Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann: Lagann-hen Movie Impressions
Author: NovaJinx
I wasn’t expecting anything of Gainax after the first TTGL movie which was little more than a waste of time and hard drive space. Hell, I wasn’t even going to bother with this shit until so people started being so obnoxious about how much it rocks. So I set out to find out whether it’s another proof of the generally shitty taste of the public.
But long story short, Lagann-hen was a very good movie. It’s basically the latter half of the TV series with everything improved. If you ever felt like rewatching the series, I strongly advise replacing the latter episodes with Lagann-hen. It skips a lot of scenes of course and fast-forwards through some development but does this in a smart way. Gainax has clearly put a lot of thought into what to retain and what to skip, as I only found it pleasurable to have much of the less intense parts shortened and quickly narrated through. Of course, Lagann-hen is pretty much intended for those who have seen the series, so if you have not watched it then you will likely find the movie confusing. For those of us who did sit through the original series, there is no reason to pass on Lagann-hen.
That all said, I think the movie could have been at least 20 minutes shorter. The final fight is awesome of course, but at one point feels like stretching to fill up the 128 minutes. The fights are repetitive as always but that’s easy to ignore thanks to their insane intensity and constantly growing scale culminating in a duel between forces larger than the universe itself – all in the good ol’ absurd TTGL-style. The show just goes so over the top that it’s nearly impossible to not get caught into its crazy pace. As much as the snarky critic within me would like to bash the show, I found myself completely absorbed into its insanity and enjoying every bit of the absurdly macho fight scenes. All in all story-wise the movie doesn’t divert much from the TV-series and only provides some extra sneak peeks to some things that were left unused in the series, such as Simon’s later adventures.
Bottom line: I loved Lagann-hen. It was an intensified and polished presentation of the latter half of the TTGL TV series and absolutely worth watching if the original show is familiar.
Yes, indeed it was good.
The manga spinoffs are funny as well, take a look if you haven’t already.
Indeed, it was VERY good. More than half a day after watching BSS’s subs, I’m still a loss for words… Maybe I’ve been given testosterone poisoning? Too much GAR is a BAD thing for a lady!
I like how they took the final fight to the logical extreme, like they were thinking, “Y’know, throwing galaxies was epic, but is that the most over-the-top scale possible?” So they left no question as to what would be the biggest super robot in the history of the world.
Kadian1364: Unfortunately Demonbane is probably bigger in terms of size. In terms of Epicness though? Not. Even. CLOSE.
Crap! How could I have missed this?! I’ll get back to you after I watch this movie. Looks EPIC
Hmmm… Any complaints I might have had were all washed away by the GAR-ness of this movie