Anatomy of a Revolution ~ TTGL 16

Yes, I’m watching Gurren Lagann on the side, and I just finished episode 16. Damn, this is hands down the absolute best flashback episode I’ve ever seen – as well as the best Gurren Lagann episode for me so far.

I started watching Gurren Lagann a decidedly long time ago but never quite got into it. I watched the early pierce-the-sky episodes in a sort of amused way, getting kicks out of how ridiculously over the top everything was. Then came Kamina’s demise and the entire mood of the show sank into the dank and rainy depression that began to irk me, and in the ensuing busy-ness I simply stopped watching. I recently picked it up again deciding that it probably deserved another chance, and I got through the episodes all the way up to the battle with the spiral king remaining more or less unimpressed. Then episode 16 hit me like a stray lightning and a falling meteor, and Gurren Lagann will probably never be the same again.

I don’t know what it is about this episode. It introduces exactly zero new material, I’ve seen every single footage before, and yet, something about the way the events are arranged and rehashed, alongside the choice of music and constant flashes of that scribbling hand, suddenly struck that phase and made all the disconnected plot pieces fall neatly in place before my astonished eyes. There before mine eyes was the recounting of a revolution, beginning with that extraordinary man called Kamina.

Every important revolution has a powerful potential barrier at its threshold – some manifestation of fear or ignorance or impossible difficulty that inhibits the forces of change and maintains the status quo. And this is why rudely insane and stupendously fearless men like Kamina are critical to the birth of the revolution – they are unaffected by the inhibitory forces and are neither ashamed nor afraid of tearing through the neatly woven fabric of other people’s way of life. They are the ones who will crash headfirst through the meticulously established social norms and warp and destabilize the system until a critical momentum develops that could sustain a revolution.

Tragically, be these men defyers of destiny, slayers of giants and enablers of change, they are not survivers. Because they fight the hardest and row the fastest against the upstream path of change, they swiftly break their arms and collapse in the middle of the revolution they gave birth to. Kamina could well have been aware of this even in the midst of all his never-say-die bravado, thus his insistence on his belief in Simon, and his insistence that Simon believed in the “him who believes in Simon”. Kamina had found and chosen the person that he knew would complete the revolution he would start, and perhaps that is why, at the very end, the man who had defied everything in life with iron-willed stubbornness was able to gracefully bow out to his death.

And this is the truth of the matter that I failed grasped back in the day. The rainy depression in the wake of Kamina’s death stems not from the fact that Yoko lost her love, or that the Gurren army lost their leader, or that Simon lost his brother, or any such emo pussy mushy reason like that. The true tragedy of Kamina’s death is the bitter irony and excruciating injustice in the fact that the man without whom the revolution can never be, will never live to see it succeed.

In Kamina’s wake came Nia, to whom Simon clearly owes his emotional recovery. Nia is in a way the embodiment of the meaning of the revolution – something that Simon could want to protect, something that Simon could want to change, and perhaps most importantly, someone who believes in Simon. When an endeavor becomes harsh and sacrifices become painful, meaning is essential to the continuation of the struggle. You need to know what you’re fighting for, and I think this is what Nia returned to Simon. The discovery of who he is, what he can do, and what he wants to do.

And then the final ingredient – Simon’s decision to accept and take firm hold of his duties as leader, dig his heels into the soils of the fight, and move forward. We begin to observe a fundamental change in Simon’s person, turning him into a determined, unstoppable and formidable character, well aware of the weight of the sacrifices that had brought them thus far, and the spearhead of the need to make sure none of those sacrifices will ultimately be in vain. He is not Kamina and never will be – he is Simon. The completer of the revolution, the bringer and leader of the new world order. The metamorphosis was complete.

And underlying everything is that delightful metaphor of the drill, the machine that will take you through any unspeakable obstacle so long as your persistence never wavers. It all just makes sense now, Gainax’s impeccable set-up underneath all that crazy mecha action. Damn, I may, may, may be falling in love. I hope it keeps getting better from here.

Touch the untouchable! Break the unbreakable!
Row! Row! Fight the Powah!