For a show with next to no subtlety, TTGL has some tricky characters; the action-centric nature of the show means most characterization must match the narrative’s frantic pace. I ended up going to the show’s wiki to review the episode summaries in search of solid character arcs, and lo and behold, there they were. Before I go into characters, let me draw a quick comparison between the thematic motifs of TTGL and Eva: while Evangelion was primarily a tale of Breath and Blood (individuality and bonds) riding on top of subplot of Life and Doom (humanity’s next step amid an apocalypse), TTGL is equal parts Life and Hope. These aspects and their respective dualities are both core concepts to the central symbol of Gurren Lagann, the drill.
Kamina the Great
The legend himself. With absurd, intensely optimistic lines like “Believe in the me who believes in you” and an fearless attitude, most speculators have come to view Kamina as Hope embodied with a kickin’ pair of shades. However, I’d like to direct your attention to another legend, a Japanese myth. You see, there was once a weary winter traveler who, despite having built a fire, was doomed to die in the cold if he could not get something to eat. A sympathetic rabbit, knowing no other way to save the man’s life, threw itself into the fire. The man ate and lived, and the rabbit was immortalized by having its visage upon the moon. I tell you this because the night before Kamina died among lava and explosions to save Simon, he expressed a desire to go to moon. As further evidenced by Rei Ayanami, there is a strong correlation (in Gainax productions at least) between the moon and sacrifice. Which is to say, Doom.
Doom, the coverall for any and all losses of energy and forward momentum. Kamina hated that. He hated being confined in a dark hole, he hates rules, and shoots down any order to give up or stop pushing forward. Kamina is a Prince of Doom, one who kicks logic to curb to overcome all limitations. Aside from explaining his exuberant personality, the implicit sub-role Sylph of Life clarifies that his active destruction of negativity also involves giving others energy and allowing others to overcome limitations, making him the perfect partner to the slow-developing Simon. Note how he restores Simon’s will to fight by seeing him grit those teeth and punching him in the face!
The title also offers perspective on how Kamina handles death. He long denied that his father on the surface could possibly be dead, and upon discovering the contrary, is distraught until he decides that his father lives on within him, even in death and takes on his cape. “A real man never dies, even when he’s killed!” accurately sums up Kamina’s world view. Fast forward to the moment Kamina expends the last of his life energy to help Simon destroy an opposing mech, and dies no he does not die! As Simon states when he becomes a man, his bro is dead but lives on inside him which is to say, Simon has assumed Kamina’s classpect! From that moment on, Simon exemplifies both his own role and that of the Prince of Doom!
What role exactly? Let us see.
Simon the Digger
I rather like how many of the show’s characters have their own titles; there’s a nice contrast between titled that are self-declared, inherited, and earned. Simon falls under the last. Let’s view the show’s premise. Simon lives in a world ruled by beastmen, and the majority of earth’s humans are forced to live underground in constant fear. In terms of classpect, an embodiment of the Rage that inflicts Doom has taken over the earth (that there would be such a direct correlation between animals and fear adds to the evidence pile for zenosanalytic’s rage post). To expand territory in case of a cave in and further distance themselves from beastmen, the people of the village are instructed to dig ever deeper to escape the source of their fear. Simon is the best at this. He’s an unbelievably dedicated worker whose constant effort allows him to unearth something amazing: a machine that can fight the beastmen, the embodiments of fear and death.
He unearthed Hope when he found Lagann, and with the drill core he found Life.
Let’s put a rock on the rails of this train of thought track for a bit and chug on over to the relationship between Simon and Kamina: the relationship is that they are equals. Partners. Bros. If Simon starts to getting depressed, Kamina knocks the Life back into him, and if Kamina starts to give in to fears he conceals, the sight of Simon refusing to give in brings him back up. As mentioned earlier, much of the early progress mecha-wise is made by Kamina because as a Doom-destroyer/Life-creator, he was a natural at letting the slow-developing (and deliberately short) Simon to surpass his limits. This is part of why Kamina’s death hits Simon worst of all; not only were they brothers, but Kamina was for a time all that Simon wanted to be, and the only way he was able to move forward. Then with a little help from those around him (especially a certain princess), he comes to realize that Kamina really did destroy death, and now lives on as a part of Simon. Simon embraces Kamina’s classpect as he realizes his own and is finally able to live up to his potential. He gains the ability the destroy those who stand in his way and, just as importantly, inspires and becomes the natural leader of a legion of Gunmen pilots. He becomes a fully realized Page of Hope.
This is why the title is not Gurren or Lagann, but TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN. That which destroys death! That which empowers others with hope!! That which pierces the heavens!!! The drill is Life, and the force that turns and drives the drill forward is Hope!!!!
It’s worth it to take a moment and look at Simon’s behavior after Kamina’s death, and hope that it lines up nicely with a Thief of Rage. Or rather, a thief that acts through pure, animal emotion? He certainly does become angry and selfish, crawling on all fours to combat Gunmen while insisting he can do it alone. And with the exception of Kittan, his outbursts seem to silence people instead of inducing an emotional response. But more the postmortem episode, I feel this was exemplified when he knocked the sense back into a suicidal Rossiu after the time skip, with a punch that deliberately resembles that of our Prince of Doom, Kamina. Two for one, I’ll take it.
However, the ultimate example of Simon’s power is his ability to assimilate. He can take any Gunmen, any symbol of Hope, and make it his own; it doesn’t matter how big. He ultimate combines the powers of all his comrades, living and dead, into a force the size of the galaxy and with that combined strength, fights off a living embodiment of Doom, the anti-Spiral.
I think this would explain why B1 Jake assimilated so many corporations under his belt? It’s worth a thought. But yeah.
Kamina the Great: Prince of Doom, sub-role Sylph of Life
Simon the Digger: Page of Hope, sub-role Thief of Rage (later assumes Kamina’s role)
On to the next one.
Princess Nia
I was really, really confused when I first saw Nia. I think that was the magic of the scene; she was dropped into Simon’s life out of nowhere, and we got to be just as confused as he was for a moment. Then she pops out to the coffin with a burst of golden beams of light around a face made of rainbows and starts firing off questions like it’s her first day in Kindergarten. That natural inclination of hers, to question, comes to define Nia. Asking why she was born got her throw out of the house. The angry responses she gets from team Dai-Gurren for her ignorance regarding Kamina lead her to realize just how little she understands about the worth of people in general, and about life. However, when she comes to understand, she doesn’t act on it; she lectures. Lectures enemies in the middle of battle about why the war is wrong, how both sides have lost friends, and how life is worth enough to stop the cycle of violence. What I’m getting at is that Nia grows into a fine Seer of Life, one who understands energy, uses her wisdom to guide others, and allows others to be revitalized. For a series driven by Life and Hope, I suppose it’s only natural that the character void would be filled eventually; in fact, one could say that Nia was the one who enabled Simon to see that Kamina was still alive within himself. I really like that thought.
As a Seer of Life, it’s only natural that her cooking would be absolutely awful; her active sub-role is that of a Witch of Doom, one who actively changes destruction or causes destructive changes in energy. So unlike Betty Crocker, her treats give everyone nausea. The only exception is the ascended Simon; he’s a Prince of Doom as well, so he can eat whatever she cooks just fine. This title also, of course, describes her actions under the influence of the anti-Spiral. Nia’s colorful eyes turn black, and she states that she can no longer see any point in human existence. Again the moon appears as an active symbol of Doom (“Hell’s Messenger” was the exact phrase, I believe), as the corrupted Nia transformed it into a device capable of wiping out humanity. Lucky for humanity, she realized that her desire to be with Simon allowed her to resist, and the moon was changed yet again from an instrument of despair to one of Hope. I realize it must seem awfully flaky that the moon is suddenly rage and hope instead of life and doom, but all I can really tell you is that the two dualities are intrinsically meshed in this series. Nia rants multiple times about how the Anti-spiral wish to make the human race despair… And if you still have any objection to this, I can only direct you to one place.
Princess Nia: Seer of Life, sub-role Witch of Doom
Moving right along to the next female character.
Yoko the Teacher
She only uses this title when on the island and is otherwise without any title at all, unless “fan-service” is a title. Yoko waves off questions about her choice of dress by saying that they’re easier to move around in; this is most likely a cop out, but she says it, so we have to believe that’s how she views things. Yoko wants to be as maneuverable as possible. We see her on the show contorting into weird angles, making impossible shots with her sniper from improbable locations, and overall making the best of what she’s given to forward her cause, the reclaiming of the surface. Yoko wields the space around her to promote growth, making her a Knight of Space. This inconspicuous role reveals a bit about why she remains in the background. The show is spearheaded by characters with lofty aspects like Life and Hope, but she remains a very practical person who simply fights for room for people to grow and thrive on the surface.
She’s usually not a destroyer; whether it was knocking the horse-bot’s missiles off course, narrowly blasting Adiane’s stinger to allow Simon to grab Nia, or holding off a variety of Gunmen until someone is able to take care of it, Yoko’s actions often served as a means of giving her teammates more time. That’s a pretty snug fit for a Rogue of Time, one who moves inevitability around, and buying someone else more time allows them to grow! This also sheds light on part of reaction to Kamina’s death; as a wellspring of Life, Kamina had the potential to aid the exodus of the human race that Yoko sought. Furthermore, as a natural rogue, she is frustrated by her failure to help Kamina avert that inevitability, making her feel complicit in his death.
All that said, let’s take a quick look at her time as a teacher: having achieved her original goal of achieving the surface’s safe population, Yoko decided to forgo violence, cover up (thus forgoing her maneuverability), and settle down, briefly giving up her influence on the main narrative. However, even then her natural inclinations show through! To teach is to guide the healthy growth of the next generation, and she uses practiced manipulation of space to direct her class by way of throwing chalk and climbing to high places. She reverts to her fully active form to stop the Gunmen that threaten the island and resolves to help quell the anti-Spiral threat, as the growth of humanity is once again threatened. A very noble soul.
Yoko Littner: Knight of Space, sub-role Rogue of Time
So there we are. The drill is life, and it is pushed forward with hope. There are yet important figures in the plot’s unfolding, but I don’t want this post to be too lengthy, so I’m going to cut it off at these four for now. But have no doubt, Rossiu, Kittan, Viral, and a few others will get their own post in the near future.
You're the TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN FANDOM and you wonder WHO THE HELL else you could have been. Your hobbies and interests include KICKING LOGIC TO THE CURB, FIGHTING THE POWER, and BELIEVING in the people who believe in you. You're powered by the HOPES and dreams of mankind and will soon use that power to PIERCE THE HEAVENS.
