Medaka Box, despite sounding like the more amenable sister of Pandora's Box, is proof positive that you need a strong director to make the most of sharp writing. Coming from the same pen as Bakemono and Nisemonogatari it's hard to believe the protracted, laborious dialogue here could ever be transformed into the wit that his other two animated series showed.
By and large it's the same type of banter just presented by who has to be one of GAINAX's most uninspired directors - the one behind such meteoric duds as He Is My Master (shudder) and This Ugly Yet Beautiful World.
This is the second part of my dive into some of the anime that I watched during my adolescence in the wee hours of analogue satellite stations. The first part concerned the ultraviolent Genocyber.
When I began my project to relive my formative anime experience, I was looking for a series that had a very specific scene. The only reason I can remember it vividly was not the anime itself but more what happened around it. Suffice to say, Dangaioh was not the series I was looking for, and despite my memory assuring me I had watched it, very little jogged my memory (this could be to do with Manga Entertainment only released two out of three episodes). Much of that familiar feeling though can be attributed to how trend setting Dangaioh was for its time period, something that mecha design and sci-fi series in general would mimic and cherry pick from in the years to come.
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was born as a dream project: bringing together some of GAINAX's finest in an original concept with all the flamboyance and energy the best works from the studio are noted for. An ensemble of animation and episode directors could have easily birthed an amalgam of half-cocked ideas and tepid action; instead a rare gem, vast in imagination and rich in breathless enthusiasm, was created and took the varied mecha genre to outlandish heights.
the spiral becomes a standard for the loud, energy filled cries that characterise every duel, skirmish and battle
Beginning deep underground, Simon is a reticent young digger for a village sequestered from the surface; his companion, Kamina, is brash, forthright and instantly charismatic. After a giant robot falls from the surface - swiftly followed by the sparsely clothed Yoko - they begin an adventure across the surface and all the trouble that entails. For many series this would be the entire narrative, however after a monumental battle with the aggressor of the surface, the Spiral King, time moves forward. Characters are older and divisions deeper, it is only then that the true threat appears which threatens not just the world or the galaxy, but the entire universe.
Evangelion occupies a very special place in my heart: I watched the series on VHS in 1997 when I was fourteen and - without hyperbole - it was a life changing experience. A series that was smart and brutally obtuse and flitted from Jungian psychology to religious dogma was revelatory for me at the time and it questioned a lot of what I had not yet fully formed questions about; so as well as being gob-smackingly awesome, it changed who I was and consequently who I am. For those reasons I am utterly fanatical about the franchise and concept. Like a delusional lover I put up with a lot of the nonsense that GAINAX throws: I own the original series on twelve VHS tapes which I upgraded to DVD when they were first released, then upgraded them to the Platinum DVDs; I did manage to stay away from the deluge of tat that has been continuously released but it's fair to say my own lot of Evangelion merchandise is not insignificant. In what is a truly savvy move, just as patience for the constant re-releases was beginning to wane news came of the Rebuild project.
If 1.0 was meant to prime the fans for what was to come, 2.0 detonates with magnum force.
Not just a fresh coat of paint but a fresh take - that was the promise at least. It was hard to get excited, especially when there was also word of a live action Hollywood adaptation bolstered by some mightily uninspiring concept art - the only promise being that WETA are on the case. Regardless, the news came out over a year before the first Rebuild release so there was plenty of time to build up my scepticism. The first movie, "Evangelion 1.0: You Are (Not) Alone" released in 2007, deserves a post of its own and the number of pages I've devoted to notes and thoughts and theories bordering on absurd. The second movie, "Evangelion 2.0: You Can (Not) Advance" released just this summer is easy to write about because I have not yet had a chance to analyse and unpick it as I am wont to do. For want of a better description, this is a review rather than an unravelling.
Pure boyish exuberance is the only way to describe Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann; even given its parent company's predilection for unsatisfactory endings the series manages to be satisfying, smart and unique while paying homage to those that have tread similar ground before it. Gurren Lagann is without a doubt one of the most well-rounded pieces of anime to come out in what seems like a long time.
it's kinetic, brutal and divine
Ordinarily, shows which have such a large emphasis on growing stronger and are top-heavy with action set-pieces, there is a tendency to demean your audience with shallow characterisation or to bludgeon them with a lack of subtlety; this series does none of these things and manages to be viscerally appealing as well as emotionally layered. As with any good story, the core is simple: a coming-of-age for the protagonist Simon. Far from focusing on one aspect of this journey, Gurren Lagann charts Simon's meteoric rise from dirt-scratching child to heroic teenage leader to legendary saviour to wisened elder man; the sense of accomplishment and triumph at each stage is immense and, along with the cast of eclectic characters, tells the more immediate story of conquering insurmountable odds.
