.
I haven't seen Clannad yet, but I hope to.

I didn't even know it had "other world" scenes.

Anime often goes well below 12 fps, especially TV anime. 8 fps isn't unusual.

Is that something that still happens even now? I know that Tezuka sometimes shot on threes back in the '60s, but...

And of course there's Neon Genesis Evangelion's infamous lift scene, which was shot on... Shall we call it 24s?

"Limited animation"? Yes. Very.

 

[Dai]

Is that something that still happens even now? I know that Tezuka sometimes shot on threes back in the '60s, but...

And of course there's Neon Genesis Evangelion's infamous lift scene, which was shot on... Shall we call it 24s?

"Limited animation"? Yes. Very.

In the hands of skilled animators, threes look better than you would think. Based on nothing but my Mk.1 Eyeball, I'd say that threes are still pretty common for dialogue scenes, you might get twos in action scenes on bigger budget shows, and only Kyoani and Ufotable dip into ones occasionally. I don't have any modern shows to hand that I could step through frame-by-frame, but I just had a quick look at a dialogue scene from Gunbuster. Sure enough it's in threes, and looks great anyway.

Here's a good breakdown of why you'll usually see all different kinds of frame pacing even in big budget movies:

 

[Neil.T]

Based on nothing but my Mk.1 Eyeball, I'd say that threes are still pretty common for dialogue scenes, you might get twos in action scenes on bigger budget shows, and only Kyoani and Ufotable dip into ones occasionally.

Interesting video.

To be honest, I wasn't even aware that there was a belief going around that Akira was shot on ones. Before watching that video, I had thought that I was able to tell when something was, but if the information in there is accurate, then those parts of Akira surprised me; I had always just assumed that the film uses your typical anime frame rate of twos.

I still think it's somehow easier to tell ones from twos* than it is to tell twos from threes, for some reason. Probably because the motion has already sacrificed complete smoothness, so any further loss is less noticeable.


*not toilet humour

 

[Ian Wolf]

Episode 14

Spoiler

Mainly fighting. For me the best bit was the giant Nia appearing before everyone. Not much to add except to say that given the news, I suspect people might binge the rest of the series because they would rather watch this than the witterings of a collection of royal experts.

 

[Neil.T]

Episode 14

Some more bits and pieces of observation along with some lightweight pondering from me today.


It's good to see that Kamina's voice actor, Katsuyuki Konishi, gets to live on in the series as shaven-headed, short-in-stature Gunmen pilot Makken.

Actually, this is where I start having to try to keep track of who pilots which Gunmen. The Wikipedia article on the show's characters give names for all of these, some of which aren't ever used in the series itself. (I won't offer a link to the article, because spoilers.)

Related to that, there's something I've wondered about before when watching this episode. Are the Gunmen being operated by the cavalry supposed to be fortress-sized like Dai-Gurren? I take it from the shape that they are, but it's hard to tell.

You'll perhaps have noticed, by the way, how, in true Hiroyuki Imaishi style, Cytomander's fortress is taken down by Dai-Gurren plunging its sword-like appendage in between the two runways.

And unless I'm very much mistaken, this was the episode where we first heard the lyrics that spawned this thread's title.