Gurren Lagann was the goddamn best shit back when it aired. A supposedly dying Gainax out of nowhere dropped the single best super robot anime of all time, with a previously un-celebrated director …
May 7, 2023 • Subscribe
More like this
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 25
"Blaze of glory" doesn't even begin to cover it. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 03
"Don't believe in yourself. Believe in the me that believes in you". Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 26
My thoughts on this episode are so colored by my feelings about what happens in the next one that it's hard to discuss the one without bringing in…
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 24
When you feel like a writer has no guardrails, anything seems possible. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 17
Transitioning from revolutionary to government is historically difficult to say the least, and history is littered with tragic examples. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 19
My God, the rage. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 11
Simon's brand of GAR is a lot more interesting than Kamina's because it comes a lot less easily to him. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 08
Yeah, there was no way this was going to be a double-post. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 18
I can't help but be struck once again, all these years later, by how gutsy it was to take the series in this direction. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 23
Simon is really too nice a person for his own good. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 20
In most respects this amounts to a bit of a setup episode - really the last one of the series. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 06-07
Let's face it, "never retreat" is not the core philosophy of a warrior with any common sense. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 09-10
Grief and rage are apparently not suitable fuel for a machine that runs on male martial spirit. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 12-13
One thing that's notable in re-watching Tenga Toppa Gurren Lagann is how deliberate its narrative development is. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 21-22
If you trace the arc of Simon's story - which is basically the spine of TTGL itself - one some level it's a chronicle of escalating gattai. Read…
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 04-05
There are certain moments you forever remember as an anime fan as if they happened yesterday. Read more
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 14-15
If it's anything, Gurren Lagann is a masterpiece of plot twists. Read more
Is Arrietty still one of my favourite anime of all time
I love Arrietty to bits. It might be my favourite Ghibli movie ever, or at least it was up there tied with Porco Rosso. I’d always figured it…
Is Redline still one of my favourite anime of all time
Redliiiine! I saw Redline in the cinema when it first came out. I then went and watched it again in another cinema. Then I went and watched it…
Is Baccano still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Baccano aired in 2007, right when the home video market crashed, the world as a whole was about to crash, legal streaming hadn’t taken off yet, and Crunchyroll…
Is Akira still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Akira is the anime I’ve seen the most, albeit not intentionally. I first saw it as a young teenager since my dad owned it on VHS. My parents…
Is Berserk still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Berserk was the subject of one of my most effervescent, breathless, glowing reviews I’ve ever written, way back in 2010. I didn’t just enjoy Berserk. I thought it…
First Reflections – Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann 01-02
Who the hell do you think I am? Read more
Is Time of Eve still one of my favourite anime of all time?
2008 was the first year I watched anime as it aired in Japan. The first was Spice and Wolf in winter. Then I watched a whole bunch of…
Is Kino’s Journey still one of my favourite anime of all time
When I originally saw Kino’s Journey, I thought it was such a smart, thoughtful anime. Each episode had a meaning, almost like a Aesop’s fable. The simplicity of…
Is Princess Jellyfish still one of my favourite anime of all time
I do not think Princess Jellyfish will have aged well. Let’s just put that out there right now. It was one of the josei anime made back during…
Is Dennou Coil still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Dennou Coil is an underappreciated, underwatched gem of the late-00s. In fact it is the underwatched, underappreciated gem of the late-00s, so much so it became kind of…
Is Tatami Galaxy still one of my favourite anime of all time?
The Tatami Galaxy is by the acclaimed auteur director Maasaki Yuasa. I saw it as it aired back in 2010, only 2 years after his previous work Kaiba,…
Is Dennou Coil still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Dennou Coil is an underappreciated, underwatched gem of the late-00s. In fact it is the underwatched, underappreciated gem of the late-00s, so much so it became kind of…
Is Roujin Z still one of my favourite anime of all time
Roujin Z was an absolute gem of a find for me when going through old anime OVAs. Here was something written by the author of Akira, as well…
Is Steins;Gate still one of my favourite anime of all time
Visual novel adaptations used to be way more of a thing. I hated basically all of them, since they tended to fall into one of two categories: Dating…
Is Death Note still one of my favourite anime of all time
My very first post announcing the start of the Favourite Anime Project lead with a picture from Death Note. The idea behind starting this project was that I…
Is Porco Rosso still one of my favourite anime of all time?
I’m a bit of a Ghibli hipster. When other people are listing their favourite Ghibli movies with Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke or My Neighbour Totoro, I’m out here…
Is Space Dandy still one of my favourite anime of all time
The level to which Space Dandy ended up being forgotten by time remains shocking to me. It launched with such fanfare. Here was the director of Cowboy Bebop…
Is School Rumble still one of my favourite anime of all time?
School Rumble was a lot of firsts for me in my anime fandom. It was one of the first anime I ever watched. It was one of the…
Is Nodame Cantabile still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Remember Noitamina? The late night TV timeslot is still an ongoing concern and still airs good anime, so it might be confusing to younger fans why us oldies…
Is Millennium Actress still one of my favourite anime of all time
Millennium Actress is a movie I would consider perfect. For as much as Perfect Blue is a traumatic horror without peer, and as much as Tokyo Godfathers is…
Is Cowboy Bebop still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Everyone loves Cowboy Bebop. The anime version of Cowboy Bebop that is. The live action version got pretty bad reviews as it missed a lot of what made…
Is Bunny Drop still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Bunny Drop is an infamous josei manga. Why it’s infamous we won’t get into here since if you have somehow kept your soul clean from sin, we don’t…
Is Black Lagoon still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Madhouse was killing it in the late 2000’s. Death Note, Nana, Kaiji, Dennou Coil, One Outs, Kaiba. One of their most highly regarded anime from the that period…
Is Space Dandy still one of my favourite anime of all time
The level to which Space Dandy ended up being forgotten by time remains shocking to me. It launched with such fanfare. Here was the director of Cowboy Bebop…
Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – 27 (End) and Series Reflections
More than anything Gurren Lagann, like so many successful epic series, is personal. Read more
Is Cromartie High School still one of my favourite anime of all time
Comedies have not fared well in this project to rewatch my old favourite anime. Daily Lives of Highschool Boys ran out of jokes after 2 episodes and just…
Is Detroit Metal City still one of my favourite anime of all time?
Remember Detroit Metal City? Man, that show was so damn funny! The short OVA series about Krauser, the death metal god, and his miraculous ability to say the…
Is Dominion Tank Police still one of my favourite anime of all time
Around 2010 I went back in time (metaphorically speaking) and dusted off an old VHS player (metaphorically speaking) to watch a whole bunch of old anime OVAs. Between…
Is Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood still one of my favourite anime of all time
Fullmetal Alchemist. *eyecatch, slightly different voice* Fullmetal Alchemist. If you gathered 10,000 anime fans in a room and told them they couldn’t leave until they agreed upon one…
Is Crest of the Stars still one of my favourite anime of all time?
I came to a shocking realisation recently: Nobody watches Crest of the Stars anymore. I used to categorise it alongside Spice and Wolf as “well-written anime about a…
Is Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust still one of my favourite anime of all time
I have a big soft spot for Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust. It was so unapologetically goth that it broke through any cynicism I might have towards the genre…
Night Warriors: Darkstalkers' Revenge, Vampire Hunter D, Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust
Is Puella Magi Madoka Magica still one of my favourite anime of all time
Madoka was an absolute sensation when it aired. It was the new defining anime, kickstarting a new era in anime fandom. At least, that’s what it felt like…
Is Arakawa Under the Bridge still one of my favourite anime of all time
Arakawa Under the Bridge was my favourite TV anime of 2010. It was an early anime I blogged weekly and I went extremely in depth covering it, more…