Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann/Characters/Antagonists

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This page is for the Antagonists in Gurren Lagann. For the Main and secondary characters, go to the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
Go to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann for the Mecha used in this series.


Antagonists: Beastmen

Thymilph the Raging Wave

Voiced by: Kiyoyuki Yanada (JP), Paul St Peter (EN)

The first General Team Dai-Gurren faces. Thymilph is a ferocious and none to bright ape man. While you'd expect him to be curb stomped rather easily, he ends up being the one to kill Kamina. He's the most respectable of the generals, but also the deadliest. Oh, and he's sleeping with Adiane.

Adiane the Elegant

Voiced by: Michiko Neya (JP), Megan Hollingshead (EN)

The psychotic female member of the four generals. Adiane is a scorpion-tailed temptress who tries avenging Thymilph's death.Viral has a secret crush on her, but she's such a violent monster, she doesn't return the feelings. She pilots Sayrune, a vile Gunmen that transforms into a scorpion, and uses an aquatic centipede flagship named the Dai-Gunkai. Unlike her fellow generals, she has the ability to make water appear out of thin air- and tons of it at that. When she first confronts Team Dai-Gurren, Adiane reveals that Lordgenome has effectively thrown his own daughter Nia to the wayside, now meant to die, but the team (minus the grief-stricken Simon) barges in to stop Adiane from killing her. Eventually, she boasts to the Spiral King she can single-handedly avenge Thymilph but fails miserably, making it impossible to face him again out of shame. She makes a second attempt to kill Nia by taking her hostage and bringing in her flagship- only this time, Simon has snapped out of his funk, and he effectively destroys it, while Yoko takes a risky shot to free Nia from Sayrune's claws. Unfortunately for her, she ordered Team Dai-Gurren to turn all its guns on Nia- which are now locked on to her own Gunmen. When she thinks they won't risk blowing up their own ship, Attenborough decides to fry her with the cannons. Adiane regretfully asks Thymilph to forgive her for not being able to avenge him, and then gets torn to pieces by the gunfire. Viral later mourns her death in a tearful rage.

Guame the Immovable

Voiced by: Kiyoshi Kawakubo (JP), Doug Stone (EN)

Guame is the eldest of the four generals and the only one that can manifest spiral power. The closest to the Spiral King, Guame doesn't worship him like the other beastmen, and in fact was willing to disobey the man. Part alligator and part armadillo.

Cytomander the Swift

Voiced by: Akio Suyama (JP), Steve Staley (EN)

The incredibly fey air general. Cytomander is a bird man with a serious ego. Guame chastises him for being too brash, and when he's on the losing side of a battle, the guy really flips his lid. His personal Gunmen is Shuzack, and his flagship is the Dai-Gunten. His brimming overconfidence finally gets him killed when Team Dai-Gurren rams him with their battleship prow, sending him crashing into the Dai-Gunten, where both it and he are obliterated in the carnage.

  • Ax Crazy: The moment he loses his edge in battle, his sanity wears down to vapor-thin, until finally, he's Laughing Mad.
  • Bishonen: Good God, yes.
  • Blow You Away: The General of Air.
  • Curse Cut Short: When he sees the massive Dai-Gurren thundering right towards his Shuzack. Yep, he's screwed!
  • Break the Haughty
  • Combat Pragmatist: Captures Yoko so Viral could kill Simon. It doesn't work.
  • Chainsaw Good: Uses a buzz saw as his weapon.
  • Death Is Cheap: Dai Gurren rams into his Shuzack and sends him crashing into his own battleship, incinerating him in the colossal explosion. In the movie, he can't even get an attack off before Simon mulches him with a Giga Drill Break. It just goes to show how low he really is- he's not even good enough to be killed ceremoniously.
  • Evil Genius: Notices Team Dai-Gurren's weakness, and capitalizes on it.
  • Jerkass: The biggest among the Four Generals, and arguably the biggest in the series.
  • Laughing Mad: When the tide of battle turns against him it drives him crazy and this happens. It's bad enough that it almost mirrors a TROLLFACE.
  • Meaningful Name: Cytomander is cytosine and salamander. Him being a flashy peacock parodying Japanese glam rock has more to do with his mecha's theme; it's named Shuzack, after Suzaku, a mythical bird in Japanese folklore.
  • Non-Action Guy: Only wins fights through cheating.
  • Sissy Villain: Gigantic boa? Rainbow colored lights? Stands on a stage wearing a body suit? CHECK TO ALL THE ABOVE!
  • Small Name, Big Ego: "Maybe it's not that they're so weak, its that I'm too powerful! <Laughs manically>. Now, watch as I get my ass handed to me, go insane, and die!"
  • Smug Snake: Spends his time insinuating that the other generals are incompetent, it doesn't work out.
  • Spell My Name with an "S": His name is pronounced "Cytomandra" in the English dub.
  • Villainous Breakdown: When his ass is getting kicked he laughs crazily.
    • also, at the point of his death, he's pretty much gone completely insane.
  • We Have Reserves: Horrifies Simon with his willingness to get his own men killed.

Lordgenome

Voiced by: Narushi Ikeda (JP), Jamieson Price (EN)

Lordgenome is the ominous Spiral King, who rules the planet from his capital city, Teppelin. An immortal human who lived for more than 1000 years so far, he cares little for people, treating the strange girls he surrounds himself with as dolls to be cast aside when they've outlived their interest to him.


Antagonists: The Anti Spiral

The Anti-Spiral

Voiced by: Takaya Kamikawa (JP), Dave Mallow (EN)

"You seek beauty in struggling to the bitter end- a trait instinctive to those bewitched by the power of the Spiral... Nevertheless, that is an act which has been repeated time and time again. Now, follow the same fate as those Spiral Warriors... WHO CAME BEFORE YOU!!"

The ultimate Big Bad of the series. This bizarre being appears to be the embodiment of the collective mind and will of the Anti-Spiral race. As he resides in Another Dimension created by the Anti-Spirals, he has near-infinite levels of power, up to and including manipulation of the very laws of nature.

  • Absolute Xenophobe: Wants ALL forms of life gone or incapable of evolving to prevent the Spiral Nemesis from coming to pass, and by hell or high water, he makes sure of it.
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Sort of. He agrees to fight the protagonists "on your own terms", meaning the Evil Knockoff mecha mentioned below. His reason for doing so, however, is not to relate to them, but rather to humiliate his opponents by defeating them in a Mirror Match rather than simply Reality Warping them into nonexistence. This seems to be the only way to defeat their Crazy Awesome powers, and he should know due to his experience with such things.
  • Art Shift: In The Movie, he shifts from "Skinny" to "Uber Muscular" a few times, also gaining a more versatile expression range that borders on Nightmare Fuel when he smiles deviously.
  • Bald of Evil
  • Blank White Eyes: His default expression. They strike fear with ease!
  • Big Bad
  • Big Rapid-Fire "No": "NO NO NO [etc]" and "NEVEEEEEERRRRRR!" during the final battle.
  • Combat Tentacles
    • Desperation Attack: Uses his tentacles to shred Lagann as it descends on him, but cannot stop it in time. In Lagann-Hen, he does, but Simon himself begins a one-on-one fistfight moments later.
  • Eldritch Abomination: His Non-Standard Character Design gives him this vibe, rather than seeming human in his own right, he ends up looking like something from the game EarthBound, not as frightening as Giygas, but the way the Anti-Spiral looks makes it seem as if he's "Out of Sync" with reality, which, in a manner of speaking, he is.
    • He's a rare example of an Eldritch Abomination created by someone, instead of more traditional cosmic god.
  • Creepy Monotone: Speaks with an unnerving calm, at times making him sound like a scientist who is merely conducting an experiment rather than a Sufficiently Advanced Alien with incredible power. By the final battle, however, he's ranting a mile a minute and shouting attack names just like everyone else.
  • Dimension Lord
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: "We have no need to understand. We only need to know."
  • Evil Feels Good: Despite claiming he/they have no emotions, they seem to enjoy inflicting Absolute Despair on their enemies.
  • Evil Knockoff: In response to the heroes' advance, he creates a twisted version of their own mecha, and even fights using drills during the climax. In the second movie, this includes his own version of the Giga Drill Breaker. In Super Robot Wars Z 2, he pilots a Palette Swap of the Gurren Lagann with Anti-Sprial Nia.
  • The Evils of Free Will: Though that's a little bit more justified when the force that is and is created by free will and makes free will possible is what is fueling entropy.
  • Fan Nickname: Fans occasionally call him the "Anti-Spiral King" to distinguish him from the Anti-Spiral race. Though they do overlap.
  • Fantastic Racism: Well Intentioned Extremism not withstanding, he absolutely deplores and hates other spiral races, considering them reckless fools who need to be restrained.
  • Graceful Loser: When he's killed, his last words are "If this is how it must be, protect the universe at all costs."
  • Hive King
  • Hey, It's That Voice!: Sounds like an evil (or very nihilistic) Angemon.
  • Hot-Blooded: He can claim that the Anti-Spirals discarded all of their emotions all he wants; he nearly matches Simon in this respect during the final battle.
    • That's just the path that leads to EXTINCTION! Why can't you SEE the PATHETIC LIMITATION of the SPIRAL RACE?!?
  • Humanoid Abomination: Justified, as he's the avatar of a humanoid Hive Mind.
  • Hypocrisy: As noted above, the Anti-Spiral is quick to abandon his vaunted stoicism in the final battle.
  • Jumped Off the Slippery Slope
  • Knight of Cerebus: Even when Thymilph and Lordgenome darkened the show, there was still enough lighthearted and playful humor. Come the timeskip and this guy, things become even less amusing and much darker.
  • Knight Templar
  • Large Ham
    • Yes, even in his more quiet moments, he's still a ham.
  • Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Despite having almost enough power to curb-stomp the heroes (the exact limits of his power are unknown, and may even be infinite), he always takes the form of his enemy, with just a tad more power, to demoralize his enemies and make them lose spiral power. When the heroes take the form of the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with the help of a Big Bang, the Anti-Spiral matches it by breathing.[1]
  • Master Race: Deconstructed: They conquer the universe for the sake of their own existence.
  • Non-Standard Character Design: He is drawn as a vaguely-human black silhouette, with very simple white eyes and mouth.
  • Not So Different: Inverted. Anti-Spiral Nia says that nobody could suppress the Spiral Instinct (read: Large Ham Hot-Blooded-ness) indefinitely, and she was right.
  • Omnicidal Maniac: Deconstructed: The Anti-Spiral are paranoid of an mother-of-all-apocalyptic nightmares erasing all creation ever known and decided to supress all other lifeforms to ensure it will never happen.
  • The Omnipotent: He has complete control of his pocket universe, even able to manipulate probability. The only reason he doesn't just annihilate the heroes is due to gaps of information.
  • Reality Warper: Can alter probability: the force of nature that sets forth the laws of reality. That would make the Anti-Spirals the equivalent of first-order beings. The next step up from that is 'God himself!!!
  • Royal We: Justified, as he's speaking for his entire species.
  • Slasher Smile: A very sickening one whips across his face as Simon dashes toward him with a drill arm in Lagann-Hen.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Perhaps even Perfectly Advanced Alien. Ironically, Anti-Spirals have evolved so far, they stopped out of fear it would unravel the creation itself.
  • Shadow Archetype: Just as the protagonists are trying to keep their race alive and are very determined to do so, the same is true for the Anti-Spiral race, which he points out as part of his Breaking Speech during the final battle.
  • Techno Babble: Has a few shades of this.
  • Unmoving Pattern: Adding to his Eldritch Abomination feel.
  • Villainous Breakdown: He really blows his stack when Team Dai-Gurren refuse to give up and keep getting stronger.
  • Villain Team-Up: With Emperor Muge Zorbados and Emperor Zule in Saisei-Hen.
    • He also seems affiliated with the Big Bad of the whole Super Robot Wars Z saga.
    • He also cooperates with the Invaders because the Invaders use Getter Rays incorrectly. Rather than simply inundating themselves in the Getter and allowing evolution to take its course, they forcibly "evolve" themselves. To the Anti-Spirals, the Invaders are not "evolving" so much as they are simply growing bigger and more primal. After all, Stinger and Cohen are the only examples of sapient Invaders after Saotome kicked the bucket.
      "Correct" evolution is meant to be a slow process that increases not power and size (like in the case of Invaders), but all the attributes of a living thing. The Invaders do not contribute to Spiral Nemesis because they have no souls and therefore their rapid evolution does not increase entropy as much as a Spiral's would.
      Anti-Spiral himself states that regardless of how much the Invaders evolve, they are mindless beasts and therefore can be easily dealt with at the moment of his choosing.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: In the end, what he is trying to do is ensure the universe's survival, however, he's totally freaking NUTS in the way he goes about it.
  1. ↑ This causes problems when creating an Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny with the Anti-Spiral involved - can he match stronger universe-busters like Demonbane and Galactus, and potentially defeat them, or is a STTGL-sized mecha his limit?
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