dcoke25
Joined Nov 2013
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I love this anime, and ironically only recently discovered the man behind this anime is also behind my favorite anime of all time, Oh, Edo Rocket! Which really shouldn't be a surprise since this, Oh, Edo and Kill La Kill are all structured the same. Though Kazuki Nakashima didn't work on the Anime, just wrote the novel that the anime was inspired by for Oh, Edo Rocket!
The point is, he tells the same story, much in the same way Mamuro Hosoda does. Stop me if you've heard this one before:
Person of lowly stature accidentally comes across something of great power that can disrupt reality as we know it. And since they are PURE OF HEART, they take that power and wield it for the greater good of humanity.
That's literally the plot of most of Kazuki's works. This one is definitely by far the most ambitious one and the most grand scale of it. Instead of building a rocket to the moon, or destroying an evil clothing empire in charge of a prestigious school. Our Toppa Gurren team is taking on creation itself, all piloted in giant robots.
What makes this work, the reluctant hero trope here, in Simone, is bolstered by the most stubborn man alive who is also the most dangerously optimistic that it's infectious, Kamina. This isn't your typical anime either, the reluctant hero stops being reluctant, and turns out to be rather kickass, honoring the memory of his "brother" and taking on creation itself.
Like most of Nakashima's work it has a very PUNK ROCK vibe to it. Flows great, and is nicely self-contained. No need for sequels or supplemental materials. You, ALMOST get everything you want from 27 episodes.
Here in-lies the problem. Episode 12 is a filler recap episode, and then 13 you jump 7 years into the future, and some how humanity not only re-terraformed the surface of earth, but manage to hit 1,000,000 in population after it was later revealed most of the human population was being held underground in tunnel cities being kept there for fear of running into mechs that are giant faces with limbs coming out of them, controlled by a race known as Beast Men.
This is how everything starts. Simone was a grunt digger, one of hundreds of grunt diggers in charge with expanding their tunnel city's real estate. He was an exceptional one. During one of his digs, he finds one of those mechs, that happens to be the smallest of the small mechs. That night, he tells his friend he calls "Big Brother", who tells him that they're going to take that mech and take it to the surface, which they don't know if it actually exists, since no one in the village is alive to have seen it before, that it becomes a myth. Kamina/Big Bro, said his father took him to the surface and gave Kamina a choice, to adventure the unknown with his father, or go back to living underground. Kamina who was like 8 at the time, out of fear, chose the safety of the village and regretted that choice ever since.
While I adore this anime, upon just finishing it again, today, 4/12/2025, cracks start to show, and patterns emerge. The biggest one is, the main villain and rival faction group gets taken care of off-screen and we're instead left with a massive 7 year time skip where apparently society was able to build back up to pre-armageddon state, and get their population up to 1 MILLION.
It's still the feel good anime, that carries that optimistic, underdog vs the world charm that infects most of Kazuki's work.
The point is, he tells the same story, much in the same way Mamuro Hosoda does. Stop me if you've heard this one before:
Person of lowly stature accidentally comes across something of great power that can disrupt reality as we know it. And since they are PURE OF HEART, they take that power and wield it for the greater good of humanity.
That's literally the plot of most of Kazuki's works. This one is definitely by far the most ambitious one and the most grand scale of it. Instead of building a rocket to the moon, or destroying an evil clothing empire in charge of a prestigious school. Our Toppa Gurren team is taking on creation itself, all piloted in giant robots.
What makes this work, the reluctant hero trope here, in Simone, is bolstered by the most stubborn man alive who is also the most dangerously optimistic that it's infectious, Kamina. This isn't your typical anime either, the reluctant hero stops being reluctant, and turns out to be rather kickass, honoring the memory of his "brother" and taking on creation itself.
Like most of Nakashima's work it has a very PUNK ROCK vibe to it. Flows great, and is nicely self-contained. No need for sequels or supplemental materials. You, ALMOST get everything you want from 27 episodes.
Here in-lies the problem. Episode 12 is a filler recap episode, and then 13 you jump 7 years into the future, and some how humanity not only re-terraformed the surface of earth, but manage to hit 1,000,000 in population after it was later revealed most of the human population was being held underground in tunnel cities being kept there for fear of running into mechs that are giant faces with limbs coming out of them, controlled by a race known as Beast Men.
This is how everything starts. Simone was a grunt digger, one of hundreds of grunt diggers in charge with expanding their tunnel city's real estate. He was an exceptional one. During one of his digs, he finds one of those mechs, that happens to be the smallest of the small mechs. That night, he tells his friend he calls "Big Brother", who tells him that they're going to take that mech and take it to the surface, which they don't know if it actually exists, since no one in the village is alive to have seen it before, that it becomes a myth. Kamina/Big Bro, said his father took him to the surface and gave Kamina a choice, to adventure the unknown with his father, or go back to living underground. Kamina who was like 8 at the time, out of fear, chose the safety of the village and regretted that choice ever since.
While I adore this anime, upon just finishing it again, today, 4/12/2025, cracks start to show, and patterns emerge. The biggest one is, the main villain and rival faction group gets taken care of off-screen and we're instead left with a massive 7 year time skip where apparently society was able to build back up to pre-armageddon state, and get their population up to 1 MILLION.
It's still the feel good anime, that carries that optimistic, underdog vs the world charm that infects most of Kazuki's work.
This anime is one of the rare examples of EVERYONE ELSE IS GREAT, but the main protagonist SUCKS.
The issue is, he's dense, reluctant hero and bipolar. Not clinically, but he definitely goes from annoying victim complex to hero mode too much. These are the anime tropes I hate the most. RELUCTANT HERO. AS AN INITIATING INCIDENT, IT'S FINE; but I want my heroes to be confident. He stays reluctant for too long.
THOUGH, with that said, since this is considered a more "MATURE" anime, and not a shounen, means, the protagonist is merely a vehicle and doesn't have to be the "baddest" person in the room. WHICH, THANK GOD, the other characters while TROPE-IE, are pretty great. Also, it's written well enough, that the first "in-team" mystery of what one of the character's job was before joining the detective agency was easy to figure out, the clues were there, and I guessed it before they told me. Which is sign of good writing. Even the detective episode was pretty good, there were clues to allow you solve the mystery before everyone else.
Just an annoying trope for the protagonist, I just can't stand the angsty teen that's also technically an adult at 18. Thankfully the world is interesting, the other members of the team are great, and the powers are weird and unusual making them quite interesting to see how they get utilized. It does a lot of things right, that it is quite easy to overlook the annoying protagonist. Also, I don't know how this is considered a SEINEN, since it is structured and maturity level much like a Shounen. There are some gross tropes that definitely plague anime, like the incest trope. Though that brother's power is kind of amazing. Light Snow, sounds terrible, but what it actually does is quite cool.
The issue is, he's dense, reluctant hero and bipolar. Not clinically, but he definitely goes from annoying victim complex to hero mode too much. These are the anime tropes I hate the most. RELUCTANT HERO. AS AN INITIATING INCIDENT, IT'S FINE; but I want my heroes to be confident. He stays reluctant for too long.
THOUGH, with that said, since this is considered a more "MATURE" anime, and not a shounen, means, the protagonist is merely a vehicle and doesn't have to be the "baddest" person in the room. WHICH, THANK GOD, the other characters while TROPE-IE, are pretty great. Also, it's written well enough, that the first "in-team" mystery of what one of the character's job was before joining the detective agency was easy to figure out, the clues were there, and I guessed it before they told me. Which is sign of good writing. Even the detective episode was pretty good, there were clues to allow you solve the mystery before everyone else.
Just an annoying trope for the protagonist, I just can't stand the angsty teen that's also technically an adult at 18. Thankfully the world is interesting, the other members of the team are great, and the powers are weird and unusual making them quite interesting to see how they get utilized. It does a lot of things right, that it is quite easy to overlook the annoying protagonist. Also, I don't know how this is considered a SEINEN, since it is structured and maturity level much like a Shounen. There are some gross tropes that definitely plague anime, like the incest trope. Though that brother's power is kind of amazing. Light Snow, sounds terrible, but what it actually does is quite cool.
The premise to this is fine, you've seen it 1000x, "I gots no power, in a world of power." THOUGH, this tries to be very subversive.
PLOT: Simple; boy is born without MAGIC, denoted by a line (or two) on ones' face. THOUGH, in this society, eugenics is the name of the game, and if you're not born with magic, you're literally as good as dead. A man finds Mash, after overhearing him crying in the bushes near the cliff he was about to jump from, to end his own life.
So, it starts out similar to My Hero. It is VERY MUCH structured like Harry Potter, and they're not even shy about it, which is great. It's part of its subversion gimmick.
Where this shines is in the beginning, watching a magic-less user just completely hulk out of any problem that would require magic. At times it's played for a gag, and at other times, it become annoying plot armor. Especially when you notice the pattern.
Most of the fun in this anime comes from watching the writers create "logical in universe" work arounds for Mash's lack of magic. Since he comes off as a dumb character, but you realize he's quite brilliant and extremely inventive. HOW? I don't know? They kind of use the whole, "he had to be clever to go undetected and unmurdered for so long", explanation. It's another one of those, don't think too much about it.
That's the problem, it wants to poke fun at shonen, but also falls into a lot of its trappings. Unearned power-ups or revelations, in Mash's case. Most of the Magic on Magic fights are meh, save for one near the end between two double liners; Orca guy vs Eagle guy. And it does do that thing a lot of these animes do, especially shonen, which is more of a fault of the audience it aims for. Almost every enemy becomes Mash's friend, or learns to respect him.
I like this anime, but season 2 ends with setting up the final boss, this manga has a definitive end, that end has been reached like 2 years ago now... So you can spoil it for yourself if you want. It's as fairytale and predictable as you'd expect.
My biggest issue was by the end, Mash's creativity didn't make much sense especially at the last encounter, where Mash is "flying" by running in place very fast. He does this gimmick during the "Not-Quidditch" match to fly his broom, which worked as a one-off gag, but to try to pass it off as a legit tool in his arsenal is weird.
Without getting too much into it, and spoilers, the last 4 episodes kind of lost me.
PLOT: Simple; boy is born without MAGIC, denoted by a line (or two) on ones' face. THOUGH, in this society, eugenics is the name of the game, and if you're not born with magic, you're literally as good as dead. A man finds Mash, after overhearing him crying in the bushes near the cliff he was about to jump from, to end his own life.
So, it starts out similar to My Hero. It is VERY MUCH structured like Harry Potter, and they're not even shy about it, which is great. It's part of its subversion gimmick.
Where this shines is in the beginning, watching a magic-less user just completely hulk out of any problem that would require magic. At times it's played for a gag, and at other times, it become annoying plot armor. Especially when you notice the pattern.
Most of the fun in this anime comes from watching the writers create "logical in universe" work arounds for Mash's lack of magic. Since he comes off as a dumb character, but you realize he's quite brilliant and extremely inventive. HOW? I don't know? They kind of use the whole, "he had to be clever to go undetected and unmurdered for so long", explanation. It's another one of those, don't think too much about it.
That's the problem, it wants to poke fun at shonen, but also falls into a lot of its trappings. Unearned power-ups or revelations, in Mash's case. Most of the Magic on Magic fights are meh, save for one near the end between two double liners; Orca guy vs Eagle guy. And it does do that thing a lot of these animes do, especially shonen, which is more of a fault of the audience it aims for. Almost every enemy becomes Mash's friend, or learns to respect him.
I like this anime, but season 2 ends with setting up the final boss, this manga has a definitive end, that end has been reached like 2 years ago now... So you can spoil it for yourself if you want. It's as fairytale and predictable as you'd expect.
My biggest issue was by the end, Mash's creativity didn't make much sense especially at the last encounter, where Mash is "flying" by running in place very fast. He does this gimmick during the "Not-Quidditch" match to fly his broom, which worked as a one-off gag, but to try to pass it off as a legit tool in his arsenal is weird.
Without getting too much into it, and spoilers, the last 4 episodes kind of lost me.