First Topic/Review.

Subject: First Topic/Review. Thu Jul 25, 2013 4:47 pm

So I'd like to start off contributions in this topic by doing my own review of an anime which I loved watching for a few reasons. I rated it quite highly in another topic. It goes by the name of Gurren Lagann. Now, this is quite an old anime, about 6 years old, so it's not being continued anymore. It was very popular back in it's day, and there were some bumpy parts for the developers and the fanbase alike, but by the end of the anime, it was left satisfied. Anyway, let's move on to the review itself now shall we?

Introduction - First Episode.

This anime starts off where the protagonists and their townsfolk are living in an underground village, for reasons they do not know. Everyone goes about their daily lives by doing tasks related to their assigned posts and titles. For example, "Miner" will be drilling underground, looking for resources and potential discoveries. The chief of the village has the job of ensuring the harmony of the village isn't ruined. This is probably the hardest job of all, for reasons that will be found out later. Anyway, the first protagonists we are introduced to are miners and one of them by the name of Kamina, who is very enthusiastic and a natural leader, always tries to get his fellow miners to get to the surface to find out why they've always been trapped underground, and to obtain freedom. What happens next is quite eventful. One miner, who goes by the name of Simon (pronounced Shii-mon in the anime) is small, and looks up to Kamina as an older brother and an inspirational leader. He finds a little gem attached to some string, making a necklace. He puts the necklace on, as it starts glowing. Kamina calls "his" miners and makes another attempt to reach the surface, this time with them all riding on pigs. The chief manages to stop them just as they reach the stone roof of the village, and they all fall off and Kamina gets put into jail for the night. Simon is drilling away, and finds a small mechanical machine. It glows with the necklace. He drills back up as he's going back for the night, and ends up drilling to Kamina. Simon mentions his newfound machine, and shows Kamina it. The two escape from jail. Later on though... The stone roof falls down, and a giant mech (known as a Ganmen in the anime) comes into the village, with what appears to be a sniper on it's head. The sniper is actually friendly, and goes by the name of Yoko. She assists Kamina and Simon in getting rid of the ganmen. To cut a long story short, Simon finds he can use the necklace to turn on the machine, and uses it to kill the ganmen. The three of them fly out of the village, getting a view of the surface world. Kamina reveals his true reasons to come to the surface here. His father used to talk about the surface, about it's open spaces, about it's freedom, saying it's a great place to be. One day, he went up to the surface, and never came back. To this day, Kamina wants to find him. Upon plummeting down to the ground, there is a giant hole in the ground. Kamina recognises this as his father's cape, and hopes to find him there. Alas, his skeleton is there. Kamina wears his father's cape in memory, and Simon takes a small fragment of it, and places it on his shoulder. Just after this, the true reason (well, there's more to it, but that would be a spoiler. Razz

) why the village was underground is revealed. A ganmen appears, with more near it. The three get ready to fight for their lives once more.

Presentation

The story is presented in a pretty good way. It's successfully done in chronological order, and introduces new parts of the plot in the form of a cliffhanger, which is in my eyes, the best way of making plot twists. The plot becomes increasingly dangerous and more is put at stake for everyone, up to the point of survival of the entire human race towards the end.

Scripting

The scripting is very well done as well. It's inventive, doesn't repeatedly use the same words, and allows for several methods of interpretation on what the speaker means, which is key for the buildup to the plot. Not entirely knowing what will happen next was what got me into this almost as much as some other parts.

Graphic + Sound Quality

Considering the age of the anime, the sound and graphic quality of the anime is next to highest quality. There are a lot of explosions and fight scenes in it, and in order for this to be done well, there has to be a lot of graphic detail put into the fights. The sound is particularly good as well. It always fits accordingly to what is going on around, and the overall quality of the sound is the same as the graphics, next to highest.

Overall Review

To sum this up as shortly as possible, as well as give a fair score, I'll say it like this: Every aspect about Gurren Lagann is of high quality, and the budget was very stretched creating it. Almost all action scenes are easily followed, and character development drives on the story in an astonishing way. There is the slight drawback of some slightly lowered graphic quality towards the last few episodes, as 40% of the budget went into the last 5 episodes, and there wasn't much left of it at that point. I give it an overall score of 9.4, and would definitely recommend anyone to watch this.

I hope my review was informative! I know there is room for improvement on the quantity front, but my explaining on things isn't all that good. If you read this, thanks for taking the time to read it all, and I hope I make another fan of the series. Smile

Subject: Re: First Topic/Review. Thu Jul 25, 2013 5:12 pm

Nice review! I watched a little of it, I found it to be alright... I was busy around the time I tried watching it and forgot about it, but I may watch some more of it later (once I finish the third season of Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni)...

And I think you put plenty on the "font front"! Good to have a review here, this section was looking pretty bare before!

Very Happy