[Categories: Anime Reviews]
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 7
GAINAX, I’m sorry I doubted you. For all their misfires, questionable endings and crippling shoestring budgets over the years, I can’t help but respect these guys. After what was essentially half an episode, I hoped to be proved wrong about this show: were they really losing their touch or just saving their energy for a blinder of an episode? Well, It’s a blinder.
Apart from a bit of Yoko/Kamina dialogue at the end, this is wall-to-wall, balls-to-the-wall action: it’s as if the writers were apologising for a run of filler episodes by delivering an instalment that will have fans glued to the screen. I’d say they’re forgiven. There’s not much to speak of story-wise because it’s just one long, exhilerating battle in which Viral brings in the big shots, in a very literal sense.
Initially, there’s the overblown orchestral score as the Daiganzan makes an appearance (doesn’t it look a bit like the Macross??), before the guitar driven rock track kicks in. While it may have felt out-of-place before, the music, just like everything else in this episode, works. Yes, it’s overdone. Yes, it doesn’t progress the storyline or characterisation. Yes, it’s so full of excessive amounts of Kamina’s testosterone it runs the risk of spontaneously combusting. The truth is, I was too gobsmacked to care. Of course, there’s a fine line between bravery and downright stupidity, as our manly hero ably shows. Kamina is saved from his own hot-headedness and lack of self-preservation by Simon’s quick thinking; it was great to see the roles reversed and Kamina placing faith in Simon’s abilities in the heat of battle.
I’ve gone on for too long already. A series that was meandering and stalling is back in its stride, and provides a multicoloured, explosive, slab of mecha radness. I want more!
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