Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

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"Go beyond the impossible, and kick reason to the curb! That's the Team Gurren way!"— Kamina

"Don't believe in yourself! Believe in me! Believe in the Kamina who believes in you!"— Kamina

"Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!"— And, for a change of pace, Kamina

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann (roughly "Heaven-piercing Crimson Face") is what happens when you ask Studio Gainax to create a Saturday Morning Cartoon.

Lonely orphan Simon lives in an underground village, digging for ancient artifacts and eating pigmoles. His self-appointed big brother, Kamina, is a hot-headed idiot who dreams of going to the "Surface" like his father, despite the village elder's insistence that there's no such thing.

Then Simon discovers a strange drill-shaped key and, later on, a pint-sized mecha that seems to respond to the key.

Taking his "brother" to see it, they're interrupted by, in turn, the elder, the roof collapsing, a massive robot, and a woman with a very big gun and very little clothing.

Thus begins a rollercoaster ride of Fanservice, over-the-top fights between giant robots, hot-bloodedness, and sunglasses. Don't try reading any science into it; common theory holds that the show's universe is literally governed by Rule Of Cool and Rule of Funny. On Mohs Scale Of Science Fiction Hardness, it ranks as one of the softest.

There have been two Compilation Movies, and three manga (a slightly altered version of the anime, a High School AU, and a third set in an Alternate Universe focusing on Simon and Nia). There's also a Buddy Cop Show Fan Comic by the name of Double K.

Was going to be released by ADV Films, but was suddenly lifted from their license list and given to Bandai. The English dub, under the title Gurren Lagann, began showing in America on Sy Fy right before Now and Then, Here and There, and then MD Geist. Due to the positive response, they then reran it from the beginning right before Rave Master. Sy Fy is currently on their third rerun.

The entire anime series is now legally available on Youtube, Netflix, and Hulu... at least in the United States and Canada (On Netflix, it's only available in the US.)

Late Arrival Spoiler Warning: Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was extremely popular on the Internet during its broadcast in Japan and the months afterwards due to a substantial trope quotient and a large amount of Memetic Mutation. Most of the spoilers below are marked as such, but quite a few aren't. If you are interested in seeing the series for yourself, it is generally recommended that you refrain from reading any further.

[edit] This series features examples of:

  • The Abridged Series
    • Of particular note is Gurren Lagann The Satire which somehow manages to make the series even more epic. This is partially due to the fact that the creator has access to what amounts to a book from Gainax called the "Word Of God Data Collection" that allows him to take advantage of creator footnotes.
  • Abusing The Kardashev Scale For Fun And Profit: Thanks to Spiral Power, Humanity starts out as pretty much Type -1, then shoots all the way to Type 4 and beyond in 7 years!.
    • Technically, they went from Type -1 to Type 0 in seven years. They got up to 4 in a only a few days!.
    • In the movie, : they get up to type 4+. Hell, their battle causes the whole universe they're in to COLLAPSE.
    • Then they settle down to Type 1, after the big fight.
  • Action Dress Rip: Yoko, when she needed to rescue a little kid stuck in a tree
  • Action Girl: Yoko
  • Adaptation Distillation: By shoehorning the battles with the Four Generals into the last half hour of the first movie and giving different parts to different characters, the story is more streamlined and the film ends with an epic battle.
    • The second movie crunches twelve episodes into two hours, and somehow makes it work.
  • Adaptation Expansion: The manga adds in a few additional scenes not found in the anime. Such as how Nia wound up in the box that Simon would later find. And a converstation between Thymilph and Adiane thats gives a little insight to their relationship.
    • There's even an additional bit before the final battle of the first half about Nia's sister.
  • Aerith and Bob: And how!
  • Affectionate Parody: Not only are the heroes Determinators, as they would be in a bona fide Super Robot show, but they can also win literally on pure determination.
  • A Form You Are (Un)Comfortable With: The Anti-Spiral in the final battle.
  • After The End
  • All Men Are Perverts: Played with. Kamina believes voyeurism to be 'the height of the male soul' (and Simon at least goes along until he's complimented on his real manliness by Yoko).
  • All Your Powers Combined: The Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
    • In the movie, it splits up into its base parts—Simon in Tengen Toppa Lagann, Nia's Tengen Toppa Solvernia, Viral's Tengen Toppa Enkidulga, Yoko's Tengen Toppa Yoko W Tank, the twins' Tengen Toppa Twin Vulcan, Kidd's Tengen Toppa Kidd Knuckle, Iraak's Tengen Toppa Ainzaurus, Zorthy's Tengen Toppa Sozoshin, Makken's Tengen Toppa Moshogun, and Darry and Gimmy's Tengen Toppa Grapearl, with the rest of the crew in the Tengen Toppa Dai-Gurren. And then they re-combine to create SUPER TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN, which is even bigger.
      • How big is that last one? Let's put it into perspective. The original Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is almost as big as just its face. Almost.
      • And The Grand Zamboa only comes to its foot. barely.
      • And by foot, we mean heel.
  • Animation Bump: Episode 15 (the end of the first half) looks like a movie version compared to everything we had seen before, especially Gurren Lagann's flight-to and fight with Teppelin's hand and the battle with Lordgenome. Add it half the episode is evening colored instead of the usual bright daytime.
    • The movies also have this, and to a larger extent than the TV show. The first film gets a massive animation bump beginning with Simon climbing Cytomander's Gunmen using only his Core Drill, all in order to save Nia, which lasts all the way to the film's credits. The second film contains an even better (and more beautiful) Animation Bump when the fight between Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and the Granzeboma elevates into a fight between Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann and the Super Granzeboma.
  • Anime Anatomy: Averted with the final scenes of the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. It's either cold in space or Simon kicking every single bit of ass possible makes both Nia and Yoko very happy. You may not notice it due to all the awesome though.
  • Anime First
  • Antagonist In Mourning: Viral can't help but feel sad for Kamina's death.
    • Potentially averted. Maybe he's just upset that he's been losing to a little kid all this time...
      • And yet, he only really cheers up when he and adult Simon are in the showers together. It makes sense in context.
  • Antivillain: Lordgenome and the Anti-spirals
  • Anyone Can Die: Kamina does, and so do a bunch of other characters while fighting the Anti-Spiral, and Nia dies at the end.
  • Apocalypse How: Pre-timeskip Earth is a class 2. The Anti-Spirals try to inflict a Class 6 on Earth (by using the moon for a Colony Drop), to keep humanity from eventually causing a Class X-4, if the stuff about the Spiral Nemesis is true. The final fight againt the Anti-Spiral causes a few class X-3s.
    • Eh, they're fighting in a pocket dimension forged by their own perceptions during the final battle. Nothing that exists there is 'real' except the characters themselves.
  • Apocalypse Maiden: Princess Nia.
  • Applied Phlebotinum: Spiral Power.
  • The Aragorn: Kamina of course; though Kittan assumes the role after Kamina dies, even getting two days in the limelight in the second arc.
  • Arc Words: "Yours is the drill that will pierce the Heavens!"
  • Armor Piercing Question: Anti-Spiral Nia insists that she is a virtual lifeform with no emotional ties to her past. Simon counters with: "If that's really true, why are you still wearing that ring?" This brings about the conclusion of the "I Know You're in There Somewhere" Fight and Nia's transition from Manchurian Agent to Distressed Damsel.
  • Art Shift: Nia's paper-cutout flashback in Episode 11. Also, the animation switches to a light, heavily sketchy style during times of extreme hot-bloodedness along with Lordgenome most of the time, whether the rest of the shot is sketchy or not, probably because he has a truly preposterous amount of Spiral energy. Also, the art style changes noticeably in episode 4 due to having a different director.
  • Artistic Age: Kamina is supposed to be about 17 or 18 (which he does look), but Simon is supposed to be fourteen and Yoko is supposed to be around the same age (likely a bit older than Simon). This is lampshaded in the background material by claiming that, without the sun, most of the villages lost the ability to tell time, so no one really knows how old anyone is.
  • Ascended Meme: In Super Robot Wars Z2, you can get Kamina's shades as an equippable item. They give +20 to starting morale.
  • Authority Equals Asskicking: Thymilph, Lordgenome and the Anti-Spirals all succeed in doing major damage to Team Dai-Gurren.
    • Lordgenome beats the f*** out of a mecha with HIS BARE HANDS. 'nuff said.
  • Autobots, Rock Out!: Viral's Leitmotif is highly badass heavy metal.
  • Awesome, But Impractical: Filled to the brim with this, but for a completely logical reason.
    • Actually, a bit of of a subversion. The universe running on Rule Of Cool means that anything sufficiently awesome is automatically practical.
  • Awesomeness Is Volatile: And of course, the entire point of Spiral Nemesis is that too much awesome will destroy the universe.
  • Back-to-Back Badasses: Kidd and Iraak, during their Heroic Sacrifice.
  • Bad Ass: Just about the entire stinkin' cast! Kamina takes it to Refuge In Audacity levels.
  • Bad Ass Boast: The reputation of Team Gurren echoes far and wide across Giha village! When they talk about its badass leader, that paragon of indomitable spirit and masculinity... they're talkin' about THE MIGHTY KAMINA!!
    • Simon gives us this gem:"I'm Simon. Dai-Gurren Birgade's Leader, Simon the Digger. If you become a wall that stands in our way, I'll tear open a hole and break through every time! That is...my drill!"
  • Badass Cape: Kamina, of course.
    • The Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann comes with one made of spiral power. Justified in that said mecha looks like a giant glowing blue Kamina.
  • Badass Creed: Just about all of Kamina's catch phrases could qualify.
    "Go beyond the impossible and kick reason to the curb!"Kamina:Your drill is the drill that will pierce the heavens!
  • Badass Longcoat Prologue and post-Timeskip Simon
  • Badass Normal: Surprisingly enough? Kamina. A Word Of God book states that when it comes to comparing Spiral Energy levels across the series, Kamina's is one of the lowest of the cast, which is justified by the fact that most of his bravado is a facade that inspires others and is intentionally invoked to keep people from thinking of him as weak.
  • Badass Strategist - Surprisingly enough, Kamina. Admit it. In every single battle Kamina was in, he came up with some plan that would eventually result in victory. After his death, the Dai-Gurren Brigade stopped using strategies at all.
    • To elaborate: First battle: Kamina tells Simon to use the Lagann and eventually take down the Gunmen. Second battle: He comes up with a plan for taking control of the Gunzan. Third battle: He thinks of a way to combine the strengths of Gurren and Lagann, which led to Gurren-Lagann's creation. Fourth battle: He sees through the 16-faced Gunmen's strength and finds a way to defeat it. Sixth battle: He actually seems to notice that the ground is cracking a bit, and lets Simon take control, as he knows exactly where to place the drills. Seventh battle: He comes up with the plan for taking over Dai-Gunzan and winning the battle, but dies in the process. Afterwards: Dai-Gurren-Dan Strategies become: "Go there. Find the most impossible way to kill whatever is there. Kill it using that method."
  • Badass Teacher - Yoko becomes one after the Time Skip. Do NOT threaten her students. She'll show you that she hasn't lost her sniper skills.
    • If you happen to be a student, watch out for flying chalk that can crack concrete.
  • Bad Export For You: The US release of Lagann-hen. During the final battle, there are several scenes, mostly involving the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, where the animation looks different, and noticably inferior, to the Japanese release.
  • Balloon Belly: Briefly happened to Kamina in Episode 6.
    Kamina: A man's stomach knows no limit! Keep 'em on coming!
  • Bash Brothers: Simon and Kamina. Later Simon and Viral. Kidd and Iraak from Team Dai-Gurren count too, even though we don't see them in action until near the end.
  • Batman Can Breathe In Space
  • The Battlestar: The Dai-Gunzan becomes Team Gurren's mobile fortress "Dai-Gurren" after it's seized from the Beastmen army. It gets an upgrade after the Time Skip when the moon is revealed to be an old Spiral Base, and is converted into the new "Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren"
  • Beach Episode: Used straight and subverted: Most of the girls get the usual treatment...except for Yoko and Nia; the former ends up wearing a swimsuit less revealing than her normal clothes, while the latter does even better with a full body swimsuit. However, it's no Filler episode as it features crucial Character Development and the death of a recurring villain.
  • Beady Eyed Loser: Simon starts off as one.
  • Beam-o-War: Twice. With drills. It even collapses a pocket universe the second time.
  • Beam Spam: There's a reason why Attenborough is known by fans as "Beam Spam McMuppet".
  • Belligerent Sexual Tension: Kamina and Yoko, very much so. The bickering, the insults, the beating, the denial, the Accidental Perversion that leds to a beating; its all there.
    • A rare example of this trope being Played For Drama due to certain plot developments.
  • Beneath The Earth: Most of humanity had been forced underground by forces unknown a long time ago. The first part of the series revolves around liberating the repressed humans.
  • The Berserker: The entire cast!.
    • Exception: Nia, her CMOA in Lagann-Hen notwithstanding.
  • Berserker Tears: Simon in episode 11.
  • Beyond The Impossible: The Trope Namer, as shown by the first quote on that page.
  • BFG: Yoko's rifle.
    • It's clearly based on the Barrett M82 anti-materiel rifle, a Cool Rifle.
  • BFS: Kamina's katana. Possibly lampshaded in Kamina's on-foot battle with Viral; he spends a good ten seconds drawing the thing.
  • Bicep Polishing Gesture: Bruce Ironstaunch.
  • Big Brother Mentor: Kamina; although he's not Simon's real brother, he considers himself his soul brother.
  • Big Damn Heroes: Happens all the bloody time.
  • Bigger Is Better: The Gurren Lagann just keeps getting bigger... and bigger... and bigger...
    • Subverted in that at the end it then gets smaller... and smaller...
  • Bishounen: Kamina to an extent, as well as Cytomander. Post-timeskip, Simon and Rossiu.
    • Although in Cytomander's case it can be easily hidden behind what we might call his "enthusiasm".
  • Bird Run: The Spiral King's Rasengann does this (strangely, the man himself does not).
  • Bishounen Line: As the Team Dai Gurren mechs get stronger, they begin to get more humanoid, yet monsterous. Their final phase, Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, is a sudden transition from a multi-faced mech samurai to a large, blue tribute to the founder of their group.
    • Justified because, as Lord Genome explains, the human form is the one most conducive to generating Spiral Power.
  • Bittersweet Ending: Nia dies just after getting married to Simon, who spends the rest of his days Walking The Earth with Boota..
  • Black Box: Every Gunmen, specifically Gurren Lagann (Well, mostly Lagann. It is over 1000 years old, made by an advanced alien species we know nothing about) has these, and mass-production versions of Gurren Lagann made without these are superior to Lordgenome's old clunky Gunmen, right? Hell No. Apparently, if you make a bunch of Gurren Laganns post-timeskip without the inexplicable ability to summon huge drills from nowhere, that odd, presumably appendix-like engine that allows it to run on Spiral Power, and on top of that replace the Gunmen pilots with a bunch of people who weren't in the original (Dai-)Gurren Brigade, all you get is a Redshirt Army. Go figure.
  • Blade Brake - OVA
  • The Blank: The Anti-Spiral robots
    • Only appropriate, as "Mugann" can be translated as "faceless".
  • Blunt Metaphors Trauma: Nia.
  • Boisterous Bruiser: Kamina.
  • Bokukko: The not-particularly-masculine and very enthusiastic Kiyal uses the even more masculine "ore", which really stands out in her very feminine voice.
  • Book Ends: Well, sort of, the technique that was used to defeat the Big Bad wasn't the Giga Drill Break, it was the very first team attack that Kamina and Simon used to defeat two Gunmen, throwing Lagann at the enemy, impaling them.
    • Lagann-hen starts with the melee fight between Simon and Lordgenome ending with Lordgenome having a big hole in his chest. Guess how the Anti-Spiral ends up going down?
      • To make it even better, look at the dialogue in between the battles, you'll notice several parallels.
    • "All The Lights in the Sky..."
  • Boss Subtitles: When some of the mightier Gunmen are introduced, along with their pilots.
    • Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann has them as well. And in The Movie version of the Anti-Spiral arc, everyone gets one.
  • Breaking The Bonds: Done by Kamina in the first episode, as well as Lordgenome in the 15th.
  • Breaking the Fourth Wall: Done in the Hot Springs Episode in reference to the censoring blur on the female naked apes of Team Gurren. Kamina points it out, and is overall confused by it. That's right folks, Team Gurren really does live up to their theme and "breaks the unbreakable".
    • From the same episode's Clip Show segment, when it gets to Viral's first appearance...Kamina: Wait. That guy was in the show?Simon: Huh? You forgot him already?
    • Painting the Fourth Wall: In the same episode, Darry and Gimmi are notably surprised when the notice Kamina's and Simon's splitscreens appearing above them, and actually begin looking around for where it's coming from.
    • Grand Zamboa does this to end the Dai Gurren Dan's triumphant speech in Lagann Hen.
  • Broken Aesop: Some consider the ending this.
    • However, it could be argued that it really isn't, since there's more than one theme in the series, and while the "no such thing as impossible" theme is the most obvious, the idea of victory coming at a price is prevalent as well, the battle for Dai-Gunzen being the clearest example.
      • "Mark my words! This drill will open a hole in the universe! And that hole will be a path for those behind us! The dreams of those who've fallen! The hopes of those who'll follow! Those two sets of dreams weave together into a double helix! Drilling a path towards tomorrow! And that's Tengen Toppa! That's Gurren Lagann!! My drill is the drill...THAT CREATES THE HEAVENS!!!" The ending reminds us that we must remember to pave the way for the future, that we won't be here forever. That Passing The Torch is just as important as lighting it.
  • Building Swing: Simon and Yoko do it by sticking the Gurren Lagann's drills on enemy aircraft!.
  • Bunny-Ears Lawyer: Several. Leeron is the first to come to mind.
  • Calling Your Attacks: Giga Drill Break is the most famous, but at one point it's parodied as well."HANDS-OFF-MY-BELOVED-LITTLE-BROTHER PUUUUUUUUNCH!" "WHO-THE-HELL-DO-YOU-THINK-I-AM KICK!!!" Also, in the same episode..Finishing Move! PERFECT COMBUSTION OF MANLY SOULS CANNONBALL ATTAAAACK! "MAN ON FIIIIIRE! BLAZING CHARIOT! KIIIIIIIIIICK!!!" MY-WIFE-IS-THE-BEST-IN-THE-UNIVERSE-SWING!!!
    • The Anti-Spiral King plays it straight in the finale: "Infinity...Big Bang! STTTTOOOOORRRRRRMMMMMMM!"
  • Canon Foreigner: The Manga introduces Princess Straea, an elderly abandoned Spiral Princess who runs the all-female village and wants Nia to succeed her post. And had a past with Old Coco.
  • Camp Gay: Leeron.
    • Then we have Leeron's theme tune, "He is so XXX". The following message is spelled out in individual letters: "Leeron is gay. He is so gay. Gay. He loves my asshole. Asshole."
  • Cape Swish: Everyone with clothes past their waist does this at least once. Same goes for any mecha with trailing parts.
  • The Captain: Dayakka, after the team takes command of Dai-Gurren.
  • Cartwright Curse: Any man Yoko starts to express anything resembling nonplatonic affection for dies very soon. She kisses Kamina and he gets his Heroic Sacrifice clearing up Simon's Heroic BSOD. Seven years later she admits she admires Kittan's contributions, even compared to Kamina's... which concludes in a kiss right before HIS own Rule Of Cool Heroic Sacrifice. Given that death follows her lips, fans of Simon should be GLAD she never gave him the eye.
    • Because of this she is even known as Doombitch
  • Cast Of Snowflakes - crowd scenes are impressively detailed, and include quite a few recurring extras. Bruce Ironstaunch only appears once, however.
    • Twice, actually- besides his iconic moment during Rossiu's speech, he makes an appearance as one of the Arc-Gurren's passengers. Not doing the arm thing, though.
  • Catch Phrase: Kamina has several, all of which border on being Arc Words: "Who the hell do you think I am!?"
    • The Mouth Flaps actually match fairly well from Japanese to English, so WTHDYTIA didn't have to be altered at all.
    • Just so you know, in Japanese it's 俺を誰だと思ってやがる "Ore o dare da to omotte yagaru?!")
  • Catchphrase Interruptus: WTHDYTIA, the last time it's used in the show.
  • Cephalothorax: the Gunmen.
  • Cerebus Syndrome
  • The Chains Of Commanding - Rossiu despairs of them once.
  • Character Development
  • Char Clone - Viral fits this trope, he even does a very Char-esque Heel Face Turn. The difference lies in their levels of sheer hot-bloodedness.
  • Chastity Couple - In spite of all blatant Fanservice, Simon and Nia fit this trope perfectly. They just had one on-screen kiss before her death.
  • Chekhov's Boomerang - Nia's engagement ring, which coincides with her Face Heel Turn into the Anti-Spiral messenger, is later used to find her and the Anti Spiral homeworld, and is then used once again as a gateway to allow Simon and the Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann to get to the Anti Spiral King.
    • This is even more impressive when you note that the engagement ring's gem is the same rock that Simon gave Nia in Episode 11.
  • Chekhov's Skill - Lagann's ability to combine with other Gunmen crops up several times after it first combines with Gurren. The first time it's used as part of Kamina's plan to hijack the Dai-Gunzan, after which it's mostly forgotten until after the timeskip, when Simon suddenly pulls it out again to combine Gurren-Lagann with the Arc-Gurren and form the Arc-Gurren-Lagann.
    • It was used during the fight against Lordgenome, who detonated Lazengann's arm to prevent it.
  • Chekhov's Volcano
  • Chewing The Scenery
  • Chiaroscuro
  • City in a Bottle: Jeeha, Simon and Kamina's village; Kamina always keeps getting in trouble because he firmly believes in the surface, and the elder doesn't start believing until Yoko and a Gunmen crash through the ceiling.
  • Clap Your Hands If You Believe: The Gunmen, especially Gurren Lagann, pretty much run on the sheer power of belief and hot blood.
  • Clip Show: Episode 16 (and most of 6, in the TV-version), which recap the entire story thus far.
    • The movies are arguably glorified clip shows until the endings.
  • Close Call Haircut: Nia is being held hostage by an enemy mech, but Yoko destroys it by shooting through Nia's hair.
  • Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Nia; at first it seems to come from her sheltered up-bringing but it quite clear she isn't all there in the head when even after 7 years in the outside world she still surprises everyone with her quirky misunderstandings. Simon even remarks he has a hard time understanding what she says.
  • Colony Drop: After the time skip, the moon is sent on a head-on collision with the Earth..
  • Combat Break Down: Simon vs. Lordgenome.
    • Starts with Gurren Lagann vs. Lazengann. Both get trashed.
    • Continues with Lagann (just the head) vs. Lordgenome punching it barehanded.
    • Lordgenome actually wins that one and pulls Simon out of the cockpit. Simon responds by stabbing Lordgenome with his fricking car keys. The resulting explosion pops the top off Teppelin.
      • Actually, the top came of Teppelin prior to the car keys. The destruction of the Lazengann might have been what caused that. Or the sheer awesomeness of both GL and the Lazengann turning into giant drills and drilling each other.
    • Lagann-hen's finale. It happens really fast at the end. It starts with Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann versus Super Grand Zamboa. They both smash their giant drills together. Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break falls apart to Super Grand Zamboa's drill. Then Zamboa's drill beats Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Break, then Super Galaxy Giga Drill Break, then Arc Giga Drill Break, before finally being beaten by the original Giga Drill Break, sending Gurren Lagann flying at Super Grand Zamboa. It breaks down more from there. Super Grand Zamboa sends some drill tendrils at Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann plows through after taking some hit. The Anti Spiral homeworld shoots some more tendrils at Gurren Lagann. Viral uses Gurren to throw Lagann at the Anti Spiral homeworld to get past the tendrils. Breaks down further to the Anti Spiral himself shooting tendrils at Lagann, breaking open the cockpit, causing Lagann to come alive and throw Simon at the Anti Spiral. From there on out it's down all the way from giant energy beings 500 million lightyears tall to Simon and the Anti Spiral going at it with their bare fists.
  • Combat Tentacles: The Anti-Spiral and his personal mech.
    • Adiane's mech also displays this when she first shows up.
  • Combining Mecha: Parodied when Kamina tries to accomplish this by just sticking Simon's mecha on top of his own, only to have it work anyway. Simon is able later to repeat this trick with a battleship, a winged mini-mech, an even bigger battleship, and the Moon..
    • Further parodied in the manga adaptation, where Kamina gets it in his head that Lagann Gurren: Gurren on top, Lagann on the bottom. might work. It doesn't.
    • In the Compilation Movie the mecha of the Four Generals: with Viral taking Thymilph's place. combine into one massive robot rather than the generals fighting the Team Gurren individually.
    • In addition to being a combination of every mecha/spaceship it has fused with to this point, the titular mecha also includes several other Laganns that had been abandoned in previous failed attempts to defeat the Anti Spiral, each piloted by a team member.
    • In Lagann-Hen the Tengen Toppa Gunmen that step in after Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is destroyed, including Tengen Toppa Lagann, turn into raw spiral power and combine to form Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. This trope can also be extended to the other Gurren Laganns, all of which are inside of Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's head.
  • Comes Great Responsibility: The last part of the show seems to carry this message to a great extent.
  • Coming Of Age Story
  • Commedia Dell Arte Troupe: The entire cast fits just fine in the High School AU.
  • Conspicuous CG: The Anti-Spiral Mugann mecha look like refugees from TRON.
    • And it works. The first time a Mugann shows up becomes a bonafide Oh Crap moment because it's so entirely different from any other enemy seen in the series sofar.
  • Contrived Coincidence: Needed for the Diabolus Ex Machina moment and lampshaded with little more than the affected character shouting WHAT A TWEEEEEST!.
    • This actually supposed to be part of the thematic development in the show. Not only was Nia captured by the same fate as her father, it was actually supposed to tie in with her overall development as someone that wasn't born to be a human. It was also more beneficial to the heroes than to the villains, if Nia hadn't been the Messenger Earth would be doomed and they would never find the Anti-Spiral homeworld. It's basically the same deal as Simon finding the Lagann.
  • Cool Big Sis: Yoko.
  • Cool Helmet: Gurren Lagann's, stolen from Viral's Gunman
  • Cool People Rebel Against Authority
  • Cool Shades: Even the robots have them.
  • Cool Ship: The Dai-Gunzan/Dai-Gurren, followed by the Arc-Gurren and finally the Cathedral Terra/SuperGalaxy Dai-Gurren.
  • Conservation Of Ninjutsu: The Gunmen in season 1 seem to adhere to this, especially with regard to Yoko's rifle: whenever there's one Gunman, her shots barely faze it. When there's an army of them: like in the battle to capture Dai-Gunzan, they're dropping like flies.
    • To be fair, there's a big difference in the single Gunmen she was shooting at (Enki) and the ones she was against in the battle. Enki, like the General's Gunmen, is of a higher-caliber (which Adiane points out during her own battle) than those issued to lower-ranking soldiers. That it would be resistant to human weapons more than a standard one is logical.
      • On the other hand, the Gunmen from episode one was pretty run-of-the-mill, and her bullets didn't do jack to that one either.
      • At the same time, though, Kamina prevented her from shooting at it's weak-points several times
      • Played straight with the second Gunman they saw. In the second episode it takes her three shots just to stun it. Later, several more gunman of the same class and model comprise the standard beastmen army and her rifle picks them off like crazy. Possibly justified in that she upgraded her rifle the night before, but still it's a stretch.
  • Corporal Punishment: Adiane beats up on Viral for his failure against the heroes. It's rather painful to watch.
  • Corrupt Church: partially subverted; the religion of Rossiu's village is faked, but only to Shoot the Dog when it's honestly necessary.
    • Though after the Time Skip, Rossiu seems to be reverting somewhat to the patterns of this phony faith, as Simon points out.
  • Cracking Up: The Arc Gurren-Lagann cracks its neck.
  • Cute Bruiser: While she never actually gets to fight hand-to-hand, Nia is freakishly strong, especially given her small size pre-timeskip.
  • Cute Little Fang: Kiyal.
  • Cute Shotaro Boy: Simon, pre-Time Skip, as well as Gimmy both pre and post-Time Skip.
  • Dare To Be Badass: Kamina's whole character is pretty much based around providing this sort of motivation to the other characters. Hell, this could be considered basically the entire message of the series, seeing as all the incredibly awesome stuff they accomplish is caused simply by daring to a Badass.
  • Darker and Edgier: The second movie, Lagann-hen, had a run-in with this trope. Even though Jorgin and Balinbou survived the initial Anti-Spiral attack, Kittan still died, and the scenes in the film were more brutal and graphic this time around than in the TV anime. Such instances of brutality included Simon coughing up blood from exerting too much Spiral Power, the Tengen Toppa mechs all bleeding (which seems to be a bit of a loving jab towards another work from Gainax) from the Anti-Spiral's no-holds-barred beatdown, Simon coughing up even more blood from said beatdown, and the more subtle, less-epic manner in which the film handled Rossiu's attempted suicide. Also Nia got at least a whole thirty seconds of screentime dedicated to showing off her (albeit beautiful) toplessness
  • Dawson Babies: In a manner of speaking- the daughter of Dayakka and Kiyoh is born with a full head of hair and generally looks many months old from the first.
  • Death Is A Sad Thing: Many of the characters express regret at the death of Kamina.
    • The entire Dai Gurren team in Lagann Hen fights with unmatched fury after the death of Kittan
  • Death Is Dramatic: Played as straight as possible.
  • Decon Recon Switch: Up until the death of Kamina, this is a deconstruction. It does not take itself seriously, and mocks most of the tropes comprising it. After that event, it bops us over the head, asking us: "Dude, did you not forget that these things are awesome?"
  • Decoy Protagonist: Kamina definitely takes up most of the spotlight during the first act, but his death kind of disqualifies him of protagonistship.
    • 'The man who has yet to realise his destiny' isn't Kamina.
      • Actually, he is the Protagonist for much of the first arc, no decoy about it. His actions and influence is commiserate with the Protagonist role. He Passes the Torch when the time comes.
      • True, but since that time comes about halfway through episode 1, he barely counts as a true Protagonist.
      • And the episode starts off following Simon as protagonist to begin with. Kamina is basically straight introduced as The Aragorn of this show.
  • Delayed Explosion: Happens a lot. Often done to give the heroes time to strike a pose after a kill.
  • Despair Gambit: The Anti-spirals' and Lordgenome's MO. Ultimately backfires.
  • Destructive Saviour: the alternate Team Gurren in Parallel Works 6.
    • Simon, when the muganns appear for the first time.
  • Determinator: The whole cast.Kamina: A true man never dies, even when he's killed!
    • Special mention must be made of Lordgenome, who manages to walk around delivering his dying words without the benefit of lungs, a heart, or a spinal cord, as they have been removed via drill.
  • Deus Angst Machina Played for laughs in the High School AU with Simons past
  • Diabolus Ex Machina: see Contrived Coincidence.
  • Diagonal Cut: Although This Is A Drill, Giga Drill Break stylistically resembles one.
    • Gurren Boomerang is a more straightforward example.
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: Literally, during the final battle of Lagann-hen. Topped off with transforming your own hand into a drill before delivering the final blow.
  • Distant Finale: The epilogue takes place many years after the climatic battle, and shows how the survivors have settled into their new lives.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Within five minutes of the first episode's beginning, some girls wonder if Simon's going to drill them. It only gets worse from there.
    • Don't believe it? Attempting to list even a half of the show's examples of this trope would be longer than the rest of the page.
    • It can all be summed up by looking at the Dai Gurren. Hell that thing is this trope embodied.
    • Really though, would you expect any less from the group that made FLCL?
  • Doom Magnet: As mentioned above, anyone Yoko shows the slightest romantic affection toward is destined for a Bad End.
  • Don't Think. Feel: How to pilot a Gunmen: do whatever feels natural.
  • The Dragon: Viral, as well as Guame could be considered Dragons.
  • Drills Of Justice
  • Dual Wielding Most notably, the TTGL dual-wielding two Giga Drills in the finale.
  • The Dulcinea Effect: Simon and Nia's first meeting.
  • Dying Like Animals: The Redshirt Army in the battle against the Teppelin die like Boars until Nia calms them down. After the Time Skip, the population of Kamina City turn into Sheep and Reindeer in the backlash against Simon. Also, thanks to the Beastmen, happens rather literally thanks to the Cannon Fodder they provide to Team Gurren/Dai-Gurren and, after the time skip, the Beastmen joining the ranks of the rest of the population of Kamina City.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: This might as well have been the title of episode 24
  • Dynamic Entry: inter alia, see below under Get A Hold Of Yourself Man.
  • Earn Your Happy Ending: For everyone not named Simon, who does the most out of the entire cast yet still ends up getting handed a sack of crap.
  • Easily Forgiven: Simon doesn't have any problem forgiving Rossiu, after he overthrew Simon and tried to sentence him to death.
  • Eat The Dog: Boota serves his own tail to Simon and Kamina when they're too hungry to pilot their Gunmen with HOT BLOOD. It turns out, despite Simon's reluctance, it's actually delicious — though it might be that he's just a massive source of Spiral energy.
  • Ecchi: Mostly confined to Yoko's outfit of choice. Until the second movie that is.
  • Elseworld: Some of the Parallel Works videos.
  • Eldritch Abomination: The Anti-Spirals.
  • Empathic Weapon: The Gunmen — and especially Simon's Lagann — are powered by the fighting spirit of their pilots.
    • Near the end of Lagann-hen, it's implied Lagann is not only fueled by emotion, but is actually sentient.
  • Empathic Environment: The weather is rainy and gloomy during the first two-thirds of the Episode 9. After Simon finds Nia, beams of light appear, the rain stops and colour returns to the sky.
  • Emperor Scientist: Lordgenome.
  • Energy Being: Not an actual creature, but it arguably describes the title mecha itself, which is a construct made out of all of the heroes' Spiral energy. Possibly the same case regarding its anti-thesis, the Granzeboma.
  • Enthusiasm Versus Stoicism
  • Estrogen Brigade Bait: Viral and Kamina. And Simon and... a few others as well....
    • It's hard to imagine Simon and Viral to be fighting in nothing but towels around their waist being for any other reason.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The show literally starts out with Stuff Blowing Up.
  • Everything's Better With Dinosaurs: Iraak's Tengen Toppa Gunman in The Movie is a robotic T. rex the size of a galaxy. Thank god for Spared By Adaptation!
  • Everything's Better with Princesses: Nia, though she slowly becomes a Hot Blooded freedom fighter as she hangs out with the Team Gurren. Which makes her a...
  • Everything's Better with Spinning: In the form of "Spiral Power", this is a codified law of the universe.
  • Everything Trying To Kill Humanity
  • Evil Chancellor: Post-Time Skip Rossiu, although he believes he's just Shooting The Dog.
  • Evil Eye: Inverted. Characters with large Spiral power signify this with spirals in their eyes. Strangely, Simon, the one who produces the vast majority of said power, doesn't get this until the Distant Finale, and then only on one side.
  • Evil Is Dumb: Viral.
  • Evolving Credits - each arc has a different animation for the opening credits, reflecting changes in the cast and the goals. But they don't stop there- the pre-timeskip openers feature the first verse of Sorairo Days, while the post-timeskip openers use the second verse.
  • Explosive Leash: During Rossiu's coup against Simon, he has to rely on him to fight a Mugan that is attacking the Earth. He allows Simon to use the Gurren-Lagann, only with some conditions: 1. Kinon has to be his co-pilot, and 2. she has the Gurren-Lagann armed with explosives to make sure Simon won't try to escape.
  • Expressive Mask: The faces on the Gunmen speak at the same time as their pilots.
    • To go even further, the Gunmen can even mimic facial expressions to some degree. Thought it happens with the majority of the main ones, it's best featured on Enki (particularly in Parallel Works 2, though it happens at various points in the canon).
      • Gurren Lagann does a Jaw drop (with the top head) and blush (both heads) when the towel covering Yoko's chest flies away. That mecha is expressive as hell.
  • Expressive Shirt: Yoko's skull hairpin sometimes reflects her emotions. Most notably when she realizes the men desperately need a bath. Her pin was giving an ">_<" look while Yoko held her breath and pretty much made the same expression.
  • Expy: Kamina acts very much like a successor to Sanson from Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water.
    • And there's a great similarity between how his actions and those of Gai Daigoji.
    • It wouldn't be a Gainax series without a Shout-Out to Cordwainer Smith. The Beastmen are all too similar to Smith's animal derived Underpeople, and Teppelin shares a structurual design similar to Smith's Earthport.
    • Thymilph is a fat, old one of 777 from Dead Leaves.
    • Look at the Gurren-Lagann, without the sunglasses. Now look at the Gundam Virsago from After War Gundam X. Notice how similar they are?
      • Similarly, the Chouginga Gurren-Lagann's transformation sequence looks quite similar to that of the Gundam Ashtaron/Hermit Crab from the same show as above.
  • Face Fault: This being anime, it happens a few times. What's notable is how Leeron manages to make the aircraft-carrier-sized Dai-Gurren facefault.
  • Face Heel Turn: Lordgenome prior to the beginning of the series and Nia in the series (and the movies, though those are essentially just glorified clip shows); as well as Lordgenome in the parallel works. And they turn HARD.
  • Fallen Hero - Lordgenome and Guame
  • Falling Into The Cockpit: Let's face it, almost anyone who is even slightly a Determinator or Hot Blooded can and WILL pilot a Gunmen at some point.
    • Simon literally does this in episode 11, before his Heroic Rebirth and Prestige-Classing into Badass. He literally falls hundreds of meters from hanging onto a gunmen, and is caught by Lagann's seat.
  • Fangs Are Evil: until Viral's Heel Face Turn, when Gurren itself sports them.
    • Also, whenever Gurren-Lagann performs a Giga Drill Break, it's teeth in Gurren's mouth are replaced by drills, as if trying to play this trope straight.
  • Fanservice: Yoko wears a flame-patterned bikini, short shorts, stockings and a scarf. At all times. Lampshaded when they visit another village and tell her to cover herself up. (She ends up looking like White Mage.)
    • And again with the Beach Episode: The men are VERY excited that Yoko agrees to put on a bathing suit, but are disappointed when it covers more than her normal outfit (though, really, how much more revealing can you get than her normal outfit?).
    • Good God, Yoko is fanservice on legs. Gurren Lagann the Satire even points this out. When Yoko is given the robe to cover herself, Rossiu states "WE can only handle so much side boobs"
    • Not to mention, of course, both Nia and Yoko in the second movie. During the Rousing Speech, the camera pans quite slowly over their inexplicably naked bodies.
    • Kamina also has his fair amount of Shirtless Scene, a whole episode of full nudity. and is a good example of Estrogen Brigade Bait. Which re-occured with Simon and Viral during the shower fight scene.
  • Fastball Special: Kamina chucks Lagann at two Gunmen (against Simon's will the first time), and it soon becomes a staple of their combat tactics.
    • For all of two battles. After that, they tend to go with Giga Drill Breaks as Finishing Moves.
    • Viral repeats this in the battle against the Anti-Spiral, though it stands to reason that he probably learned from watching Kamina.
      • And then Lagann does it too
  • Fatherto His Men: Kamina is close, though he's more of a terrifying older brother.
    • Lordgenome is a literal father to his men! In that he built them, anyway.
  • Femme Fatalons: Adiane, of course. Her entire character is feminine to the point that she has the most titular Gunmen of the series; sporting ample breasts and speaking out of its crotch.
  • Fighting From The Inside: Nia, after her consumption by the anti-spirals
  • The Final Temptation
  • Final Speech: Lordgenome and the Anti-Spiral leader.
  • Finishing Move! Giga! Drill! BREAK-AAAAAHHH!
  • Five-Bad Band: the Beastman generals and their creator.
  • Foreshadowing: In the first 2 minutes of the series, we get a look at the initial battle fought with the anti-spirals, and the ship which was used in it. It goes even further to show that Lagann (by way of the core drill) will play a huge part, and even displaying a character looking almost identical to evolved!Boota. The series is in love with history repeating itself (with everything from personalities, fighting techniques, and deaths), and just repeating itself in general by way of having an episode and two movies dedicated to clips; but they have moved to show us that the same thing has been in the course of happening for over 1,000 years.
    • Viral's character and sense of honor being what it is, his discussion with Lordgenome is obvious but real foreshadowing for his Heel Face Turn after the time skip.
    • Rossiu's society as a child fuels his future decisions to the point where he does exactly what he'd been so horrified to learn of in the past.
      • And while on the topic of Rossiu, his temporarily taking control of the Gurren in episode 6. Following Kamina's death, Rossiu becomes his replacement.
    • There was also Kamina stating early in the series that he'd die without Simon. Guess what happens on the first mission where the two had seperate jobs away from one another?
    • Kamina stealing Viral's helmet and lecturing him on how he'll never know what combining is. Guess who replaces Kamina as Gurren's pilot?
  • The Four Gods/Four Is Death: the Four Generals of the Spiral King; their Gunmen are named after the Chinese gods. And they all die.
  • Four Philosophy Ensemble: (Early episodes): Simon as Cynic, Kamina as Optimist, Yoko as Realist, Leeron as Apathetic.
    • Later it becomes: Simon as Cynic, Nia as Optimist, Yoko as Realist, Leeron as Apathetic.
    • At the beginning of season 2 is was: Rossiu as Cynic, Kittan was Optimist, Simon was Realist and Viral is Apathetic, then it turned into Gimy as Cynic, Simon/Kittan as Optimist, Leeron/Yoko as Realist and Lordgenome as Apathetic. Maybe. Hard to say since everyone is pretty single-mindedly optimistic through sheer force of will at that point.
  • Freud Was Right: All those 'drills' 'penetrating' things, the shape of the good guys' airship, as well as the only female Gunmen having a fanged talking crotch.
  • Funbag Airbag: The male-on-male version happens in the very first episode between Simon and Kamina; later, you see a straight version between Simon and Yoko, who reacts with a smile.
    • Happens again in episode 6, when Simon leaps over Leeron, but his crotch doesn't quite clear him and Leeron gets smacked in the face by Simon's junk. He responds simply by going "So warm.~"
  • Future Badass: Gimmy, Darry, and Viral.
    • In the Distant Finale, it's just those 3. But don't forget, this show does have a 7-year timeskip, where pretty much everybody counts as a Future Badass. If they started Bad Ass, then they got more Bad Ass. Future Loser? In Gurren Lagann? What the hell do you think this is?!
  • Gainax Ending Opening: Apparently, it was supposed to foreshadow the ending but the writers lost that story thread somewhere. Fans have taken it as an alternate reality where that foreshadowing references a bad ending. The Word Of God ended up being "Sure, Why Not??"
  • Gainaxing: So, so much.
    • Taken to an extreme in Lagann-Hen, where Yoko's Tengen Toppa Ganman has a pair of anti-gravity jubblie missiles.
  • Generation Xerox (Played with, since the villains make it quite clear that everything the hero has done so far has been done before, with no success; the heroes only manage to succeed due to The Power Of Love.
  • Get A Hold Of Yourself Man — "Clench those teeth!" Kamina punches Simon to help him get over his Wangst at Yoko's kissing Kamina. Later on in the battle, Kamina throws the damaged Gurren's arm at Lagann to snap Simon out of it again. After the Time Skip, Simon pays it forward by learning to jump through Hyperspace just to punch Rossiu before he attempts to commit suicide.
  • Getting Crap Past The Radar: Listen closely to Leeron's theme song, and in particular the letters being sung in the background. They spell out "Leeron is gay. He is so gay. Gay. He loves my asshole. Asshole."
  • Girl In A Box: Nia.
  • Girls Love Stuffed Animals
  • Glory Days: subverted/inverted.
  • Goddamn Orks: For the first half, Goddamn Beastmen. Later on becomes Goddamn Anti-Spirals.
  • Godiva Hair: Yoko, briefly, in The Movie.
    • Nia in the second movie.
  • Gonna Need More Trope: You mean we're gonna need to use an even bigger drill?
  • Gondor Calls For Aid: At least partially subverted when a motley crew of bit players from previous episodes show up to join the heroes' cause without being asked by anyone, least of all the heroes themselves.
  • Good All Along: Lordgenome, and the Beastmen
  • Gossipy Hens: in the first episode.
  • Gratuitous English: The attack's names.
  • Gratuitous Japanese: The names of the mechs tend to be untranslated from Japanese (Mugann is better translated as Faceless, Chouginga as Super-Galaxy/Galactic, Tengen Toppa as Heaven Piercing, Lazengann as Spiral Face, etc.).
  • Gravity In Space: During the final battle between the Chouginga-Dai-Gurren-Dan and the Anti-Spiral, it's actually shown that gravity exists in space.
    • Alternately, it could just be because of the thousands of galaxies they're fighting amongst.
      • Considering they're throwing galaxies like shuriken without said galaxies falling apart, it's more like super-glue gravity
  • Green Lantern Ring: Spiral energy is one of the ultimate examples of this.
  • Grievous Harm With A Body: Kamina smacks some sense into Simon with the arm of his own mech. Gurren Lagann has a habit of fastballing it's own head at enemies.
  • Groin Attack: During their battle with Adiane, the Dai-Gurren ends up getting it's main underside cannon destroyed, resulting in EVERY MALE except Leeron to grab their crotch in pain.
    • Somewhat realistic, as the hole started to flood the ship, suddenly increasing cabin pressure. This sudden pressure leads to some *ahem* mild discomfort on the men's part.
    • Later in the same battle, Simon pushes the Dai-Gurren out of the water by ramming his drill into the hole left by the destroyed cannon. Instead of a repeat performance by the men, we see Leeron gasp and suddenly hop upwards.
  • Gundamjack: How Team Dai-Gurren got just about all its Gunmen besides the Lagann.
  • Half Human Hybrids: The Beastmen.
  • Ham-to-Ham Combat: There may have been one or two brief scenes of thi— OK, can't do that with a straight face. Happens every two minutes, like clockwork.
  • Heel Face Turn: Viral and Lordgenome after the Time Skip.
  • Heroic BSOD More a villainous blue screen of death: Viral's realization that he's been fighting "women and a children" instead of Kamina, ever since Kamina's death.
    • Simon also gets a brief one after Kamina's death before realising that this isn't Neon Genesis Evangelion and quickly snaps out of it.
    • It can also be said that Lordgenome was never evil, just suffering from a chronic case of this.
  • Heroic Sacrifice : Several — all the others' completely eclipsed by Kittan, whose death scene is a Crowning Moment of Awesome all in its own, and Lordgenome, who tanks a Big Bang's worth of power..
  • Heroic Second Wind
  • Hero LFG: The lead and secondary cast joined Kamina just after a little talk. The rest of them joined just because they were told about his awesomeness.
  • He's Back: Simon... One of the most awesome examples ever seen on television. EVER. EVERRRR
  • He's Just Hiding: Kamina's Not Quite Dead moment made it harder for fans to accept he was Killed Off For Real.
  • Hidden Depths: Kamina is a much more complex character than he seems.
  • High Speed Missile Dodge
  • His Quirk Lives On: later in the series, we have Simon adopting the cockiness, quirks and fashion sense (although seemingly with a hilariously S&M twist to this troper) of his big brother mentor, Kamina.
  • Hive Mind: The Anti-Spirals.
  • Homage Shot: The scene where Chouginga Gurren Lagann rises out of the space ocean is an almost exact replica of Gunbuster's first appearance.
  • Honor Before Reason: Viral in episode 13 (he needs a little push, though)
    • This is rather typical of Viral, actually, as he is repeatedly shown as holding a sense of honor and responsibility above all else. Better explained in the manga, but it shows in the anime as well; such as when he waits patiently for everyone to get dressed and into their Gunmen because there would be no honor in fighting otherwise.
  • Hope Spot: Invoked repeatedly, by the Anti-Spirals, in order to turn them on their heads with the intention that this will sap the will of the humans to fight. At best, it works only momentarily.
    • "OHMYGOD THEY KILLED KAMINA! Wait what? He's ok! OH THANK GOD! This is the most awesome... Kamina? NOOOOOOOOOOOOO!"
  • Hot Blooded: ...Where do we START?!.
    • We start at the Village Chief, if only because this happens within 40 seconds of the initial title screen, and the first 3 minutes of the entire series.
    • Even the Anti-Spiral becomes this during the final fight after spending the entire show trying to suppress the same thing.
    • In the same fight, Viral of all characters, wholeheartedly admits it while talking with the others in a Bad Ass Boast.
  • Hot Springs Episode: featuring Lawyer Friendly Cameos from other famous Gainax characters — in Playboy Bunny costumes.
    • There was even a 3-frame shot of Rei snogging Kamina: The only other GAINAX anime he's familiar with is NGE, but Rei was almost exactly the same in cameo form and Asuka's only difference was her hairstyle. [1] [2]
  • How Do I Shot Web: Played straight in the first episode.
  • How We Got Here
  • Ho Yay: Real men fire each other up, unite, and make comments about each other's drills..Kamina: Combining is where two fighting spirits collide! It's where a man's spirit is ablaze!
  • Humongous Mecha: The Gunmen and Grapearls, which range from Mini Mecha to impossibly huge. At the end of the show, the title mecha, the Tengen Toppa Gurren Laganncan be measured in lightyears.. See here◊ and here◊ for just how big the damn thing is. The second movie features the even larger Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which can be seen here◊. That thing inside its head? That's Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The small dots are galaxies. And yes, the mecha DOES look like a huge Kamina. Made of fire. THIS◊ picture gives a size comparison with the Granzeboma, which is smaller than the STTGL's foot! At this point, the only larger known mecha are Demonbane, and possibly the Getter Emperor, both of which are ridiculous.
  • I Am Legion: The Anti-Spiral King.
  • I Am Not Shazam: You may see many references to "Lord Genome" which are technically incorrect. Officially, "Lord" and "Genome" are not his title and name, rather "Lordgenome": one word. is just his name. Thus it is pronounced as one word in both the Japanese and English versions.
    • This hasn't stopped a few fans from hilariously back-mistranslating it as "Genome-sama".
  • I Feel Angry: Nia.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Each arc uses a line from one character — first Kamina, then Nia, then Rossiu, and finally Simon — as the title for each episode. Also, to follow suit, the title cards for each arc have their own typeset.
  • Idiot Hero: KAMINA.
  • "I Know You're In There Somewhere" Fight: Simon gives a particularly good one to Nia.
  • Immortality Immorality: Played straight with Lordgenom. Thankfully subverted. Lordgenome performed his Heroic Sacrifice and admitted that he had always dreamed to die for humankind, Viral became the most furious protector of humankind, compared to cynical Rossiu and Simon who was unaware of Rossiu's deeds
  • Impossibly Cool Clothes: Just about everyone.
  • Important Haircut: Nia in ep. 13. The show being what it is, she gets hers from a sniper rifle. (See the trope page for more details)
  • Improvised Ranged Weapon: The Anti-Spiral in the final battle, when use galaxies as shurikens. Also done in Episode 8, when Kamina and the other members of Team Dai-Gurren throw large rocks at Viral and the other Beastmen standing on the Daigunzan.
  • Improbable Weapon User: Using galaxies as weapons, of course.
  • Incendiary Exponent: If something is about to get badass, it lights on fire. End of story.
  • Indy Ploy: Every single fight with just one exception: the one fight that is actually planned is the one wherein Kamina dies.
  • Innocent Innuendo. Sorta. When Guame kidnaps Nia, he's explaining why her father's ordered her death, but then comments that she may be "far too lovely" to kill- and in the rest of the scene looks like he's coming on to her!
  • Instrumentality: The Anti-Spirals are all collected in one hive mind. They did this so they would stop evolving and prevent the Spiral Nemesis.
  • Intentionally Awkward Title: Do not mispronounce Kamina's name around Hokkien-speakers, especially not if you're saying it enthusiastically or loudly.
  • Inventing The Wheel: Averted - The new high technology used after the timeskip is all influenced by Gunmen designs, so all civilian vehicles move on legs or have hoverpads attached with nary a wheel in sight. Basing everything on Gunmen also results in skyscrapers with faces...
    • Even mundane appliances like clothes irons, TV sets, and doors have faces!
  • In The Name Of The Moon: Simon and his current co-pilot do this at dramatically or thematically appropriate moments.
    • Which, ironically, includes the time they went to attack the moon.
  • Juggling Loaded Guns: When Kamina is first given a gun he pretends to know how to use it, even though he doesn't know what it actually is. At first he uses it as a hammer, and after narrowly missing shooting himself in the gonads he proceeds to hold it upside down. Well, he already held it upside down when using it as a hammer; but of course, it was pointing towards him then.
  • Kangaroo Court: Simon gets put through one of these when Rossiu needs a scapegoat. Kittan angrily protests at the verdict, pointing out, among other things, that they gave Simon the stupidest member of the government for a defense attorney. Rossiu is pretty up-front about it, too.
  • Keigo: Nia speaks like this. It leads to her version of Kamina's phrase: "ARE YOU AWARE OF WHO EXACTLY I AM!?".
  • Killed Off For Real: not only straight-up, but arguably subverted, with the same character: try seeing how well most people survive having their torsos be completely vaporized.
  • Large EPIC Ham: Kamina. In fact, most of the cast are somewhat ham-like at one point or another, but Kamina really takes the cake.. The cake made entirely of ham. And badass. In fact, in the same way the series is supposed to be the Rule Of Cool personified, Kamina is Large Ham personified.
    • The Anti-Spiral King brings forth truly preposterous amounts of ham when they are fighting in the final battle.
      • "BURN IN THE EVERLASTING HELLFIRE OF CREATION! BE UTTERLY ANNIHILATED! DOWN TO THE VERY LAST SCRAP! OF D! N! A!"
  • Killer Yoyo: Not in the main series, but in Parallel Works: Kittan Zero, Kiyoh uses one of these. Not surprisingly, the tricks she pulls with it are Beyond The Impossible.
  • Last Episode Theme Reprise
  • Layman's Terms: Leeroy's long explanations require this to make sense.
    • Subverted: Lordgenome's layman's terms still make no sense.
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Several Gainax characters as bunnygirls; also, Squidward from SpongeBob SquarePants, along with Gunmen resembling the Autobot and Decepticon symbols have been seen briefly. Also, Yoko rides a yellow hovering scooter/moped..
    • The eyecatches have even more, with Gunmen resembling Pokémon and Legend of Zelda characters.
      • Pikachu himself appears in the last Parallel Works video as one of Lordgenome's toy animals.
    • And the Enki and Lazengann look... strangely familiar...
    • Did we also mention that there is a parody of Dexter's Laboratory in Yoko's music video? Because there is.
  • Leeroy Jenkins: Damn near everyone. Kamina and Attenborough are especially good examples.
  • Lensman Arms Race: It goes from the compact car-sized Lagann, to the tens-of-meters Gurren Lagann, to the aircraft-carrier-sized Dai-Gurren, to the multi-kilometric Arc-Gurren Lagann, to the thousands-of-kilometers Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, to what Word Of God has stated 10-million-light-year tall Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
    • Also, the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann from the movie. Supposedly, it is 3 BILLION light years in height.
      • Not to mention, any and all visible movement, even the slightest twitch, would require breaking the lightspeed barrier..
  • Lethal Chef: Nia, although Simon and Boota sincerely like her cooking. Anyone else who eats it gets knocked out, though.
  • Literal-Minded: Nia. Watch the first post-Time Skip episode in case of doubt.
  • Late Arrival Spoiler: If you value being free of spoilers, do not so much as Google this series. Heck, you shouldn't even have reached this far down the page. You shouldn't have even looked at this page, for crap's sake. In fact, you should probably have spent all time between starting and finishing the series away from the Internet entirely.
    • Oh, now you tell me. This entry should be farther up the page.
  • Load-Bearing Boss: With Lordgenome's defeat, not only does the capital city (itself a giant robot) start to break apart and explode, but his army's mecha all simultaneously lose power, thus assuring victory for our heroes.
    • Possible justification: As beastmen are later reveled to be non-spiral lifeforms, it's quite likely that Lordgenome's immense reserves are powering the entire army.
  • Long Title—not the series itself, but rather Kamina/Team Dai-Gurren's theme song. Taku Iwasaki sure had a lot of fun making up titles for the tracks on the soundtrack. The Team Dai-Gurren rap theme's title is very, very, very long. The Japanese title is "ラップは漢の魂だ! 無理を通して道理を蹴っ飛ばす! 俺たち大グレン団のテーマを耳の穴かっぽじってよ~く聴きやがれ!!": Rappu wa Otoko no Tamashii da! Muri o Tōshite Dōri o Kettobasu! Ore-tachi Dai-Guren-dan no Tēma o Mimi no Ana Kappojite Yo~ku Kikiyagare!!. The OST cut of the song adds "(Short Start Edit)" to the end, since the 60 second-ish orchestral opening is cut. One translation of the title, "Rap is a Man's Soul! We Kick Reason to the Curb to Make the Impossible Possible! Open up Your Ears and Listen to Our Team Dai-Gurren Theme!!", is so long that when used as a filename, "(short start edit)" is cut off at "(short ", and the length of the title caused all sorts of weird bugs to happen to Windows Explorer until he finally cut "(short start edit)" to "(SSE)". Oh, and to make it worse, the most common English translation uses wording that makes the title at least two words longer.
  • Longing Look
  • Losing The Team Spirit: Kamina's death.
  • Lost Technology: The Gunmen; also, Yoko's gun comes from the cache of ancient weapons her village was built around.
  • Machiavelli Was Wrong: After the Time Skip, Rossiu starts Shooting The Dog over and over as things deteriorate. It all just makes things worse. Only when Simon returns and takes things Beyond The Impossible do things get better.
  • Macross Missile Massacre: Attenborough loves to do this. It generally accomplishes very little.
    • A massive one is delivered in the Compilation Movie. It does precisely jack to the Dai-Gurren-Dan...who then return the favor and show it done right.
  • Made Of Explodium - In accordance with the Rule Of Cool, there are lots and lots of explosions, particularly in the second part.
  • Magic Skirt: Nia. Especially in episode 15.
  • Male Gaze (ubiquitous throughout)
    • The camera explicitly tracks Kamina's gaze as he tries to chat up Yoko — from the gun, to the boots, along the thighs, to the breasts.
  • The Man Behind the Man: The Anti Spirals.
  • The Man Behind The Monsters: Lordgenome.
  • Manly Tears: Simon at episode 11, after a hell of a Rousing Speech. The distilled awesomeness of that scene is undescribable.
  • Marked Change: Post-Time Skip Nia after she becomes an Anti-Spiral.
  • Marshmallow Hell: Simon has just the perfect height for this. Kiyoh even says so when she smothers him.
  • Manchurian Agent: Nia after the population hits one million
  • Manly Tears: Several times during the series. Often mirrored by THE VIEWER THEMSELVES.
  • Mauve Shirt: Gimmy and Darry usually end up as the last survivors of the Redshirt Army.
  • A Mech By Any Other Name: Sort of: there are Gunmen and Grapearl, but the (very infrequently-used) generic term is "mech". On a single occasion, "Gunmen" is also used as if it were the generic term.
  • Meet The New Boss
  • Meganekko: Yomako, Yoko in Gurren-Hen during the Time Compression Montage, Kinon
  • Megaton Punch: In possiby the ultimate example of this, Simon uses Arc Gurren Lagann to punch an enemy so hard it rips a freaking hole in the fabric of space and time.
  • Meta Mecha: More or less the signature power of the Lagann, taken to ridiculous levels when in the finale you have A mech the size of a human co-piloting a mech the size of a building, who in turn pilots a mech the size of a city, who then pilots a mech the size of the moon, who them combines with about a dozen other human-sized mechs and pilots a mech the size of a 'galaxy', and that's all without figuring in the giant flaming Kamina in the Movie known as Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann...
  • Milking The Giant Cow: Frequent and intense.
  • Mind Rape: The Anti-Spirals showing the Spiral Nemesis to the future Lord Genome in Parallel Works 8.
  • Mini Mecha: Lagann
  • Mirror Match: This is the Anti-Spirals' preferred method of inducing ultimate despair.
    • Lordgenome's Spiral Power readouts and drills also turn in the opposite direction of Gurren Lagann's, aswell as having straighter grooves.
      • As does The Anti Spiral's Grand Zamboa in the final battle.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: Grapopotamus is a key example; though this trope fits for every animal and most of the Beastmen in the series.
  • Moe: Nia.
  • Monstrosity Equals Weakness: Averted. The most powerful gunmen tended to be really bizarre and monstrous, and the more animalistic beastmen, while minor characters for the most part, weren't portrayed as any less powerful than humanoids. For a series that flat out states that the human form has more spiral power than any other, that's a pretty surprising aversion.
  • Mood Whiplash: as a direct consequence of several character deaths.
    • Also, the above-mentioned Sci Fi Channel scheduling.
    • Frequently switched between humour, drama, and action. "You're Gonna Do It!!", for example, starts with dramatic closeup shots as Kamina and Viral snipe at each other while Simon, Yoko, and the Black sisters look on. Then the camera switched to a wider angle, and, reminds the audience that, oh, right, our heroes are still pretty much naked from the last episode.
  • Multi Armed And Dangerous: The Granzeboma has an additional pair of gigantic arms, big enough to pick up galaxies easily the size of the rest of the mech's body
    • The idea behind Viral's mech at the Enkidudu stage. Doesn't work; Simon pretty much pwns him without really paying attention, and eventually it gets shot up by Grapearls. It gets a bit more impressive with sixteen arms circa Lagann-Hen.
  • Multicolored Hair: Nia and Kittan.
  • Ms. Fanservice: Yoko.
  • My Name Is Inigo Montoya: "I'm Simon The Digger!!!"
  • My Name Is Not Durwood: Rossiu, known by Kamina as "Dekosuke": "Forehead Guy".
  • Nakama: Team Dai-Gurren.
  • Narrator All Along: Simon
  • Never Tell Me The Odds: They do this with Zero percent chances and Simon famously says "To me that's more like 100 percent!".
    • Also played up straight when Lordgenome is about to tell Leeron the chances of survival in the Sea of Despair, and Leeron simply doesn't want to hear it.
      • Best thing about that? Lordgenome later tells him the chances of survival were ZERO. "The odds of success were zero, but probability doesn't seem to matter with you guys."
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Wait, Lordgenome's iron-fisted rule was the only thing keeping all of humanity from a brutal genocide at the hands of the Anti-Spirals? Whoopsie...
    • An example of Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: Gaume's televising his fight with Lagann and broadcasting it to humans everywhere. He ends up getting his butt whupped by Simon, for all humans on Earth to see, who are thus inspired into Badassery and Hotbloodedness and turn up as The Cavalry in the penultimate battle for Teppelin.
      • Later on, Simon points out to Nia that all of the Anti-Spiral's attempts to kill off humanity have simply made them stronger.
  • Noble Demon: Viral.
  • No Conservation Of Energy: Actually a plot point.
  • No Dub For You: The movies. Aniplex has stated that while they are releasing the movies in the United States, they aren't going to dub them because they don't see a need to spend the money unless someone desires to show them on TV. Looks like the ball is in Sy Fy's court now for that.
  • No Holds Barred Beatdown: The battle against Lordgenome, who beats the ever-loving crap out of Lagann bare-handed.
  • No Ontological Inertia: Teppelin when Lordgenome is killed, and Nia after the defeat of the Anti-Spiral.
  • Non-Human Sidekick: Boota, later kinda human sidekick..
  • Normally I Would Be Dead Now: Kamina, after being epically blasted, seeming dead to everyone and making Simon have a Heroic BSOD, comes back and Bright Slaps him out of it, then leads the Dai-Gurren Brigade to victory. And then dies.
  • Not Brainwashed: Nia, according to herself after she learns she's The Mole. Simon disagrees.
  • No Sell: Lordgenome effortlessly managing to block a Giga Drill Break.
  • Not So Stoic: The Anti-Spiral goes surprisingly Hot Blooded during the final battle.
  • No Sense Of Personal Space: Leeron gets a little too close to Simon and Kamina for their comfort when he first appears; and then repeatedly with various others through the rest of the series.
  • Not Compensating For Anything: Daiganzan in episode 7. About 60% of its volume is a gigantic steel man-wood◊ covered in guns and sharp things.
  • The Obi-Wan: Kamina and Yoko fill this role together: Kamina takes it upon himself to guide Simon on his path to being a man, and Yoko acts as their guide on the surface, as well as fulfilling the role of The Herald.
  • Obi Wan Moment: Kamina before dying.
  • Off Model: Episode 4 had a guest director, and is considered to be a visual low-point in the series.
  • One Hundred And Eight Pay very close attention, in episode 24, 13 minutes and 21 seconds into the episode, Gimmy says something to the effect of "108th unit destroyed!" after blowing up a few anti-spiral mooks. Then, that's when everything goes bad. Given the obviously Buddhism- (or Hinduism?) inspired ships, this was wholly intentional. If you really want to get into the symbolism here, what's 13 minutes in seconds? That's right, 780 seconds, plus the 21 seconds, and you get 801, which is ONE HUNDRED EIGHT BACKWARDS!!
    • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann has 27 episodes. 27 times four is 108.
  • One Woman Wail: "Libera Me From Hell", the track played during Kittan's Heroic Sacrifice, Kamina pulling everyone out of the Lotus Eater Machine, and the creation of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
  • Orcus Lordgenome On His Throne
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: See One Woman Wail. Interspersed with a rap song, and is just as awesome as it sounds.
  • Only Sane Man: Rossiu in episode 6.
  • The Other Marty: Before ADV Films lost the license, several episodes of the dub had already been recorded.
  • Out Of The Inferno: Pulled by Kittan flying King Kittan through the explosion of his Space Gunmen.
    • Earlier pulled by every one of the three battleships involved in episode 14.
  • Parental Abandonment: The parents of everyone that wasn't born during the course of the series are all dead Except for Rossiu, though his mother was essentially sentenced to death by his father. Except for one case, where it simply was literal parental abandonment - though her father dies anyway. Twice.
  • Parrot Pet Position: Boota is often seen on Simon's shoulder, pre-Time Skip.
  • Passing The Torch: There is a chain of these, mixed with Take Up My Sword. Notably Kamina to Simon, and Simon to Gimmy. Not including other predecessors. The villains are those who refused to step aside.
  • People Jars: Lordgenome's head is revived as a "biological computer", who later becomes useful for spouting out Techno Babble on the reality-altering attacks the Anti-Spirals use. The Beastmen also come from people jars, which are briefly seen when Lordgenome makes Viral immortal, and again in Parallel Works 8.
    • In this case, it was more than likely a reference to the Zentraedi Exsedol in Macross 7, who had the same thing done to him.
      • Exsedol isn't a disembodied head in Macross 7. He's actually standing on a lower deck and sticking his head up through a hole in the bridge floor specifically designed for him.
  • Pet the Dog: Viral in mourning. Then comes a Double Subversion later in the same episode, where Yoko, Simon's current co-pilot, was held hostage by Cytomander, and the latter orders Viral to finish Simon off (defenseless because of Yoko's situation). Viral was about to comply, until Simon calls him out on this, causing Viral to disobey the order given to him.
  • Petting Zoo People: The more humanoid Beastmen.
  • Physical God: The only category that the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann qualifies for!
  • Please Put Some Clothes On: After the heroes end up naked after being ambushed at the hot springs, Viral shows up looking for a fight. He is outraged at their lack of attire and gives them time to get dressed before he fights them.
    • The Adai villagers also give Yoko a robe to wear over her bikini top and daisy dukes.
  • Poe's Law: Started out as a parody of the Hot Blooded Super Robot shows that inspired it, but after Episode 8, it gradually became more and more the reconstruction we all know and love.
  • Population Control: Applies both to Adai Village's population limit of 50 (enforced by randomly-selected exile to the surface) and the "1,000,000 apes" prophecy.
    • Of course, the latter was supposed to cut the population down to 0, were it not for Team Dai-Gurren being incredibly badass.
  • Power Gives You Wings: Power gives you Cool Shades and drills.
  • The Power Of Love: One of the main themes of the show; on a more literal level, without Simon and Nia's love, the last arc would never have happened; humanity and the beastmen would've been annihilated.
  • Power Of Trust: Trope quote maker.
  • Post Dramatic Stress Disorder: Kamina gets lethally hurt, but not without opening a huge can of whoopass on Thymilph's Dai-Gunzan and comandeering it as the Dai-Gurren. Then he dies..
  • Product Placement: In a few closeups you can see the Gurren Lagann's joints look suspiciously like those of the Revoltech toys.
  • Psychoactive Powers: Spiral Power. Fear and despair kill it, hope and optimism increase it, and Hot Blood blasts it sky-high.
  • Pun-Based Title: The Japanese titles of the movies use kanji that read Guren and Ragan (i.e. "Gurren" and "Lagann"). The English titles eschew this in favor of the Idiosyncratic Episode Naming, and go with quotes just like the series episode titles.
  • Punk Punk: The entire first season and a little on is in the style of Desert Punk to the letter. Plus giant robots.
  • Pure Awesomeness: Simon and Viral, arriving just in time to save the day in the Gurren Lagann, use it to destroy all nearby enemies.
  • Readings Are Off the Scale: Literally. As in, when the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann absorbs the energy from a Beam-o-War twice the power of the Big Bang, the readings go off the scale and float in midair.
    • And it becomes even more awesome when you apply a little Fridge Logic to it. That scale was built specifically to measure the level of Spiral Power fed into the machine. Spiral Power is an energy source that has a habit of regularly going off the scale. Simon produced enough Spiral Power to go beyond the scale specifically designed to measure a source of energy that almost always goes beyond the scale.
      • Keep in mind, the gauge had a method for overcoming overflow - the initial measurement of Spiral Power would be measured in white, and the overflow from that was green overlap of the original white spiral meter. The shattering of the gauge of the most powerful mecha in the show (not in the movie, but then again, it's a construct of pure, undiluted spiral energy, so they don't even bother with a gauge) is now suddenly much more awesome.
      • The Scale also only uses White and Green normally. When the Reading literally go off the scale, they also turn into a rainbow.
  • Real Robot: Although the show as a whole falls squarely into Super Robot territory, Grapearls represent the Real Robot genre: They are produced in large quantities (mostly identical in appearance) for the use of military personnel, they use more mundane guns and swords as opposed to the Gunmen's (especially Gurren Lagann's) more physics-breaking weapons, and most notably, in contrast to Gunmen, they don't run on the pilot's fighting spirit, which is one of the key differences between the two genres.
  • Reckless Gun Usage: see Juggling Loaded Guns.
  • Reconstruction: This show is pretty much the polar opposite of Neon Genesis Evangelion.
  • Red Oni, Blue Oni: Reversed: uber-Hot Blooded Simon and Kamina wear blue, while the level-headed Yoko is a redhead.
    • Played around with in regards to Jorgun and Balinbow (each twin wears red and blue shades respectively, but have the same basic Hot Blooded personality).
    • And played straight Post-Time Skip Simon and Rossiu.
    • Also, compare capes. Simon is just a tad more restrained than Kamina and wears a blue Badass Longcoat. Kamina's Badass Cape is crimson.
  • Redshirt Army: The motley crew at the battle against Teppelin, then the post-Time Skip Grapearl army.
  • Refuge In Audacity: The show's gung-ho attitude makes it difficult to tell whether it's taking refuge in audacity or just goosing the censors. Remember, this was aired at 9 a.m.
    • If nothing else, Parallel Works #5 puts a whole new spin on the 'goosing' part.
  • Retired Badass: Kiyoh and Kiyal, post-Time Skip Yoko before the Anti-Spirals' attack; Simon in the Distant Finale..
    • the Priest of Adai village
  • Ridiculously Cute Critter: Boota!
  • Rocket Punch: Subverted — the one and only example is less "rocket" than it is "pull off my arm and throw it at you," and it is less "punch" than "the most epic Bright Slap in human history."
  • Rousseau Was Right: EVERY major antagonist turns out to be trying to do what they thought was best for the world. Including Rossiu.
  • Rule Of Cool: The show pretty much relies on this for everything it does. Even ordinary goggles can randomly transform into sunglasses if the situation is dramatic enough.
    • Kamina lives strictly by the Rule Of Cool to the point of rejecting anything useful, plausible, practical, survivable, etc, if it isn't cool enough.
  • Running Joke: The Old Man.
    • Yoko having kids.
    • A meta-example: Any time any question is asked about anything in this series, the first answer is always "spiral energy." Even when—no, especially when there's a better answer.
  • Satellite Character: Kinon after the time-skip.
  • Scarf of Asskicking: Yoko's.
    • Also Viral Post-Timeskip, in his hobo/freedom fighter outfit, although this is possibly a subversion, as his scarf defies all laws of gravity and refuses to blow in the wind.
  • Scavenger World
  • Scenery Porn: When Simon first broke through to the surface with Yoko and Kamina, he shot up so high he saw the earth pretty much split in two between night and day, with the moon and sun on opposite sides of the sky going over a vast exapanse of earth. Photographers would kill to get that kind of shot in real life but because this show runs on Rule Of Cool, that's more than likely impossible.
    • Even more breathtaking after the Time Skip when Yoko and a student see the same view (inexplicably from a treetop this time) over the fucking ocean.
  • Schmuck Banquet: Lampshaded heavily with the Japanese inn, banquet, and hot springs all being called into question
  • Schoolmarm: Post-Time Skip Yoko.
  • Scifi Writers Have No Sense Of Scale: The last episode shows Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, which is the size of the moon, being only slightly smaller than Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which is larger than galaxies.
    • Actually, the Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann fit almost perfectly into Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's mouth. Still not quite up to scale, but closer than inferred by the above.
    • Also, the Gurren Laganns ejecting each other in turn to get to the Anti-Spiral at the end of the final battle. If we are to trust the Word Of God about the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann being 10 million light-years tall, the two mechas' heads should be thousands of light-years away from each other, yet Simon manages to reach the Granzeboma in just a few seconds.
    • This may be justified in that the universe they were fighting in was under the control of the opponent. As they continued to fight, between the energy the heroes were releasing and the Big Bad losing focus, the universe may have been falling apart at the seams, causing reality, sizes, and more to bend (And sometimes break completely.)
      • If, by this point in the show, you have enough brain remaining to worry about this... you're doing something wrong. Very wrong.
      • I'm quite sure that by this point, the laws of reality have been ground to powder. There probably isn't even a scale for the writers to have no sense of.
      • Would it be considered inappropriate to note that the mech sizes went spiralling out of control?
    • The size issue can be justified or at least handwaved by the fact that the final fight takes place inside a fabricated universe, and there's no reason to assume the backdrop galaxies are at their proper scales. They certainly don't act like galaxies; the mechs casually step on and throw them like solid objects, whereas real galaxies are about 95% empty space and have about the same consistency for their size as a patch of fog.
    • Also (ignoring Word Of God for the moment), if we are to presume that the planet on the helmet of the Anti-Spiral mech is taken from "real space", and noting that when the fabricated universe rips and the Earth appears, it is just the right size for the Anti-Spiral mech to grab it with one hand, the final mechs are probably "only" around the size of the Earth-Moon system when translated into real space - a reasonable level of growth stepping up from the Moon-sized Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, and just small enough to avoid breaking the light-speed barrier provided they don't move too fast (although still large enough to break most other laws of physics).
      • How about "It would have been kind of stupid watching specks fight at that point?" Visual style came first for a very good reason.
      • The MST 3 K Mantra would probably come in handy at this point, as well as a gentle reminder that the show runs on the Rule of Cool. Actual physics? Pshaw. Scale and distance? Not an issue. Does it look freaking Badass? You better believe it! (That last one is the only one that matters, if you didn't quite catch it.)
  • Screaming Warrior: Every time someone is Hot Blooded; read: all the time!.
  • Screw Destiny: The entire point of "We go Beyond The Impossible" basically. Just listen to their Rousing Speeches during the last part of the series.
    • Alternatively, Screw Physics.
    • This could be taken literally: the dominant motifs are drills, spirals and other screw-shaped implements with which they dig right through their confines and break them to pieces.
  • Screwed By The Network: Due to possibly poor sales of the bilingual volumes of the series Aniplex USA is distributing the movies through Bandai's online store only with NO DUB. (Unless they can secure broadcast rights, which is the reason for the lack of dub on most of Bandai Entertainment's stuff today.)
    • Thankfully, it seems they have at least realized that limiting the distribution to Bandai's store was rather pointless, and made it available through at least one other store.
  • Self-Made Man - Completely subverted with Kamina.
  • Senseless Sacrifice: Kittan flies out to perform a Heroic Sacrifice - only for his mecha to blow up moments too soon. Wait, no- that was his mecha's mecha. Kittan lasts a few more seconds and manages to deliver his defining Crowning Moment before eating it.
  • Shallow Love Interest: Kiyoh for Dayakka, Kinon for Rossiu. Still, this is Character Development for them since before they had little characterization.
    • Kiyoh and Dayakka's relationship is given a little more attention in the manga.
  • Sunglasses Pilot: Kamina and Yoko
  • Share The Male Pain: In a particularly memorable scene, the Dai-Gurren takes a shot to the crotch. Every man (save for Leeron) immediately winces.
  • Shoo Out The Clowns: Kamina's death signified the shifting Affectionate Parody to Reconstruction, and the show became more serious in tone.
  • Shoot the Dog: Rossiu is forced to do this a lot, and suffers for it.
  • Shoot The Hostage: Brought up by Adiane to Yoko when she takes Nia hostage, but subverted: Yoko was actually aiming 2 millimeters to the right of Nia's head, allowing her to hit a weak spot on Adiane's mech.
  • Shoulders Of Doom: Most of the Gunmen, epitomised by Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann's.
  • Shout-Out: It's Gainax. There are always a lot.

Lordgenome: EVA-unit 01 activating.Simon: You just said that so I didn't have to point it out, didn't you?

      • The fact that the Lazengann massacred anything standing in its way in Parallel Works 8 without wielding any weapons (except for the obligatory drills) only helps to confirm this.
      • Lordgenome himself being this blended with Master Asia. Originally humanity's greatest champion, he became its worst enemy upon realizing their impact on the world. While never a mentor to The Hero, he was his predecessor and pilots the dark, scary counterpart to his robot◊, and is just as powerful with or without it in combat. They also hung some lampshades on the source◊ material◊.
    • Nia does not just have decorative eyes and the same voice as Nono, but is her dark parallel. She awakens to her destiny to gain sci-fi tights, Flight, the ability to warp, and controls swarms of mindless robots... except as a Manchurian Agent with the exact opposite goal. Underneath it all, they both just wish they were ordinary girls.
    • Gunbuster's shortlived comic sequel, Ne XT GENERATION, was full of epic concepts even for Gainax. Among them were the heroes traveling to a space between dimensions to battle God using a giant robot of infinite power. It looks like Gainax waited til it was financially stable and the trends regained freshness to bring back those ideas. They finally got to animate some of them for Die Buster and Gurren Lagann.
    • In episode 11 of GaoGaiGar, take a look at what a particular robot's wielding as part of its signature attack◊. Coincidence? I think NOT.
    • Similarily to Arc GL above, Great Galaxy/Chouginga Gurren Lagann's visual design is based off Mazinger Mazinkaiser mixed with Diebuster. It does the Gunbuster/Gainax pose upon emerging on the screen.
    • Yoko flies around on a yellow scooter and fights HumongousMecha with ridiculously undersized weapons. She hangs with a Cute Shotaro Boy who has the power to combine with a robot with a face on it's stomach, in order to be preposterously awesome. They protect the world from an alien race bent on destruction. Sounds vaguely familiar.
    • Does nobody seem to note the references to Star Wars? Especially in the Time Skip.
    • And then an internal reference, in Lagann-hen, where the Anti-Spiral's Gran Zamboa literally beats the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann to death on the ground, ripping and maiming the suit in a method very reminiscent of Evangelion Unit 01's horrific destruction of Unit 03. This show loves shouting out at its parent company.
    • Sponge Bob Square Pants... In my Gurren Lagann? It's more likely than you think...◊ (seriously, that can't be coincidental...)
    • The team behind the show cited Getter Robo as their main source of inspiration. The drill had to come from somewhere...
    • Didn't anyone else think that Kamina's dad looked like Captain Harlock (or just about every single one of Leiji Matsumoto's lead character heroes)? Heck the entire series is probably a shoutout to Leiji Matsumoto's take on manliness.
    • Simon manages to block Viral's attacks in episode 15 exactly like Neo blocked Smith's attacks right after becoming the One.
    • The way in which Yoko equips herself in episode 21 is similar to Ash in Evil Dead 2.
    • Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann bears an uncanny resemblance to Persoenlichkeit and the Anti-Spirals' motivation is similar to that of the Einsts. Even the area where the final battle takes place looks similar to the Einst pocket universe.
    • Speaking of Super Robot Wars shoutouts, a large part of Parallel Works 8 (which isn't really "parallel" at all and serves as Lordgenome's Start of Darkness) seems to shout out to the concept of SRW, as a lot of the Spiral Army mechs look like GL-ized versions of various famous mecha - a Mazinger, several Gundams, a Gaiking, an Arbalest and many others are clearly visible in the big "pan-back" around 1:00 and you can spot other shoutouts when Genome slaughters his teammates. The "aliens attack, various robots team up to fight invaders" plot is even boilerplate SRW. So the implication is that Lordgenome lead a Super Robot War and then became the villain of such... and then won.
      • Nevermind other Shout Outs, You can even see the Alternate Gurren Lagann from Parallel Works 6 beside Lazengan right at the beginning of the pan.
    • In Parallel Works 2-5, Kiyal and Gimmy are best friends as schoolgirls but enemies in their Magical Girl alter egos, essentially the same plot as Pretty Sammy.
    • Does Leyte remind anyone else of Rakshata?
    • The bombs that Cytomander's minions drop on the Dai-Gurren in episode 13 are Bullet Bills.
    • The plot as a whole appears to be partly based on The Epic Of Gilgamesh (Viral's mech is even called Enkidu!), and possibly The Bible.
      • Viral's name is even romanized as "Biraru", which can also be read as "Bilal", the name of a person who controled Enki. The Epic of Gilgamesh is also known as the Nikopol Trilogy, thus being the namesake of Viral's theme.
    • Each Arc in Gurren Lagann is a Shout Out to the various eras of Mecha. The first arc is the original exploration, villain of the day, and heroic sacrifice tropes of the original 70s Super Mecha genre. The Second Arc is a shout out to the late 70s and 80s style of Real-Type Mecha where War and character development is the more prevalent trope, along with the conflicting ideas of realistic fighting and hotblooded one-man army actions like the earlier arc. The third arc is a take on the 90s psychological and more political trope-filled mecha anime, that doesn't actually involve that much fighting externally in giant robots, but internally as characters. The last arc, however, is Gainax's attempt to define the current style of Mecha in the new millennium, with some of the previous tropes put together, added in with "The Power Of Love", as well as over the top characters saying anything is possible, no matter the odds, if you're willing to fight for it in big Mechas.
    • Episode 6 features appearances by several very familar-looking Bunny Girls◊ * from left to right: Rei, Mahoro, Nono, Asuka, Lal'C.
    • The attack of the giant missiles in episode 25 is a reference to the battle in Sector Z in Star Fox 64.
    • The pilot suits used by Gimmy and Darry bear striking resemblance to the ones from Neon Genesis Evangelion.
    • What's that, Attenborough? A giant naked woman in space?
    • Note the overall theme of spirals, humanity's tendency to break its boundaries, and the Arc Words relating to a "drill that will pierce the heavens". Now go look at any classical picture of the Tower of Babel◊. Hmm...
      • The Parallel Works Video 8 clearly shows this as being the main architectural design of the Spirals during the war against the Anti-Spirals.
    • The show's episode titling conventions may or may not be an intended shout out to After War Gundam X, which uses the same naming rules.
      • To explain a bit better: The Episode Titles are actually the most epic lines spoken by certain characters in the episode. One of those waited until the end of the episode before giving us the title: "I accept your dying wish!"
    • Space King Kittan's destruction looks very, VERY similar to the destruction of Bommer's Dark Dive Bomber in Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's episode 21.
    • Kamina's line "Great men don't die, even when they're killed" might be a tribute to Carl Sagan's "To live in the hearts we leave behind, is to never die." The main message is the same none the less: That as long as people remember someone for what they've done, their memory will be preserved.
    • In Episode 2, there's a "Blink And You'll Miss It" reference to Dragonball Z. When the two green Gunmen are stretching out before combat, it looks very similar to the Fusion-dance from DBZ. Especially with the powerful flash of light when they hold their hands together. In Dragonball, they'd fuse and thus create a flash of light to save animation-money. Here, the light is created by the Gunzan crashing to the ground behind them.
    • Judging by the length of Kamina's katana in episode 3, during his on-foot fight with Viral, one can argue that the sword may be a homage to Sephiroth from Final Fantasy VII, one of the most famous villains in Final Fantasy history, known for wielding a 3-4 meters long katana. Sometimes even in one hand. The rest of the time, Kamina's katana is only regular length.
      • Kamina's katana constantly changing size may also be a Shout-Out to Bleach, more specifically the Zanpakutou (Soul Slayers). They are regular katanas that change size depending on the user's Reiatsu (Spirit Pressure AKA Badass-ness), which Spiral Energy itself it pretty similar to.
    • Lordgenome after the Time-Skip is a blatant reference to Zordon from Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers. This is even pointed out in the Satire, Deleted Scene #3.

Nia: "Ah, after one thousand years I'm finally free. Free to destroy the Human Race."Lordgenome: "Bring together a group of not teen-agers with radditude and GIANT ROBOTS!"Roshiu: "Here we go again..."Lordgenome: "You have been gathered here to face the Anti-Spiral, but fear not for I see great potential and GIANT ROBOTS in all of you. You are: THE GURREN RANGERS!"

Roshiu: "We never should have put him inside the big tube."

  • Showy Invincible Hero: Basically every main character, but subverted in that most of their death cheating catches up with them at the very end, albeit by choice, in a series of Heroic Sacrifices
  • The Siege: Combined with Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?.
  • Single-Minded Twins: Jougan and Barinbou.
  • Sissy Villain: Cytomander provides the page picture.
  • Sixth Ranger: Viral after his Heel Face Turn.
  • Slap On The Wrist Nuke: Big Bang-powered Wave Motion Gun? No problem!.
    • For the Chouginga Gurren-Lagann: Having thrown planets at yourself? Less of a problem.
  • Slipknot Ponytail: Rossiu after Simon jumps through space and time to smack some sense into him.
  • Slouch of Villainy: Lordgenome's preferred method of sitting. Naturally.
  • Small Girl Big Gun: Yoko and her sniper rifle.
  • Snot Bubble
  • Soft Water - During the Beach Episode, it's OK to use the hundreds of feet tall Dai-Ganmen as a springboard.
    • The water is probably only soft because it's afraid Simon will Giga Drill Break it, if it isn't.
  • Sorting Algorithm Of Evil: Viral, then the Four Divine Generals, then Lordgenome, then the Anti-Spiral System, then an entire reality controlled by Anti-Spirals, and finally an enemy mecha that throws galaxies like Frisbees.
  • Space Is An Ocean: There really is an ocean in space, and a watery one at that. It turns out to be a Negative Space Wedgie. There's also the movie's Tengen Toppa Dai-Gurren; whereas the original Dai-Gurren simply resembled a ship, this one shows up on a wave, flies a flag, has a water-going vessel's steering wheel, and even one of those bells.
  • Spell My Name With An S: official Japanese Gulaparl vs. Fanon Grapal; which one is used depends on the fansub group, and neither is the official English name, "Grapearl;" Gunmen/Gammen/Ganmen/Gunman, Rossiu/Roshiu, Giga Drill Break(er); Giha/Jiiha; pronouncing Simon SHE-Moan or SEE-Moan (or as the usual Anglo "Simon"); Lord Genome/Lordgenome.
    • Also, the Anti-Spiral's Tengen Toppa-class mecha, the Granzaboma, is usually seen written as "Grand Zamboa."
    • To add a theoretical dimension to this, Matt Greenfield of ADV Films once said that they would've dubbed Simon's name as the typical English Sai-mon.
    • "Ritona" was pretty rampant as Yoko's last/clan name, being the direct Romanization. Bandai standardized this to "Littner".
  • Sphere Of Power
  • Split Screen: Taken to splintered screens wrestling with each other's borders during arguments and Ham-to-Ham Combat.
  • Spirit Bomb: Signified when everyone on Earth sports a Determined Look.
  • Spoiler Opening: the third intro is notorious for this: Nia having "another self", the Gurren Lagann shown to have more (and larger) forms, the Cathedral Terra (although it's only shown in shadow), among others...
  • Spring Coil: the Lagann has them
  • Stealth Parody: According to this Episode 4 was one to "huge dips in quality during the course of a shows tv production." Then again, it may be a Parody Retcon.
  • Stepping Stones in the Sky: The last chapter features Stepping Galaxies In Outer Space!
  • Stock Footage: The Giga Drill Break-animation. Which gets kinda jarring in episode 15 and The Movie, as the Gurren Lagann's wings just spontaneously disappear for one shot as the attack is carried out.
    • This troper can't imagine someone had time to look for such details.
  • Storming The Castle
  • Stripperiffic: Yoko, especially her outfit for the final arc. Not to mention Simon's waist cincher and posture collar. And Kamina never wore very much either..
  • Strong Family Resemblance: As the 8th Parallel Works video shows super-huge Lordgenome used to basically be a male version of Nia.
  • Super Prototype: The Grapearl mecha are mass-produced versions of the Gurren Lagann. Of course, being Real Robots based on a Super Robot, they're inferior. Gimmy Lampshades this in one episode. Also, the Custom Gunmen of Lordgenome's Four Generals.
  • Super Robot: Hell yeah.
  • Super Robot Wars: We bet you'll all be happy to know it's making it's long-awaited debut in Super Robot Wars Z 2.
  • Supporting Protagonist: Subverted with Simon. In the first arc, it very much looks this way, but then Kamina dies. In reality, Kamina's entire role was contributing to Simon's Character Development.
  • Surprisingly Good English: Quite a few of the songs on the soundtrack have legitimate, understandable English lyrics. Examples include Viral's theme Nikopol, all versions of 'Rap Is A Man's Soul', and 'To Hell With Gattai!'
  • Start of Darkness: Parallel Works #8 for Lordgenome.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: Has an explosions-per-minute quotient that would put any Michael Bay movie to shame.
  • Stupid Sexy Flanders: If the short "Viral's Sweet Dream" is anything to go by, even his sworn enemies can't help but have ...thoughts about Kamina.Viral: Why was I dreaming of Kamina!? Well, I guess I'm allowed to have sweet dr-NO, NO! NOT SWEET! NOT SWEET!
  • Supernatural Aid
  • Team Mom: Yoko.
  • Team Pet: Boota.
    • The eighth Parallel Works video suggests that Guame used to be this to Lordgenome. This is hinted at in the canon, as Gaume justifies taking more liberties against Lordgenome than the others by stating that they were old friends.
  • Technicolor Eyes: Nia, to the point where she provided the page picture.
    • Notably, her eyes became flat and monotone while she was under the control of the Anti-Spiral.
  • Telescoping Robot: Taken to the extreme: making weapons larger than the rest of the mech. Handwaved with Spiral Power, and deconstructed: overuse will destroy the entire universe.
  • Testosterone Poisoning: Kamina, especially in episode 6.
  • That Cloud Looks Like: Done in episode 4 by Simon, Kamina and Kittan with the usual food variety.
  • That's No Moon: the Moon itself is a disguised Humongous Mecha.
  • Theme Music Power Up: Repeatedly. Culminating in the final episode, which contains a theme music-powered beatdown to the entire full length version of the opening theme..
  • Theme Naming: The Beastmen, their leaders, and a good chunk of the core group of Team Gurren.
    • The four generals are named after a sort-of-portmanteau of the DNA base pairs and pagan elemental spirits. Guame = guamine+ Gnome, spirit of earth, Adiane = adenine+ Undine, spirit of water, Cytomander = cytosine+ Salamander, spirit of fire and Thymilph = thymine+ Sylph, spirit of air. Their Gunmen are also named after The Four Gods, Suzaku, Seiryuu, Byakkou, and Genbu.
    • The four Beastman flagships are all named "Gun(something about the ship)". There's the ground-based Gundo: "do" means "earth", air-based Gunten: "ten" is "heaven", sea-based Gunkai: "kai" is "ocean", and for the Gunzan: "zan" is a phonetic variant of "san", meaning "mountain."
    • "Simon" contains "shimo", "below"; "Kamina" has "kami", "above"; "Yoko" is "yoko", "beside", and her alter-ego Yomako is from "mayoko", "directly beside"; Nia has "near" (of course); Kittan is from "tanki", "quick-tempered"; Leeron is from "riron", "theory"; Gimmy and Darry are from "migi" and "hidari", "right" and "left"; Kiyoh is from "youki", "cheerful", and her infant daughter Anne is from "annei", "public peace"; Kinon is from "nonki", "easygoing"; Kiyal is from "yaruki", "eager"; Dayakka is from "odayaka", "gentle"; Kidd and Ailak are from "kidoairaku", "human emotions"; Zorthy is from "souzoushii", "noisy, boisterous"; Jorgun and Balinbow are from "ganjou", "solid" and "abarenbou", "rowdy"; Makken is from "kenma", "grinding, polishing, studying"; Leite is from "teire", "maintenance"; Attenborough is from "awatenbou", "hasty". Jeeha Village is from "haji", "end"; Littner is from "tonari", "next door"; Korehana (the school Yomako taught at) is from "hanare kojima", "small island of isolation"; Bachika is from "chikaba", "nearby place"; Adai is from "aida", "distance; Koiiga (no official romanisation, the village Kidd and Ailak are from) is from "gaikoku", "foreign country"; Nakai (from whence Zorthy hails) is from "inaka", "countryside"; Bakusa (Jorgun and Balinbow's home village) is from "sabaku", "desert"; Jouken (Leite and Makken's home village) is from "kenjou", "neighbourhood"; Koachichi (Attenborough's home village) is from "acchikocchi", "somewhere". Phew.
      • Heh, below, above, beside... sorry. (Subverted: Kamina is usually uke.)
      • Don't forget Memusu (Viral's daughter), a play on "Musume," or "Daughter."
  • There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Most battles, including the very first, are completed by utterly anhilating the enemy. "GIGA!!! DRILL!!! BRRRRREAKER!!!!!"
    • The Giga Drill Break in Episode 8 Almost takes an entire chapter in the manga... or at least 11 PAGES FOR A 30 SECOND LONG ATTACK SEQUENCE!
  • The Virus: The heroic Lagann is arguably this
  • They Should Have Sent A Poet: at the end of the first episode. The three main characters launch themselves through the earth's surface and high into the air, getting an overview of everything.
    • This is repeated with Yoko and one of her students post-time skip.
    • It's actually repeated earlier than that with Simon and Nia.
  • This Cannot Be!: Actually exclaimed by heroes and villains alike whenever physics go out the window in favor of what's coolest.
    • The final battle is basically one long contest of this, with the Anti-spirals losing HORRIBLY. Needless to say physics was found brutally murdered in a dark alley.
      • What are these "physics" you speak of?
      • What caused the Dai-Gunzan to fall down into a pit in episode 6 or 7. That's also known as "Gravity".
  • This Is A Drill, of course.
  • This! Is! SPARTA!: GIGA!!! DRILL!!! BREAAKEEEERRR!!!!!.
    • Taken to the logical extreme by combining 300 and TTGL, which arguably makes for an even more awesome trailer than the original. Beware of Spoilers and keep a towel ready to wipe off the testosterone from your monitor afterwards.
    • Gross.
      • head explodes from pure awesomeness I'm gonna need that towel...
  • Time Abyss: While receiving reports on the evacuation, Rossiu glances at a display showing a world map. The shapes of the continents are just recognizable enough to deduce that tens of millions of years' worth of continental drift has occurred.
    • Or the Anti-Spirals' attack on Earth (as shown in Parallel Works #8) severely screwed up the landmasses.
  • Tim Taylor Technology: How else do you explain the Gurren's spontaneous fix up after combining with Lagann?
  • Title Drop: The biggest mecha in the series is called "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann"; chapters are also named after a dramatic line said by one of the characters.
    • As the title in America is simply Gurren Lagann, this was lost when the finale was aired. There's also confusion after episodes having to be renamed as the line they're named after are slightly different.
    • It should be noted that, translated, the biggest Mecha of the series literally reads Heaven Shattering Gurren Lagann. Guess what it does.
  • Too Dumb to Live: The reinforcements in episode 14. Your commander dies because he charged straight into a tornado of energy? Go ahead and try it en masse. You'll break through it in no time.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Simon. Only in the universe of Gurren Lagann can something like this◊ happen.
    • You mean a human being turning Super Saiyan? Because that's what it looks like to me. That's right, being in Gurren Lagann makes you so badass that it turns you into a Saiyan.
  • Tomboy and Girly Girl: Yoko and Nia
  • Transformation Sequence: Invoked by Kamina in the fourth episode. He just would not combine with Simon until he did it.
  • Tron Lines: these appear on many things related to the Anti-Spirals, including most of the Mugann, Nia as the Anti-Spiral messenger, and even their home planet.
  • Troperiffic
  • Trope Overdosed: Because lots of tropers watch this show, and it's just that awesome.
  • Troper Critical Mass: Read the above entry.
  • Tsundere: Yoko shows some characteristics of this when it comes to Kamina.
  • Tropes Are Tools: The creators intentionally evoked the classic tropes of Mecha anime from 70s on, with each arc covering the different sets of tropes from eras in Mecha as noted above as a Shout-Out. Taking ques from Mazinger Z, Mobile Suit Gundam, Evangelion, as well as many more,the series was a love letter to all that was good and great about those tropes, as well as using the last arc to set up what they hope would become a new Trope for the future of the Mecha genre.
  • Tunnel King: Simon the Digger
  • Unstoppable Rage: Simon gets these a lot, especially after episode 8. Of course, special mention must be made for Kamina's unstoppable rage in episode 6. It was freakin hilarious. "MAN'S WRATH ERUPTION SLASH!"
  • Up to Eleven: The entire series revolves around taking every Super Robot trope up to eleven. The movies take it up to twelve.
    • I don't know about that... more likely, the 2nd movie takes it up to 17.
  • Vagina Dentata: Adiane's mecha has its mouth in its crotch, with fangs.
  • Vapor Wear: It's obvious that Nia in the High School AU goes commando.
  • Visual Innuendo: The Dai-Gurren - for God's sake just look at it!
    • This is actually pointed out at one point. When something smashed through the observation deck, all of the male crew members, minus Leeron, grabbed their crotches and cringed.
      • Shortly thereafter, an equally Freudian weapon nails the Dai-Gurren from below...causing Leeron to hop out of his seat with a startled "iya~n."
    • Antispiral Nia's black Latex Space Suit has red Tron Lines going about it. The concentric circles on her breasts easily remind you of something.
    • Dai-Gurren versus Dai-Gunten. That is all.
      • Just look at the way the ensuing explosion is drawn!
  • Villain Opening Scene: In the Movie.
  • Villain Pedigree: From Beastmen to Anti-Spirals.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: The most obvious example is Kamina. Lordgenome could also count, depending on whether or not his (very manly) torso can be seen as Fanservice.
  • Walking The Earth Viral, because of Lordgenome (post-timeskip) and Simon, because of Nia (in the epilogue).
  • Wave Motion Gun: Powered by a Big Bang.
  • Weapon Tombstone: Kamina's katana. His Badass Cape is tied around the hilt for added coolness.
  • Weird Moon:A creepy-faced moon on a collision course with the earth? Now, where have we seen this before...?
  • We Could Have Avoided All This: If Lordgenome either A) Decided not to puss-out, or B) Told people what he saw before flipping out and shoving everyone underground.
  • "Well Done, Son" Guy: Kamina; much of his personality is arguably because of his regret that he didn't accompany his father to the surface when he was a child.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Lordgenome, post-Time Skip Rossiu and the Anti-Spirals
  • Wham Episode: Kamina.. Kamina dies? No way. That.. that can't be right. He's gonna get right up, wipe himself off, they'll maybe put some bandages on him, he'll be fine, right? .. Right?.
    • This is made worse if watching it on Netflix which currently has the episodes out of order. They are all fine and then skip that perticular Wham Episode leading newcomers to believe Kamina was killed off screen!
    • After a certain point in Episode 24, you just want to grab Gainax and start shaking them until they stop killing secondary characters.
    • And another one in Episode 17, after the Time Skip. The Anti-Spirals have made their presence as the new Big Bad, and Nia appears to be under their control.
  • What Could Have Been: The ADV dub goes without saying.
  • What Do You Mean, It's For Kids?: There's nothing wrong with liking a children's cartoon, people!
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Awesome?: Parallel Works 2 — a pachinko mecha. Seriously.
    • Libera Me From Hell wasted on nature shots. And it's an official Parallel Works video.
    • HACKING!
      • It has been scientifically proven that if you listen to many of the show's theme songs during menial tasks, said menial task will multiply in awesome.
  • What Do You Mean, It's Not Symbolic?: as elaborated in Simon's "World Of Cardboard" Speech, the concept of spirals detailing the struggles of the humans up to that point.
  • What the Hell, Hero?: The justification for Simon's imprisonment.
  • When All You Have Is A DrillViral: "It's no good! Our drill can't penetrate it!" [paraphrase]Simon: "So we need a bigger drill!?" [paraphrase]
  • Who Are You: Inverted. Or maybe subverted...who knows. Regardless:Just who the hell do you think we are??
  • Who Is This Guy Again: The secondary members of Team Dai-Gurren tend to go unnamed, even if they get large amounts of screentime.
    • The entire crew of Dai-Gurren is actually named; as are their Gunmen (though this may just be a trait of the manga). They announce names at a few points in the canon, and resources exist with all the characters labeled. None the less, it's incredibly easy to forget that they are all indeed named, as these characters are rarely identified despite having substantial screen time for minor characters.
    • Happens to Viral at the end of episode 6. Kamina actually asks "Wait... Who is he again?", though Kamina does this for various people and facts. He actually does this a lot more than one would think for a character who's only alive in 8 episodes.
    • Subverted in the most awesome way in Lagann-hen. Kamina appears to Simon in the Lotus Eater Machine of the Anti-Spirals, helping him to get out of it. Then, Kittan shows up and Kamina says "Who was this guy again?". Kittan gets angry, but the subversion comes when Kamina grabs Kittan around the shoulders and says "You dolt! How could I forget?!"
  • Why Don't Ya Just Shoot Him?: Lordgenome asks the Anti-Spiral Leader why he didn't just destroy Team Dai-Gurren with his near-infinite power. The ASL says there was an unusual source of spiral energy that they needed data on, lest it "ruin everything". Turns out it's Boota.
  • A Wizard Did It: Spiral Energy can do pretty much whatever the hell's coolest.
  • The Worf Barrage: Poor Viral seems to fall victim to this a lot, especially any time he draws his swords. Apparently drills > Katanas. Then he gets redeemed.
    • In Lagann-Hen, he does the same barrage of blades in the anime, but with Tengen Toppa Enkidulga, and when the swords inevitably break, he kicks a shard of the sword into the Anti-Spiral homeworld, which Yoko shoots in her Tengen Toppa Yoko W Tank, the only time in the series where his swords were useful.
    • Not to mention Attenborough's Button Mashing all the Humongous Mecha-du-jour's guns on every enemy, usually to little effect: see his Fan Nickname. This is pointed out to him at one point.
      • Despite this, he actually does kill Adiane with it, and mooks now and then.
    • And it's not just Attenborough. Before that there was Yoko's BFG.
  • The Worf Effect: If you pay attention, you'll notice that Kamina almost never won a fight without Simon. The funny thing is, Kamina is fully aware of that trend. It's just that no one - especially Simon - believes him.
    • Also, the final battle. After escaping from the Alternate Space Labyrinth, the Dai-Gurren Brigade assemble a galaxy-sized mecha with an entire universe's worth of Spiral power. The Anti-Spiral proceeds to summon up his own galaxy-sized mecha and beat the crap out of it, even tearing it to shreds in the movie.
      • Deliberately invoked by the Anti-Spirals, as this is the only way to induce total despair, which in turn will destroy any trace of spiral power.
  • World Of Badass
  • World Of Ham
  • Wrench Wench: Leyte, a.k.a. "The Professor".
  • Wrong Genre Savvy: Rossiu. Acts like he's in real-robot anime.
    • A very, very cynical one. Though, considering the studio we're talking about here, his assumption is understandable.
  • Yaoi Fangirl: Kinon in the AU manga.
    • For that matter, note Yoko's's reaction to "they're going to combine".
  • Yonkoma: The Internet has created the "Dai-Gurren-Koma", a collection of photoshops of the "Gaijin 4-Koma" corresponding to each episode that aired, which was updated within days of airing. This YouTube video uses the pictures to punctuate a montage of the entire series. Warning: spoilers.
  • You Are Already Dead Simon does this with Lordgenome
  • You Killed My Father: In the second episode, Simon realising that tremors caused by the Beastmen-piloted Gunmen led to his parents' deaths motivates him to fight.
  • Younger Than They Look: Yoko starts the series at 14. Feeling uncomfortable?
    • Well, sort of. Because of living underground, the years were counted far differently than they were when the sun and seasons held so much sway. Because of the difference in amount of days per year, Yoko was 18-19 by our standards. Apparently it's Word Of God, not to mention it's very indirectly implied in the first episode...
    • Oh really? I thought it was directly implied by the fact that Yoko has breasts as big as her head, which would either make her an adult or the luckiest 14-year-old who ever lived.
  • Zettai Ryouiki: Yoko wears a grade A with short shorts. Ironically, this means her legs are by far the most only decently-covered part of her.



Later...buddy.

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