Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann – Episode 18
31 July 2007
Okay, okay, I need to breath right now. Dear god, that was one helluva an episode. It’s like being hit by a brick, and you saw that brick coming but you just didn’t want to duck!
A lot of things happened, a lot. It’s so ingenious though, the whole thing. Watching it fall together piece by piece, this episode being the final piece of the puzzle and a prelude to the eminent, epic ending. Eight, eight more episodes and I think I’m going nuts. I’m still in that red swivel (I found a missing screw, now the left armrest can stop falling off) and I can’t do anything. The sheer intensity of the show is just arresting. Really, it’s so intense, at some point I think I just stopped breathing. If it didn’t blur my vision, I would’ve glued my eyeballs to the monitor. I just I’m in shock, not the “I was in a hideous car accident” shock, but more of a “I can’t believe this is happening” sort of shock.
So, basically, the love of Simon’s life, Nia, joined the dark side and is going to exterminate the human race. These Rasen guys and the Han-Rasen guys were fighting a war, and it was just our bad luck to be caught up in it. Lord Genome was actually a valiant Rasen Knight, who was actually trying to protect the humans by suppressing them with fear and keeping them ignorant of their unfortunate fate. The Han-Rasen guys wants the humans dead because they are Spiral creatures which means they can evolve and they’re afraid of evolution (because they’re really all Creationists at heart, joking) because then the humans will develop power. Lagann was a super weapon capable of bonding with any ganmen, and the ganmen were actually made for fighting the Han-Rasen. In three weeks, the moon’s going to fall on the Earth, did I mention that? And they arrested Simon!?
There you have it, ladies and gentlemen, the end of the world. All the cards are on the table, all the pieces in place, I’ve lost all of my marbles and the final arc of Gurren Lagann finally takes flight. To think, we started out with two guys and a girl. I can’t help but think back to the beginning, just to measure how far, how infinitely far and distant, we are from it now. Do you remember Simon? That small little kid, the black hair, the goggles, always digging. That picture, that shot of the picture in the beginning, always gets me. I can’t see tomorrow without remembering yesterday, something like that. Just can’t fathom how big, how massive, this series is. Are there any other words except for epic to describe the enormity and the grandeur of what I feel? It’s like space itself, boundless.
So, where are we going now? Commander Simon’s in jail, the sky is falling-literally, Yoko’s no where, Nia ditched her pink dress for a black bodysuit and eloped with her human exterminating friends, where does that leave the rest of the world? Rossiu basically made Simon the scapegoat for the whole mess. Simon is, indeed, at fault. His behavior was a bit rash and emotional, but I can’t blame him, I can’t bring myself to blame any of them. The conversation between Nia and him was heartbreaking. In fact, the whole thing was heartbreaking. It made me feel absolutely miserable. With all this talk about how she’s never going to be human again, and how they can’t coexist, I hope nothing bad happens.
Black and white right now is looking a lot like gray. The fine line between right and wrong is all but gone. The political situation of the whole mess irks me. The publics’ reaction was expected, no one would be happy to have their house blown up. No one would be happy to have their house blown up with three weeks to the end of the world. For that matter, no one would be happy with the end of the world. The people are basically rallying against the government and, and…Ugh! I’d like black and white to go back to being distinct colors!
I’m going to hold my breath and squeeze my eyes shut, because as much as I want to see the rest of Gurren Lagann, I’m also just a bit afraid of where it’s going. The plot feels like an erupting volcano, at any moment about to blow. Like spreading your arms and just asking for it to pull the trigger. Shoot me, shoot me, I whisper. I’ll be damned disappointed if it doesn’t. Sometimes, it’s so perfect as is, you’re afraid of ruining it. But I’m a curious person, I can’t keep my eyes shut forever. I await, as always, for the next episode.
does bullet speed subs have a website or are they just on irc?
And man the ep are just getting better and better, really can’t wait for the next ep
hope they come out soon!!
@cookiemonster – I think they’re just on IRC because I don’t get anything when I google them. I know, I want Gurren Lagann 19 so badly! XD!
If I can offer you any advice at this point, it would be this. Do not watch episode 19. I have, and I’m regretting it deeply. Not because it’s a bad episode. Not because it was done by the same people who did episode 4. Not because the sea will hate you for it as much as if you eat a devil fruit (sry, I’ve been catching up on my One Piece). It’s simply because…
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It will leave you dying to see episode 20. Even more so than usual. And it’s simply not worth losing your hair to fevered sessions of ripping it out. Without spoiling it, Simon’s situation is going from bad to worse to even more worse. Rossiu is being an even bigger prick than usual, and everyone loves him for it. I so hope that he gets anally raped in the next few episodes. On the other hand, that might just push the rod up his ass even further down his sphincter.
@The Laughing Fool – ….I just saw it…T____T…I know what you mean…