First Impressions / Gurren Lagann

Summary:

As they travel through the desert, Simon and Kamina recount the village they just came from and why Kamina didn’t like Magin. Kamina makes it a point to tell Simon that people have eyes facing forward so they can see the distant landscape and move forward. Simon also thinks that having eyes face forward allows people to see the back of the people who have gone ahead – that’s why Rossiu came with them. As for their journey, the group discovers that the enemy return point target is actually on the move. The guys don’t get much time to discuss this because Yoko kicks them all out of the cockpit for smelling bad, which is followed up by an encounter with some rabbit-shaped Ganmen. Kamina and the Gurren Lagann quickly gets to work defeating them, but one Ganmen gets away. Kamina wants to destroy it, but Rossiu points out that they can follow it back to the enemy’s return point. However, they soon lose sight of it in a fog and instead find an old man. This old man leads them to a nearby inn where a ton of bunny girls celebrate the men as heroes. In fact, the lady who runs the resort seems to know about Kamina and the Gurren Brigade. Rossiu finds it all very suspicious, but everyone else is content with enjoying their surroundings and the food.

During dinner, Kiyoh, Kiyal, and Kinon suddenly show up. The three of them are here without their brother and had also been chasing a Ganmen when they came into the fog and saw the old man. The lady who runs the inn then tells everyone about the hot springs, so they all go for a dip. Kamina isn’t happy that the guys get separated from the girls, so he spends his time talking with Simon about going to the moon. Thinking about fate, Kamina and Simon then share their memories of their adventures leading up to now. Simon eventually notices that the other side of the bath has gotten strangely quiet, so he lifts Kamina up over the dividing wall to check on the girls. To Kamina’s shock, the girls are gone. What’s more, a huge Ganmen suddenly bursts out of the inn with the lady from before having turned into a beast. Simon manages to reach the Lagann in time, but Kamina gets the Gurren stolen out from under him when the enemy Ganmen carry it away. Since the girls have been captured, Kamina jumps onto the large Ganmen to save them, but it’s actually a furious Yoko who shoots herself and the others free. Kamina and the girls all board the Ganmen and engage in a chaotic fight with bunny girlｓ.

Although the group succeeds in disrupting the Ganmen, Kamina also gets surrounded with armed bunny girls. However, he is so angry that he knocks them all away and calls on Simon to come retrieve them. The entire group minus Rossiu manages to escape the large Ganmen after everyone somehow fits into the Lagann’s cockpit. Rossiu meanwhile had run into the Ganmen stealing the Gurren, so he piloted it and destroyed them. Combining the Gurren and Lagann, Kamina uses the mecha’s sunglasses as a weapon to defeat the large Ganmen. Their victory, however, is short-lived because an energy blast soon sends them reeling. This blast came courtesy of Viral and his Enki.

Preview:

Wow, I’m not sure what to make of this episode. It starts out okay with a short recap of last week’s episode and then a bit of Yoko humor mixed with some quick action before slowing down for what I thought would be a fanservicey hot springs episode. But then they threw in over four minutes of recap. That had me thinking that this episode was going down the drain, however they quickly changed my mind by finishing with over four minutes of ape-shit action that really blew me away. Once again, I have to say that this is such a crazy series, and I’m loving it, especially all the attention Yoko gets. 🙂
I think the return of Viral bodes pretty well for this series. I was really impressed by the pure adrenaline of the show the last time Viral showed up, and the preview for next week makes it look like a lot of big things will happen.

30 Comments

  8. Gee, I thought half the show was a recap… and then they had the panning still shots… I guess the animators wanted to rest during Golden Week.

    But then again, they had some good action scenes. And seeing the Gainax bunny girl All Stars (it was weird seeing Ayanami Rei so full of emotion) were cool.

    wrex
    Reply

  9. emo kamina face ftw!
    nice how simon’s drill became so big…
    awesome gattai sequence

    I just realized that Rossiu has to be the guy standing next to Simon at the very start of ep1, I mean, look at his hair 😮

    boo
    Reply

  12. other places are saying the recap was put there because the scene that was originally there (yoko and k girls hot spring scene) would not be allowed because of the saturday morning time slot. Assuming this to be true, the original scene should be there on the DVD.

    gurren_lagann_fan
    Reply

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