BreadIsDead

Gurren Lagann – a beloved classic. A show which drags you by the hand showing you a true hero’s journey from baby to old man. Amongst what at first is a cool, engaging, beautiful show is a much deeper plot – a plot about Simon’s birth into adulthood – a plot that each one of us follow across our lifetime. Gurren Lagann’s status as a classic is because it’s a show that rings true on so many levels. Should the show have just been a wacky action show or just been a psychological deep-dive into adolescence, it wouldn’t have been the masterpiece anime fans recognise it to be. Today, however, we will be discussing that ‘deeper’ layer of the show, looking at how the show tells the ancient story of one’s lifetime - of your lifetime, past, present, and future. Let’s begin with Simon the Digger, stuck with Kamina in the cave. The Birth of Simon the Digger Simon the Digger is known as one of the best drillers in the cave-town. Simon is a child; young and blind, following Kamina, his older brother, to a tee. However there isn’t much to do underground. It’s dark, cramped and empty – there’s just nothing. Simon hasn’t come to consciousness yet as his own man – he hasn’t yet obtained those powers of reflection that you develop in puberty. And so in this cramped, dark, seemingly ‘unconscious’ world, he lives. But in this dark world, Simon has a light: Kamina. Kamina is Simon’s aniki - his older brother - but can also be seen as a kind of guiding manly spirit who propels and directs Simon on his journey into adulthood. But before an escape plan in Episode 1 can succeed, Simon must first find Lagann. Lagann is a tiny little mech, which only really has space for one person (Simon), which only Simon can power with his core drill. Lagann is but a body, however - without the power of Simon’s core drill, it is an empty shell. By providing his ghost, his geist, his spirit, his core drill to that shell, he can begin his journey out of the dark, unconscious, Platonic cave, to the bright surface above. Escaping the cave, Simon and Kamina are greeted with reams of Gunmen – demons who’ve taken over the surface of the Earth. In leaving the motherly safety, security and nurture of the cave, Simon has come to awareness as an individual only to find the outside world is full of monsters. Without the womb-like protection of the caverns he grew up in, he relies instead on his friends: on his aniki, Kamina; his eventual crush Yoko; and the rest of the Gurren-dan for support. The Extinguished Light The Gurren-dan continue their quest, defeating ever greater foes, taking us up to episode eight. Episode eight: anyone who’s watched the show remembers the episode vividly. He’s dead? He can’t be - surely not. The loss of the key screw holding together the team, holding together their successes, holding together Simon on his journey from the caverns, has been wrenched out, and the scaffolding comes tumbling down. The Simon who believes in the Kamina who believes in him is lost without Kamina’s guiding light to shine his path. Many growing up feel the moment when Kamina dies in them. For many, including myself, that came at age fourteen - the moodiest year for many teens - when the Aegis shield of parental protection guarding you begins to disappear and become invisible to the maturing mind. Suddenly the surety of childhood, that prized sweet childhood innocence, evaporates, leaving a gritty reality to contend with. Kamina solved every problem Simon had - he was his model of masculinity, his image of who he must be, his senpai, his brother, his fatherly figure. Now where is Simon to tread? The destination is gone; the map is ruined. Without Kamina, his light (in Japanese, kaminari means ‘lightning’), the young Simon must now dig his own path.

"All that's left is ash." - Ashita no Joe

Simon’s mope Simon becomes understandably mopey. He lashes out at the group members, flinging frustration over his aniki’s death. But the wound runs deeper than that - it was Simon’s fault that Kamina died. If it weren’t for Simon getting distracted over his memories of Kamina and Yoko’s midnight rendezvous, Kamina would’ve never been caught off guard and killed by Lordgenome’s forces. But Simon’s jealous. Simon’s jealous that Kamina, that perfect vision of masculinity, that vision of his ideal future self, gets the girl he loves: Yoko. But Simon will never get Yoko, for as long as he stands in Kamina’s shadow, he can never shine as brightly, forever relegated to Kamina’s cute younger brother. The seeds of jealousy deep deep down inside Simon is at root a hatred; Simon suffers so brutally after Kamina’s death because a small dark part of his soul is glad that Kamina died - Simon can now ‘get the girl’ without competition. Naturally, Simon could never admit these feelings to himself, but the maelstrom rips him apart from the inside all the same. The appearance of Nia The forest which burns down leaves space and a bed of nutrients for the next generation. Despite the tragedy of Kamina’s death, and Simon’s inner turmoil, Simon finally has the space and the nutrients to grow as an individual. No longer can he be the Simon who “believes in the you who believes in me”; Simon must become the Simon who believes in himself. Simon must no longer see himself as Kamina’s younger brother, as a little Kamina - he should instead see himself as Simon. In ceasing to see himself as a younger Kamina, Simon ceases to pursue Yoko - the same soul whom Kamina pursued. Instead, Simon is met by a fair maiden who descends from the heavens: Nia. Simon’s barren soulless landscape is greeted by a princess - a princess who’s willing to vouch for him. Finding his own soul, finding his own confidence, Simon’s encouraged out of his catatonic hibernation bit by bit by his newfound waifu. The new Simon, emerging from the rubble of Kamina’s death, grows to become a great Kamina-styled leader of the Gurren-dan only because Nia has his back.

New hope from the casket.

Lordgenome Lordgenome is the lord of the genome - a force suppressing spiral energy, suppressing evolution, oppressing mankind. He is the force sending chimeric freaks to attack the Gurren-dan upon his command. He is the full force of the law - the force stopping man in his tracks from achieving their full potential. From below, one feels the instinctive drive, the drive from our genome, to develop into an ever greater and ever more mature person. Whilst from above, there’s authority - an oppressive power telling you how to act and what the right thing to do is, disregarding what your instincts and intuitions may say. This tension sits at the centre of the human experience. Growing up, once the illusion of your parents’ omnipotence ends, once your Kamina dies, we are stuck with rules and laws, without the sureness that they are morally and truthfully sound. At this age the laws have to be tested and rebelled against until the “policeman inside our heads” is slain. Lordgenome is no different. He’s the oppressive paternalistic authority who governs the world of beastmen who, for the most part, are obedient clay men without the the spiral energy, the spirit, to rebel. But we must remember that Lordgenome’s a failed hero. He tread the same tracks as Simon, leading the rebellion against the powers at be, only to fail. Instead of letting his spiral energy drive him to pierce the heavens, he used it to screw over mankind, subjecting them to a long life of oppression. This is the tyranny of the the moral code which must be obeyed without explanation, even though much of the etiquette and rules which govern us aren’t sensible. This is the tyranny of the ‘cabal’, the elites, the authority figures who believe they rule be virtue of experience and age. This is the tyranny of those who failed to pierce the heavens.

Kokoro no Gattai

The Final Fight? For Simon, defeating Lordgenome is not just to take back control of the Gurren-dan’s autonomy to live without constant threat of beastmen; it is also to take back Nia from her father. Simon’s soul is not wholly free yet - she is still in part in the clutches of her father, of authority. For Simon to become an adult, he must set his soul free from the clutches of authority, since only once Nia is truly Simon’s own, can Simon achieve the autonomy of adulthood. On a map, there’d be an arrow, saying “You are here”. At our age, we’ve mostly slain our Lordgenome’s; we’re not rebelling against our parents nor society, breaking the rules to ‘be cool’ - we’ve matured beyond that point. Slowly but surely, we’re becoming part of the establishment, not rebelling against rules with passion, but rather obeying them with indifference. Instead of the figure of the powerful towering Lordgenome who uses force to make you conform, we now have a weak yet wise head of Lordgenome who instead advises us. We have become adults and made peace with the establishment.

Respectfully observed morality.

Continued in part 2... Originally written for the Uni of Nottingham Anime Society Zine