Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann/YMMV

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


  • And the Fandom Rejoiced: The news that this series was making it into the roster of Super Robot Wars Z 2.
  • Base Breaker: Although many view Rossiu as The Scrappy, he has a sizeable contingent of fangirls that still love him.
    • The Anti-Spiral is one, albeit it's not so much half the fanbase hates him /them while the other half likes him/them. The matter is more if his/their actions can be excused as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, or if him/they've crossed the line into an irredeemable Complete Monster.
  • Breakout Character: Many people in the late 2000s cared for Yoko. Yes, Kamina does have his fanbase. But it was Yoko that really put the show on the map even for people who don't really care about the mecha genre, and she still keeps drawing in more fans even today. And it's not that hard to see why - she's a really hot redhead. It got to the point Gainax did a short AMV called Pieces of Sweet Stars that more or less was an excuse to have Yoko show off her body and as many skimpy and sensual outfits as possible- and in one scene she's topless while covered in sand on a beach.
  • Broken Base: The mecha fandom is massively broken on the show itself post-Newbie Boom. Before the anime got licenced for an American release, many of the early English-speaking Gurren Lagann fans were veteran mechaheads who appreciated the love-letter-to-Super Robot-shows-of-yore mentality the show was running with. After the licencing, however, an influx of newbie fans constantly raving only about the over-the-top scenes the anime has to offer (and without any appreciation of the stylistic origins of the show, to boot), the mechaheads practically instantly turned to bashing the anime, and the vitriol took a good few years to cool down thanks to the moe boom causing many of the now nostalgic newbies to declare TTGL the only good mecha anime ever... which enraged the mechaheads en masse yet again. The 2015 re-airing on Toonami only reopened the old wounds, as another, smaller, newbie wave came in. This time, however, the newbies were composed of people who had cursory knowledge of mecha at best, many not even wanting to branch out. Guess what happened when they encountered the mechaheads.
  • Non Sequitur Scene:
  • Common Knowledge: No, it's not the only over the top mecha anime out there. And Getter Robo was the true original Combining Mecha anime. At its peak of popularity the misconceptions were so widespread people actively confused references to other Super Robot shows in anime - for instance, this Lucky Star shout-out to Getter Robo was completely misconstrued as a Gurren Lagann reference by everyone in the comments.
  • Complete Monster: The Anti-Spiral can be seen as a Monster if one interprets their reasons for their attempted omnicide not as trying to protect the universe, but to protect themselves. The fact that they're willing to kill every other living being in the universe, and also hate every other living thing and view themselves as a superior race, suggests that they might as well be Eldritch Nazis. Plus, the fact that their avatar actually enjoys inflicting Absolute Despair despite claiming to abandon emotion, and the lengths he goes to achieve their goal makes a good candidate for Monsterhood.
    • The fact that they want to wipe out all life in the universe is enough for them to qualify as a monster. Knight Templar intentions notwithstanding, the goal is still utterly insane: what good is a universe with no life other then their own existence? Basically, the conflict is set so that the Anti Spiral wants to kill all life to preserve the universe (and themselves) while Team Gurren is willing to risk the universe's downfall in order to preserve all life. And Anti Spiral's perspective is to be seen as mad and wrong.
  • Crowning Music of Awesome: The entire soundtrack
  • Ear Worm: ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH.
    • The title theme.
  • Ensemble Darkhorse: Kamina, who's still considered by a portion of the fanbase as the true main character. He straddles the line between this and Breakout Character.
    • Viral, who perhaps fits the definition of a Darkhorse better.
    • Leeron is the least outwardly badass character in the series, but his technical skills are ridiculous. He also excels at making the other two Darkhorses exceedingly uncomfortable.
    • Attenborough may not be a very prominent character, but Beam Spam McMuppet is surprisingly popular.
  • Evil Is Cool: Lordgenome, oh so very much.
  • Evil Is Sexy: Adiane and Anti-Spiral Nia.
  • Fan Boy/Fan Hater: If you'd like some examples of the former, go check out the Awesome Moments page for this show. And the latter? Check out its discussion page.
  • Fan Disservice: In the sixth episode, with Gimmy. You know what I'm talking about.
    • By extention, Parallel Works 5 doesn't even need an explanation when you find out that the opening shot is one of Gimmy's penis.
  • Fan Nickname:
    • Beam Spam McMuppet—Atenborough, the Gonkish weapons officer of the DaiGurren, who loves his work a little too much.
      • Also known as Button Smash McMuppet.
    • Captain Garlock—the captain in the prologue to the first episode, who resembles Captain Harlock. He is believed to be an alternate version of, and should not be confused with, the much less arrogant Post-Timeskip Simon, who is referred to as Captain Starlock.
    • Cotton Hill—Makken of the Team Dai-Gurren, who resembles Hank Hill's father.
    • Doombitch -- Yoko, who gave a Last Kiss to two characters, Kamina and Kittan, who then died of Retirony.
      • In her defense, Kittan was the one who kissed Yoko, and that was AFTER he decided he was going on a suicide mission to give Team Dai-Gurren the chance they needed to win.
    • Professer Midrift—Otherwise known as Leyte. Named as such due to nearly every scene she's featured in displaying her nerdy abs.
    • Bruce Ironstaunch—An otherwise unnamed background character who only appears in one scene in the series, making a supportive, strong-armed gesture to Rossiu during the speech where he gives news of Simon's death sentence and word of an escape plan to save the city's population from their planet's moon, which is set to collide with the planet. In Western culture, however, Bruce's gesture translates roughly to "fuck you," and as such several fan artworks of Bruce have been created by Western viewers, depicting Bruce beating on Rossiu or just being manly in general.
      • The same memetic Fanon holds he's the one who threw that anonymous rock at Rossiu. But, whoever it was, there is at least one fan club dedicated to them.
    • Kamina-sama: adding 'the great' as a prefix optional. -- Kamina. Let's face it; the man deserves it.
      • I don't think it counts as a Fan Nickname if he's called that in the very first episode.
      • Hamina
    • Lulussiu and Spinsimon: Rossiu and Simon, respectively after the Time Skip, because the same English voice actors voice both pairs, and because of both pairs' similar actions and relationships. Also note the oddness that each voices the generally like main character in one series, and The Scrappy in the other.
      • Namely, Rossiu's penchant for Xanatos Gambits and Simon's Uhhh. Spinning.
  • Fan-Preferred Couple: Viral/Adiane seems to be popular.
  • Fountain of Memes: Kamina. WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK HE IS?!
    • And if you don't think Kamina is a Fountain of Memes, just believe in the me that believes the memes.
    • Also in-universe example of a meme fountain-the Team Dai-Gurren flag, Catch Phrase, and general badassery all came from him.
  • Freud Was Right: All those 'drills' 'penetrating' things, the shape of the good guys' airship, as well as the only female Gunmen having a fanged talking crotch.
  • Genius Bonus: The Four Generals' names are based on the names of the four bases in DNA. Thymilph: thymine; Adiane: adenine; Guame: guanine; Cytomander: cytosine. Especially good when you remember that A and T are complimentary base pairs.
    • So... what does that mean for Guame and Cytomander, then...? Sensitive Guy and Manly Man much?
    • Which is fitting, considering they were created by Lord Genome.
    • Maybe not so much a Genius Bonus as a Literary Scholar Bonus, but the other parts of their names count too. In a lot of older poetic works, and presumably also in Western esoteric traditions, the spirits corresponding to the four classical alchemical elements are gnomes (Earth), sylphs (Air), undines (Water) and salamanders (Fire). Guame = guanine + gnome, Thymilph = thymine + sylph, Adiane = adenine + undine, Cytomander = cytosine + salamander. (Air and Fire have clearly been swapped here, though.)
  • Germans Love David Hasselhoff: Bruce Ironstaunch is popular in America, for telling Rossiu "FUCK YOU!" at his plans to execute Simon and then hitting said Rossiu with a rock. Even this show's Unfortunate Implications are Badass.
  • Harsher in Hindsight: Many of the off-hand comments to the effect that Kamina is gonna get himself killed in the early episodes. Viral's warning "your bravado will get you killed" and Kamina's own "I'd be dead if it wasn't for your level head" to Simon in episode three come across as Foreshadowing once you get to episode eight.
    • In Episode Seven, Rossiu warns everyone that "Good intentions can sometimes tempt good people into traveling down the wrong path." Post-Time skip, he's doing exactly what he was warning against. He even mentions the effect it had on his village, which is what Simon compared it to when he found out.
    • The finale of Lagann-Hen and TV series becomes this when you remember in episode 4, Kamina said that more than 16 combinations sound "Stupid", when in the movie that's almost exactly what Simon and the Dai-Gurren do near the end of the battle, to turn into a giant energy Kamina. Of course, the reason why Kamina said it was stupid was that more faces doesn't make you powerful, it's the bond between the spirits combining that gives you power. Take a look at Team Dai-Gurren's close friendship.
  • HSQ: Very, very high. Don't bother to pick your jaw up off the floor. Each episode has a quotient at least a hundred times larger than the last.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: Kamina City actually does exist! Also, as the page neatly tells us, Kamina means "rascal" in the Hindi-Urdu language.
  • Ho Yay: Real men fire each other up, unite, and make comments about each other's drills..

Kamina: Combining is where two fighting spirits collide! It's where a man's spirit is ablaze!

    • It ought be noted, it's Simon's Lagann that penetrates Kamina's Gurren...yes.
  • Hype Backlash: As mentioned above, a lot of the more veteran fans of TTGL got sick of the newbies hyping it up quickly.
  • I Am Not Shazam: You may see many references to "Lord Genome" which are technically incorrect. Officially, "Lord" and "Genome" are not his title and name, rather "Lordgenome": one word. is just his name. Thus it is pronounced as one word in both the Japanese and English versions. This hasn't stopped a few fans from hilariously back-mistranslating it as "Genome-sama".
  • Internet Backdraft: Is this really the greatest series ever made, or a typical Shonen piece of crap? Don't forget to bring a helmet if you decide to ask. Preferably one with a drill.
  • It Was His Sled: Chronologically: Kamina dies. Also, there are things called "Anti-Spirals", and the final incarnation of Gurren Lagann is big enough to throw galaxies like shuriken. That second one is the most common, followed by the third. Even on this very wiki.
  • Launcher of a Thousand Ships: You are not very likely to find a serious shipping war in the TTGL fandom simply because everyone (except maybe Leeron) is a LOATS. Yes, even Boota.
  • Memetic Badass:
    • Kamina, or rather his sunglasses.
    • Simon. He invented teleportation specifically to punch someone in the face. Unfortunately, they got rid of the teleportation part in Lagann-hen and all we get is Kinon slapping Rossiu's face. Still awesome but not as awesome as the one from the TV series.
    • Lordgenome is pretty much this In-Universe.
  • Memetic Molester: Leeron is a more humorous example. The Anti-Spiral... isn't.
  • Memetic Mutation: Now with its own page.
  • Memetic Outfit: Kamina's shades, which can make anyone manly.
  • Memetic Sex God: Yoko, so very much.
  • Misaimed Fandom: No, viewers, Kamina is not the protagonist. Simon is, and the show does not lose any of its awesomeness after Kamina dies[1] Even if people realise this point, they will in all likelihood still think he's the coolest, manliest, strongest, and most badass character in the show, despite he himself admitting he's faking it.
  • Mondegreen/Spell My Attack Name With An S: The now-famous Finishing Move's name is Giga Drill Break, not Giga Drill Breaker[2]
  • Moral Event Horizon: The Anti-Spiral's totally-not-rape of Nia in The Movie.
  • Narm Charm: ROW ROW FIGHT DA POWAH! Because It WORKS DAMMIT!
    • From the dub, episode 11: "ROSSIU! Let's COMBINE!" The following Crowning Moment of Awesome is made even better by Yuri Lowenthal's delivery and the new script, though, so it's all good.
    • How does Gurren Lagann make that "sproing" sound effect when it moves appear so awesome?
  • Older Than They Think: With the way it's spoken about online you'd think that it invented mecha.
    • Spiral Energy at first seems like a concept original to this show, but in actuality it was originally a concept from Neon Genesis Evangelion. The "Classified Information" files in the game Neon Genesis Evangelion 2 (released in 2003) reveal that the Angels' S2 engines generate an inexhaustible form of energy from, you guessed it, helical energy derived from their DNA-like shape.
    • Beyond even that, the concept of Spiral Energy as depicted in the Gurren Lagann is as old as the super-robot genre itself. The idea that the robot suddenly became stronger because the pilot/controller is all fired up is one of the defining tropes of the genre, after all. Gurren Lagann just gives it a name and a gauge rather than playing it off as just something that happens in these sorts of shows. Also, the plot about the heroes' reality-bending power dooming the universe with eventual overuse was almost directly lifted from a Getter Robo story: Spiral Energy is Getter Rays and the TTGL is the Getter Emperor.
  • Replacement Scrappy Averted hard by Viral. He's essentially a replacement for Kamina, but he's an insane badass in his own right. Rossiu plays it perfectly straight immediately after Kamina's death.
  • Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Not that the minor characters from Team Gurren were Scrappies, see, it's just that no one really cared about them. But then episode 24 hits, where all of them go out in one heck of a blaze of glory. Manly Tears were shed.
    • Simon himself counts to some fans. He started out as essentially a whiny Shinji clone who was indirectly responsible for Kamina's death. However, after some well-played Character Development and an epic He's Back scene, he proved himself as a courageous and likeable character. And then he gets really awesome after the timeskip...
  • Ruined FOREVER: A lot of people yelled this when Kamina died. About 80% of them changed their minds over the last minutes of episode 11.
    • But then there's the case of the series' Darker and Edgier Time Skip second half, in which many felt the show became the dumb mecha show it was initially poking fun at, and took itself alot more seriously as a result. And do we dare go into the ending, which reportedly killed the whole experience for many?
  • The Scrappy: Rossiu. He wasn't that bad before the Time Skip, but sentencing Simon to be executed because he needed a scapegoat has earned him quite a lot of hate from the fanbase.
  • So Cool Its Awesome: THIS IS THE BESTEST ANIME EVEEEERRR!!!.
  • Spiritual Licensee: Especially in the second season, TTGL basically comes off as an adaptation of the later arcs of the Getter Robo saga, with Spiral Energy becoming an even more obvious parallel of Getter Rays and there even being a Getter Emperor equivalent.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks: Some fans are actually complaining that the remake of the "Simon the Digger" speech in the first movie isn't the same as the TV version, when in reality, it is actually better due to the improved animation and the fact that Simon's seiyuu no longer sounds like he's just reading lines off a script page like in the TV original. And don't get me started with some people's dumbassery with the English dub....
  • This Is Your Premise on Drugs: This is what you get when you inject your typical Super Robot anime with Powerthirst.
  • Too Cool to Live: Kamina and Kittan.
  • Unfortunate Implications: Possibly a subtle Take That to the idea of religion? In episode 23 when Rossiu speaks to his father before attempting suicide they are holding and speaking about the Scripture of their village that Rossiu's father, the head priest, spread among the villagers despite not knowing how to read. Seven years later even after Rossiu's learns to read he doesn't understand it either because it's "written incomprehensibly" [3] and they discuss the idea that it was created as a practical joke eons ago. So it gives the idea that faith in a religion is not the way to go because religion is in the end downright ass pulled, misinterpreted by the masses, pretty much incomprehensible when attempting to understand it, and one big fat joke. But on the other hand...
  • Visual Effects of Awesome: The Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann certainly counts.
  • What Do You Mean It's for Kids?: There's nothing wrong with liking a children's cartoon, people!
  • The Woobie: Poor Viral can't catch a break, even in his dreams. All the poor guy wants is a family, but being a Beastman he can never reproduce, and after Lordgenome makes him immortal he'll outlive any family he could possibly have.
    • And Nia gets it even WORSE.
    • Simon arguably gets it worst of all, what with losing his parents, his best friend who was also his surrogate brother and something of a father figure, and a good chunk of his friends from Team Gurren. Along with that, he was betrayed and then character assassinated by his close friend and Well-Intentioned Extremist Rossiu, who also had him condemned to death. And to top it all off, his lover, who rescued him from a deep depression after losing aforementioned surrogate brother, and for who he literally tore apart the universe trying to save, crumbles into dust moments after they're married. Someone give this kid a hug, dammit.
    • Yoko after both the men who loved her die.
    • Kamina, who devotes his life to getting to the surface so he can meet his father and finds his skeleton on his second night there. It gets even worse when you find out that his Crazy Awesome personality is all a fake and he is as scared as the rest of the Brigade, if not more.
  • Way to Break It Hero: Arguably, if Team Dai-Gurren hadn't launched their rebellion against Lordgenome, the Anti-Spiral issue would have most likely never happened. Of course, everything turns out fine in the end, but...
  • What Do You Mean It Wasn't Made on Drugs?: The "My XXX Is The Best In The Universe" Parallel Works video. Whatever it is, it makes no sense at all.
  • Woolseyism: In the Japanese version, Kamina's last words roughly translate to "Farewell, comrades." The dub sets it to "Later, buddy..." which is arguably more powerful and fits his character better.
  1. ↑ But having said this, the people who think the show goes downhill after Kamina dies are also those ones who preferred it as an Affectionate Parody rather than a Reconstruction. It's like people who prefer the first half of Romeo and Juliet to the second.
  2. ↑ The over-the-top Hot-Blooded-ness of the attack call leads to the "-kku" part of the name being stretched out, leading to the misconception.
  3. ↑ Specifically, Rossiu had never encountered a language with the same letters, and the letters vaguely resembled Mugann symbols...
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