Anime Blu Ray Box Set Review : Full Metal Panic the first series

Full Metal Panic! is a novel series adapted in to 3 animes and several mangas. It is half military mecha anime with a certain sense of realism and half slice of life high school comedy with slightly romantic overtones. It is one of the first animes I watched when I started getting in to animu for realz.

The premise is that Sgt. Sosuke Sagara of the anti-terrorist group Mithril is sent to a high school in Japan to protect Kaname Chidori, a seemingly normal high school student. He has to protect her since she is a Whispered, a person who has data about secret technology programmed in to her subconciousness and kind of also ESP. This makes her a target of terrorists who want the data in her.
Sosuke has to fit in to high school, which is way more hard than it sounds like, since while he is a great soldier, he is also incredibly socially inept and behaves like Mr.Spock if he was a violent military otaku. Chidori herself doesn't help much, since most of the time she's annoyed by Sosuke's lack of understanding for people's feelings. At first she thinks he's just some military otaku who takes his obsession a bit too far. Chidori herself is a huge tsundere so this results in Sosuke being hit with a lot of objects.
Other characters include Tessa Testarossa, the 16 year old captain of Mithril's nuclear submarine (which might make her the most unplausable character in the series), Sosuke's teammates Kurz Weber and Melissa Mao, the no-nonsense manlyman Lt. Commander Kalinin and some other military members and classmates of Sosuke.

Yeah so it sounds kind of stupid and generic but the thing that sets it apart is that it's actually well written and executed. The characters have like actual depth to them

The series can be divided in to two kinds of episodes, comedy episodes and serious military mecha shooty bollocks drama episodes. I actually favor the comedy episodes. While the military action is decent, at times it is a bit too boring. The comedy episodes, on the other hand, are hysterical.

So about the serious drama episodes. These are the episodes where Sosuke is in a mecha and fighting terrorists. The mecha action is fine, in FMP they don't use particle rifles or any of that scifi shit, instead everything is done using contemporary firearms, just big enough to be used by mecha. Also giant knives. And it's actually a pretty realistic version of mecha combat, altough nowhere near as gritty and uber-realistic as VOTOMS. The mecha themselves aren't huge, in fact, they might be 2/3 the size of a Gundam.
A thing that spoils the realism for me, however, is the Black Technology and the Lambda Driver. This thing generates energy from your emotions to create sheilds or destructive bursts of energy, which makes it HAXXXX when all the other mecha are stuck using shotguns and knives.
But the really boring part of the drama episodes is the fact that it takes them so long for actual fighting to happen.

I do have to say I liked Gauron. Gauron is intimidating as fuck, once you see him grin you know that you are going to be fucked up hard. You really do get the feeling that he is insane, but not in like that ''oh you poor misguided soul''-way, more in that ''AWWWW SHIT PLEASE DON'T KILL ME DAWG'' way.

A lot of the humor in FMP stems from the fact that Sosuke has very little understanding of how average teenagers behave. This might sound stupid but it actually creates a lot of hilarious scenes. My favorite episode is where they try to teach Sosuke about dating and understanding women, that episode left me in stiches.

But jokes aside, Sosuke Sagara is basiclly the character that Heero Yuy tried to be. Sosuke is an emotionless badass who is amazing on the battle field, but has like actual flaws and depth, unlike Heero. While Heero's emotionless douchery was never really that intricite to the plot but was kind of there, Sosuke's lack of emotions play a significant role and in a way it's ironic that he has to pilot the Arbalest, a mecha that has the Lambda Driver, which is activated by emotions.

But really, think that the action episodes really outweight the comedy ones, which is a shame since the comedy episodes are gold while the mecha action is compitent but doesn't have a lot of omph to the fighting, since the Lambda Driver is used mostly just by Gauron who uses it to kill grunts with ease and everyone else just shoots with regular weapons.

The lowest point in the series for me was probably the arc with Sosuke and characters who are both introduced and killed in the same arc trying to assassinate Gauron in the middle east. There is no comical relief and besides Sosuke and Gauron there are no characters we actually care about and it takes them like 5 episodes to fight, only to have the fight end in 2 minutes.

Also Tomokazu Seki (countless roles, including Domon Kasshu, Beyond The Grave, Ichiro Miyata) does a great job as Sosuke Sagara, but when Sosuke starts to yell hotbloodedly he starts to sound like Domon Kasshu, which is cool as fuck. Satsuki Yukino (Yoruichi Shihoin, others) plays Chidori and has a somewhat memorable vocal performance compared to other japanese voice actresses which all blend together for me. Speaking of which, Yukana Nogami (C.C. from Code Geass) plays Tessa Testarossa in a fitting but not very memorable way, altought I might have prefered Yukari Fukui. Akio Othsuka (Solid Snake/Big Boss, Batou, Brian Hawk, Moomin's Papa (only one person will get the reference)) does a good job as Kalinin, but I feel that he didn't have a lot of interesting things to say. Shinichiro Miki (Takumi Fujiwara, Kisuke Urahara, Roy Mustang in FMA Brotherhood (but not the first)) is very fitting as Kurz Weber. Masahiko Tanaka (Ryo Mashiba) plays Gauron, and he fits well with the psychopathic nature of Gauron.

So do I reccomend FMP? Well if you like mecha anime you could do a lot worse, but the mecha part of the series takes up the most of the series while the humor is left in second place. If you just want to watch a funny slice of life then I'd suppose you should just buy Full Metal Panic Fumoffu, since that takes all the humor that was excluded from this series and just makes one big slice of life comedy out of it, which is actually the best Full Metal Panic series.

Oh also I'll probably not review The Second Raid since Funimation, in their infinite wisdom, decided to make the first series and Fumoffu region A and B, but not The Second Raid. So until there's a EU release of TSR I probably won't watch it.

Hajime No Ippo The Fighting episodes 26-50! The birth of one of the greatest rivalries and the road to challenging the champion!

After episode 25, the opening song is changed to the hard rocking Inner Light by Shocking Lemon, which together with the more badass images of Ippo and the darker color palette in the opening shows that the show has become more serious and badass, now that Ippo isn't just a rookie but a rising star in Japan's boxing world with a goal of becoming national champion. Also Ippo has other rivals introduced, most notably Sendo and Volg.

So recap of this story arc.
Ippo is trying to get his fist to heal so he can fight Sendo over the title of All Japan Rookie Champion (Sendo is the rookie champion of the west, Ippo is of the east).
Sendo is a hotblooded young man who loves fighting strong oponents. Sendo, like Ippo, is a in-fighter with amazingly strong punches, altough their range is a bit different compared to the more close range of Ippo.
Sendo's special punch is the Smash, which is a very strong, curving, low-angle uppercut.
Oh yeah also Ippo's special punch at this point, altough I'm not sure if this is named yet, is a liver blow which is so strong it can make you throw up.
Also at the same time, many admirers of Ippo try to join the Kamogawa boxing gym, but the only one to pass is the very unlikely Naomichi Yamada, a fat, clumsy weakling who is kind of like a more miserable version of Ippo at the beginning of the series. Yamada throws up after every workout session so Takamura, in his infinite wisdom and politeness against his kohai, dubs him Gero-michi (barf-michi, but Gero-michi sounds less awkward).
Yamada admires Ippo for his strength.
Also a sub plot is that Umezawa, the bully that used to bully Ippo becomes one of Ippo's fans since he admires boxers. Remember this.
Also Ippo has a sexy bone doctor that all the horny, sweaty knuckleheads at Ippo's gym secretly lust after.
Also Ippo makes friends with Kumi Mashiba, Ryo Mashiba's younger sister. This becomes Ippo's romance subplot throughout the series. Mashiba himself sort of has a grudge against Ippo, altough this is kind of go-nowhere since Mashiba has moved up a weight class and can no longer face Ippo, but he semi-accepts Ippo and Kumi's friendship, altough he behaves sort of like a mix of over-protective brother and person who strangles you in the toilet if you're not careful.
So anyway, the fated day comes and Ippo faces Sendo. To face Sendo, Ippo must go to Okinawa. In Okinawa, Sendo is like a local hero so his fandom entirely overshadow's Ippo's. Umezawa and his lackeys go to cheer on Ippo, but they kind of don't want to get their asses kicked by tanned Okinawans so they stay kind of silent.
Ippo and Sendo face off, and what a match it is. They fight, and they fight, and they fight. They both trade blows, face shattering blows. The match ends with

*spoilers*
Sendo being punched in the temple, which knocks him out, but while unconcious he still beats the fuck out of Ippo. The round ends. Ippo sits down in his corner and thinks ''next round I'm going to lose''. But then the ref finds out that Sendo is unconcious and ends the match. Ippo is declared winner.
Both Ippo and Sendo consider this fight unfinished
*end spoilers*

So Ippo is crowned All Japan Rookie Champion. This moves him up to 10th in Japan's boxer ranking.
Ippo catches the eye of the Japan Featherweight Champion, Eiji Date. Oh yeah I suppose I should mention Ippo and all of his opponents are from the featherweight weight class.
Date emts the same kind of manlyness as a character from the Yakuza series, except without criminal origins.
So Date invites Ippo for a sparring match. Ippo accepts but loses to Date, who's speciality is the Heartbreak Shot, a type of corkscrew blow which hits you in the heart and momentarily disables your body.
So Ippo decides that he wants to become stronger and face Date for the title of Champion. To do this, he must beat the people above him in the ranking to get the privilige to fight the champion.
Meanwhile, in Thailand.
Miyata is training in Thailand. He's not doing so well since he continues to end up in draws against his oponents, mostly due to xenophobia and shit.
Miyata has to face Jimmy Sispher, a boxer with 8 wins, 8 KOs and no loses, but also 38 wins at Muay Thai. It is predicted that Miyata will lose spectacularly, for his counters might not be enough to put Sispher down.
So Miyata has to find a way to defeat Sispher. Miyata is a counter specialist, but otherwise he doesn't have amazing punching power like Ippo or Sendo.
So in the end, Miyata learns a new counter, the Jolt Counter, which is supposedly so powerful it will obliterate the person it hits, but if it fails you're fucked. And quite frankly, the jolt counter to me seems like the biggest case of unrealism at times, as I can't see how Miyata could suddenly generate that much power.
So anyawy, Miyata gets the shit beaten out of him (like every time), but wins with his bullshit counter. He then decides to return to Japan.
Back in Japan.
Ippo graduates high school. So does Umezawa, and Umezawa asks Ippo to forgive him for bullying Ippo. Also after the graduation, groups all of Ippo's school ask to be in the same picture as them. At first it's just scary-ass mofos you'd see in WORST and Shounan Junai Gumi but then it's more normal people. Oh yeah I forgot, the delinquent scene became fans of Ippo after they found out about his boxing history.
So anyway, Ippo climbs up the ranking, fighting some guy who emulates Date's style. Then he faces Takuma Saeki, a really really fast guy who Ippo beats by predicting his pattern and striking before.
Ding ding ding it's new rival time.
Alexander Volg Zangief (no relation to the street fighter Zangief... or is there?) is the former world champion of amateur boxing from Russia who wants to become Japan's boxing champion to earn money to pay for his mom's hospital bills or something.
Volg (which is russian for wolf, altough I'm not sure if Volg or Volk are a more correct spelling translation from Russian) is another pretty boy and is polite and isn't as fighting crazy as Sendo, in fact, he doubts if he even actually likes boxing.
Volg and Ippo do get along kind of well, and Volg kind of laments that they can't really be friends since they are rivals.
Volg and Ippo face off. Volg is much more skilled compared to Ippo. This results in Ippo getting a severe beating, however, amateur boxing is much less stamina taxing than pro boxing, so eventualy Volg starts running out of power. Ippo knocks Volg out. Volg loses, but Ippo is the one taken away from the ring in a stretcher.
Ippo now gets the right to face Date for the title of champion. Here we break off again.

To be honest these episodes kind of blur together since all the important fights just lead to more important fights in the last 26 episodes of HnI The Fighting.
But Ippo doesn't look more badass in any other place than he does in the opening Inner Light. So anyway for a 3 act structure, this is the middle point (obviously) which shows how the characters get to the final act (of this specific anime series, in the larger outlook on the HnI saga this is still pretty early).
Also, Sendo and Volg? I like them as Ippo's rivals more than I like Miyata.

Anime Blu Ray Review : Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone . Shinji, believe in... ah naw fucking you is still a bitch

Continuing with my sudden surge of suddenly giving a fuck about my blog again, here is a review of Evangelion 1.11 You Are (Not) Alone.

An uneducated person like Mark might think ''Evangelion was perfect! There is no need to remake it! This is all just some sort of bullshit cashin! Fuck this! I'm going to play some more Blops and yell yell at people while getting killed by 12 year old cyborgs with xray vision!'' and to an extent he has a point.
Now the Neon Genesis Evangelion metafranchise has made over 8 billion dollars and there's still brand new figures and shit coming out like every month constantly for 15 years now. Also from time to time they make novels or dating sims or something that present an alternate version of the OG EVA universe kind of commonly. So yeah, the Evangelion franchise is no stranger to the cash in thing.
However, this really isn't a soulless cash in like the ones Hollywood shit out every week for retards. In general, Japan hasn't gone in to overdrive with the whole remake thing and their remakes have a certain amount of respect for the source material, like pretty much everything Dynamic Productions does these days. This, however, does not apply to live action movies that were outsourced to dirty fucking baka gaijin.

Okay but disregarding the gaijin (an ancient japanese philosophy), the Japanese have a fairly good track record with remakes or sequels made much later. Atleast there is actual creativity behind those things and a will to pay tribute to something you like.

But anyway let's talk about a more significant reason. Evangelion was made during a time before Gainax had an unlimited budget for their animes and they actually had to consider limitations to what they could do. This ended up for some compromises.
The final episodes of Neon Genesis Evangelion were when they had to scrape dried up remains from the very bottom of the barrel of their budget. You remember how Shinji just sat in the tree of life for like 3 episodes, almost not moving at all and it was entirely all voiceover? Yeah, the reason was since they couldn't afford to animate much.
Since they had to compromise, Hideaki Anno's vision didn't get compeletely fufilled.
Then they made the End Of Evangelion movie. It still had limitations and shit but still provided a better product (in terms of production, the actual things it presented I will best leave up to you to find out, then hit me up and we'll talk).
In general, Hideaki Anno wasn't that satisfied with the final product and decided to revisit Evangelion now that Gainax are superstars with a budget that would make 70s era Yoshiyuki Tomino's penis shrink to raisin size and give him a heart attack from envy.

So here we have the first of the Rebuild Of Evangelion tetralogy. So the first movie is for the most part faithful to the original TV series, going through the same plot points and having more or less the same characters, acting like more or less the same characters and played by the same exact cast (in Japan atleast).
Without wishing to spoil too much, the plot covers around the first 6 episodes of the series.
Shinji Ikari arrives to Neo Tokyo 3 since he recieved an invitation from his estranged father who he hasn't seen since his mother's death.
Just as he is picked up by Misato Katsuragim who becomes Shinji's guardian in Neo Tokyo 3, the city is attacked by the Angel Sachiel.
Shinji is delivered to NERV headquaters where he meets his father, Gendo Ikari after several years. Gendo, not wishing to waste time, Shinji is forced to pilot the mecha known as Evangelion Unit 01, for he is the only person who can after seeing that the other Evangelion pilot, Rei Ayanami is severely injured and in no condition to pilot it.
Shinji then has to face the angels, his duty, his inner demons, fear of death and the basic fact that he is a fucking spineless coward with issues.
So after some dead angels, some really cool action and Shinji being constantly forced to man up by women, the movie ends with Shinji and Rei Ayanami piloting units 01 and 00 respectively, have to defeat the Angel Ramiel with a beam rifle powered by Japan's entire power grid in a fantastic scene with a very cool music piece.
Oh also the ending song by Utada Hikaru? It is absolutely amazing.

Yeah so I can't say I loved the original Evangelion. The characters were depressing little bitches who spend most of the series walking around aimlessly and whining.
But the thing is, 1.11 has a runtime of 95 minutes, so they have to manage it all. So Shinji has less time for whining and has to spend more time in the EVA unit, fighting Angels. So the result is that I actually felt somewhat sympathetic towards Shinji, something I didn't in the original series.
But in the case of Rei, Rei actually behaves sort of like a person instead of a walking doll in the Rebuild movies.
Oh also you're wondering where's Asuka? She doesn't appear in this movie, but in the next one.

But the highlights for me were the fights between the EVA units and the Angels. They have some absolutely stunning animation. Seriously, watch it on the biggest HD screen you can find in the dark. It's awesome. They got absolutely everything right. The animation, the colors and the blend of 3D CG.

Also the movie has a fair share of thinly weiled hints of the possibilty that the movie takes place in a reset universe following the events of End Of Evangelion, but I wish not to adress that now.

Now we have to wait for next year when 2.22 comes out on Blu Ray. And then I don't know how long until 3.33 Q Quickening and 4.44 come out. how... lon...
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Hajime No Ippo The Fighting episodes 1-25! Ryuusei No Ai Ga Kimi Ni Isshun no hikari nokute! eien no yume wo mite, ROLLING GO!

Hajime no Ippo The Fighting (Japanese for The First Step), known in the west as Fighting Spirit, is a manga series by Joji ''George'' Morikawa that has been adapted in to a 76 episode anime, a movie, an OVA and a 26 episode sequel titled Hajime No Ippo New Challenger, both produced by the awesome studio known as Madhouse.

Hajime No Ippo is probably one of the greatest works in sports fiction history. It has memorable characters, consistent character development, fantastic action and despite some of the stylization (like the dust clouds the punches sometimes make), it still remains fairly realistic. Also there's comedy and some drama.

Hajime No Ippo tells the story of Ippo Makunouchi, the son of a widow who runs a fishing boat. After his father passed away, he had to help his mother run the family fishing boat. Because of this, he had to work hard and didn't have much time for anything else.
Ippo doesn't really have friends and he gets bullied a lot by the bancho of the school delinquents, Masahiko Umezawa (who everyone refers to just as Umezawa).
One day Ippo gets a pretty strong beating from Umezawa but he is saved by Mamoru Takamura, a professional middleweight boxer who happened to be doing his running at that moment and was passing by.
Ippo is inspired by Takamura and wants to also become a boxer to find out what it means to be strong.
So after being tested by Takamura, Ippo eventualy joins the boxing gym Takamura goes to, which is run by the old coach, Genji Kamogawa. Also there are his senpai (superiors, seniors), Tatsuya Kimura and Masaru Aoki, who are mostly comedic relief.
At first Ippo is a complete mess when it comes to his boxing and gets beaten pretty hard in a sparring match by Ichiro Miyata, but he continues to get up after every down. This spirit convinces Kamogawa to train Ippo.
After some training, Ippo has a sparring rematch with Miyata and Ippo actually succeeds at beating Miyata.
After this, Miyata leaves Kamogawa gym for the gym run by his father. Ippo has no idea why.
So Ippo passes the pro license test and after it faces Yusuke Oda as his first opponent.
And then he participates in the East Japan Rookie Championship. He meets Miyata and Miyata tells Ippo that he will be waiting for him in the Rookie Championship finals.
Ippo defeats the African American boxer Jason Ozuma, the cunning but not very strong Kenta Kobashi, the handsome genius Ryuichi Hayami, who despite losing captures the hearts of all the swooning teenage girls (something boxers like Kimura and Aoki lament not being able to do).
Before moving on to the finals, Miyata has to defeat Ryo Mashiba, a tall, unnaturaly thin, grim and creepy boxer. Miyata gives it his all, but loses, spraining his ankle and sustaining other injuries. Miyata loses and cannot keep his promise to Ippo.
And Ippo then faces Mashiba, which kind of reminds me of Rocky 4 with how Ivan Drago beat Apollo Creed and now Rocky wants to beat up Drago.
So Ippo engages Mashiba, who has an obsession with winning which forces him to not give up. Ippo eventualy defeats Mashiba, but not without breaking his right fist. Ippo is crowned East Japan Rookie Champion. Mashiba says he has to start over and decides to move on to the Jr. Middleweight weight class.
Ippo's fist must heal. The West Japan Rookie Champion, Takeshi Sendo wants a match with Ippo for the title of All Japan Rookie Champion.
Miyata decides to box around Asia to get his groove back.
After being visited by Sendo, Ippo has decided that he wants to face Sendo.
With that we'll break off here.

So the first 25 episodes show Ippo's humble beginnings as a boxer and his rise to boxing stardom. These are some fun episodes and I think they go with the opening song pretty well since this is where Ippo isn't as determened and confident as he is later on, in that what is happening right now is sort of like a dream and he doesn't know how far he wants to take it.
Also Tsuneo Imahori's (the same composer as Trigun) soundtrack is less guitar heavy in these episodes as it is later on.
Takamura's antics are pretty funny and gags about how Aoki likes ugly women, Ippo has a large penis and the yearly training camp antics are created within these episodes.
So join us some other time as we go for the next 25 episodes. This series is definately worth a watch, hell, it's worth several rewatches.

Vanquish : powered armor, commie robots, terrorism and sliding while going GAH! WHOOOOOGLY!

So in steady haste to bring back my readership (which is less than 5 people) and within like 2 hours of my last post, I come to you with another post.

Alrighty then so Shinji Mikami's Vansquish. Shinji Mikami, Hideki Kamiya and Keiji Inafune were all very important to Capcom's golden dudes but now all of them have left Capcom. That's sorta related to this.

Shinji Mikami is the creator of Resident Evil, and he was also the person who came back and made Resident Evil in to the fanastic game known as RE4.

So some of you might remember a studio called Clover Studio. Clover are responsible for games such as the criticaly aclaimed Okami but more importantly to this article, Godhand.

Now I don't know if you played Godhand but it was one of those games that you had to play if you were a denzen of /v/ during the days before it shat itself inside out.

Godhand was a very, very skill based game, in fact, I haven't beaten it to this day, but imasculatingly, my friend has beaten it with the fucking Kick Me challenge. Godhand didn't have a lot of sophisticated design and it really felt like it was made for fun. It also payed tribute to things like Fist Of The North Star and such. If you call this game shit for it not holding your hand all the way through or having ''shit design'' really then you're a pussy-ass faggot. Word.

Right so and because Godhand didn't reach up to the standards (the wrong standards) of some idiots, Clover bankrupted.

After Clover bankrupted, Hideki Kamiya and Shinji Mikami founded Platinum Games.

So anyway we'll leave Bayonetta for some other time and talk about Vanquish.



So Vanquish is a 3rd person cover based action shooter about a manlyman in powered armor killing commie robots on a space colony with a microwave laser thing that can blow up cities.

Like any Shinji Mikami/Suda 51/Hideo Kojima/Keiji Inafune/Hideki Kamiya video game the game was voiced in english for Japanese audiences so you get that good old hammy dubbed anime feel which sets the right mood where you really shouldn't take any of this nonsense too seriously and just enjoy the ride.

The game plays like a standard cover based 3rd person shooter, except you have a time slow down effect and a slide mechanic. You might think on paper that sounds like nothing important, but no, this is actually very significant. The slide lets you fastly go from cover to cover, so instead of taking potshots from the other side of the hallway you can slide from cover to cover real fast and blow them fuckers away with your shotgun in slow mo. Okay really it's hard for me to convince you like this so you better watch some video of that shit to get the idea. It's more than a gimmick.

Now but the thing is, Sam Gideon's powered armor suit overheats when using the slowmo or slide (or both) too much and then he's pretty much a sitting duck. So you have to learn how to manage your overheat meter. A dissapointing thing at first was that after melee attacks Sam instantly overheats. But when I learned you can charge melee attacks I got the point.

At first it was useful when the ARS suit slowed down time when I was near death so I could quickly make my escape, but when I got good at the game I actually got good at the game it became a huge annoyance since you can't call it off until it overheats.

''Fuck fuck fuck fuck you fucker don't waste my precious overheat meter!!!''

The game is not very long, I beat it in 6 hours 10 minutes without even really pushing it but I'm pretty sure the game can be beaten in 3-4 if you really take it to the limit.

The game's QTE's are pretty cool, my favorite being when Sam parries the swords of the Boogey's at lightning speed remniscent of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure.

The game's scenery isn't really much to mention in terms of design but the game itself looks good since they got the color saturation and everything just right.

Also there's a pretty cool space shooter during the credits.

So the question for me is, will there be a sequel?
The game ends pretty open-endedly, with the main villain being alive and well since you don't even face him during the game.

But the thing is, Shinji Mikami already left Platinum for Tango Gameworks and he said his next project might be his last.

I'd say you nigs should play the fuck out of this game since I think this game genuinely makes you better at video games.

Oh also, I ordered the regular editon but GAME.co.uk sent me the steelbook edition for no good reason. Thanks, GAME.

Anime DVD review : Gurren Lagann volume 1 : OUUUUUUUUUUU! ANIKI! ORE WA OMAE WO KANARAZU O WASURENAI!

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, titled just Gurren Lagann in the west is simply one of my all-time favorite animes ever. Directed by the same person who directed FLCL and Diebuster, this is in my opinion, the greatest mecha anime of the past decade.

I'll be talking about specificly the EU DVD release volume 1 of 3 by BEEZ, a subsidary of Bandai. Volume 1 covers episodes 1-9.

Alright I suppose I should tell you the plot of these 9 episodes and the basic setting, altough there really isn't something I would say is ''basic'' about it.

So it's so far in to the future the entire history of humankind as we know it is irrelevant, if this is even supposed to be the same earth. Humanity has spent hundreds of years living below the earth's surface in underground villages which have no connection to each other after being forced there by some sort of force. People have lived there for so long that they think that the surface world is just a legend.
Simon is a teenager with confidence issues very much like those of Shinji Ikari from Gainax's most significant series, Neon Genesis Evangelion. His parents were killed in an earthquake. He spends his time digging holes with his drill to expand the village since that's what he's good at. He is also acompanied by a small mole-pig called Boota.
Simon really has no friends, except for the brash, confident dreamer and leader of the village's delinquents, Kamina. Kamina dreams of breaking through the ceiling of the village to go to the earth's surface and reunite with his father who had left for the surface years ago.
When digging, Simon first finds a small medallion shaped like a drill that shines green with energy at times when he holds it. Kamina and the village delinquents try to break through the ceiling but fail and are imprisoned by the village elder.
Simon then finds a huge metal face in a wall during one of his digs. He busts Kamina out of prison to show it to him.
Then, a giant face-like monster busts through the ceiling and attacks the village. Also from the surface comes Yoko, a teenage girl from a different village who have already reached the surface. She tries to defeat the monster with her rifle but fails.
Simon activates the big face in the wall that he found earlier. It turns out to be a mecha called a Gunman (this is a pun, since the Japanese word Gaan means face, so Faceman). Kamina dubs it Lagann (enveloping face, why exactly we'll find out a bit later).
Somehow, by piloting Lagann, Simon, Kamina and Yoko defeat the huge Gunman that fell from the surface and escape to the surface world. Here their adventure begins.
but that's just the first episode.

So then Simon, Kamina, Yoko and the flamboyant homosexual mechanic Leeron travel the huge desert that is the surface in Gurren Lagann.

The Gunmen are piloted by Beastmen, geneticly engineered soldiers of a man called the Spiral King.

Kamina decides to hijack a gunman by sheer force of will. He hijacks a huge, red gunman that he dubs Gurren (Red Lotus).
They also encounter a commander of the Spiral King's army called Viral, who forms a rivalry with Kamina. He pilots the huge gunman known as Enkidu.
During the fight with Enkidu, Gurren and Lagann combine (or as in mecha anime they call it, GATTAI) in to the titular mecha Gurren Lagann. They defeat Enkidu and steal his helmet, which becomes the trademark headpiece of Gurren Lagann.

So over the course of the 9 episodes of this volume, Kamina becomes the leader of the ever-expanding human army he calls the ''Gurren Dan'' and they get in to several fights with Thylimph, one of the 4 generals of the Spiral King's army.

Spoiler warning, be careful he who reads this

So in episode 8, Kamina commands the Gurren Dan to attack Thylimph's warship called the Dai-Gunzan which Kamina plans to make the Gurren Dan's flagship.
Before the fight, Kamina and Yoko share a tender moment which makes distresses Simon since he also harbors some feelings for Yoko.
Okay so why is this important? Lagann is vital to the plan since Lagann can fuse with other Gunmen and override their systems and runs on force of will and the psycholoical state of the person. Simon can't focus.
So during the attack, Lagann can't sucessfuly override the systems due to Simon's psychological state. Kamina jumps out of Gurren during the middle of the battle to punch Simon in the face so he'd come to his senses. As soon as Kamina returns to Gurren, he is fataly wounded by Thylimph. Gurren and Lagann fuse after Dai Gunzan is taken over, then they kill Thylimph.
Then, Kamina dies from his wounds.

And the final episode of the volume is this, also spoilers
The loss of his best friend and big brother figure, Kamina, strikes Simon with grief. This sends Simon in to self-destructive tendencies in which he continues to mereclessly kill enemy gunmen and their pilots every day.
Once during a battle, Simon's anger overloads and disbalances Lagann which goes berserk. Simon somehow ends up in a place that is like a graveyard full of metal coffins. He opens one of them and finds a strange girl named Nia. Nia has a positive effect on Simon, which makes him slightly less angry and miserable.
Nia is extremely polite and naive, not knowjng much about the world. She said she lived with her father until her father got angry at her and sent her to the graveyard for asking why she was born.
At the end of the episode, when the Dai Gunzan, now redubed the Dai Gurren is attacked by another one of the Spiral King's generals, Adine, it is revealed that Nia is the daughter of the Spiral King and she commands Adine to stop attacking. Volume ends here.

Another episode, not as important in the long run but still notable is episode 6, which is the fanservicy onsen (hot springs) episode (a common trait in anime). There is the TV and the DVD version. Does this mean you get to see Yoko's tits? No! Instead you are treated to what is a really, really hilarious episode with Kamina almost getting everyone killed thanks to his pervertedness. I suppose they had to censor the episode since Kamina runs around with Boota covering his dick while Kamina has inner conflict of ''on one hand, they're being held hostage and shit, on the other hand, I could get to see TITS. FUCKING. TITS!''

I'll give you a full on review of the entire series and the characters at the very end after I finish volume 3.

But Kamina really is as awesome as everyone says he is. He manages to capture everyone's hearts with dramatic, manly monologues. Plus his antics are sometimes absolutely hilarious. Such a shame that he... well anyway.

Simon, despite being the series main character, isn't really that much of a main focus, only at the introduction of Nia he truly becomes important.

Yoko is a pretty generic anime action girl and her importance is pretty much abandoned as soon as Nia is introduced.

Viral is a pretty cool guy, and he's voiced by motherfucking Nobuyuki Hiyama, AKA Mr.Hotblood

Nia is obnoxiously cute and shit. Also it's interesting seeing a character that is so amazingly polite. Her role isn't really shown in this volume. Also she is played by Yukari Fukui, who also voiced the main character of Diebuster, Nono.

Other notable characters would be the hilarious homosexual Leeron (voiced by Vash the Stampede's voice actor, Masaya Onosaka), the lawful Rosiu who later becomes Gurren's pilot, and Kittan, introduced sort of like as Kamina's friendly rival and overall pretty cool guy.

Yeah so it was nice seeing these episodes again. I reccomend them. Mark is a fool for giving up so soon.