this review contains spoilers. purely just my thoughts. read if you even care.

episodes 1 to 7:
it started out fine. the main characters were introduced nicely, we knew about kamina and simon, their motivations and aspirations, albeit briefly. i even got goosebumps once they got out of the hole and saw the surface for the very first time. as well as when they combined (gurren and lagann) for the very first time. there's a crazy feeling of amazement when something awesome seemingly came out of nothing without any explanation whatsoever. from then on, it became extremely fast-paced. we didn't really know why they lived underground. we also didn't know why simon can control the robot he found and why it was buried there (and why it's severely overpowered). i guess we could learn more about it as more episodes go by. except kamina's rash and abrasive character, simon's timidity, the unnecessary fanservice, a bunch of random characters getting introduced, how they kept winning, and why their enemies are a bunch of idiots, were starting to get a little old really really quickly. i'm hoping these things would eventually get resolved as i watch more of it—or should i say, endure watching.

episodes 8 - 11:
kamina's death was so abrupt, i almost didn't believe it when it first happened, thinking they'd pull a "gotcha" and raise a death flag. but well, 2 episodes after, the opening song didn't have kamina in it (which almost gave me a heart attack), a new character was added instead, and we didn't even know if kamina was buried or cremated, and where!! kamina was such a staple character that it really does feel like something huge is missing in the entire anime (though i'm not really complaining, nia is cute). the loss of kamina made simon's "climbing out of rock bottom" arc even more powerful and significant—i'm a sucker for shit like this, i'd eat it up like mcdonald's at 1 AM. i'm a man but i'll admit that put a tear in my eye. i'm looking forward to the next episodes (i still don't fully believe kamina is dead).

episodes 12 - 15:
as stale as a morning butter bread. we've yet to know the importance of the spiral power. and somehow, they defeated the spiral king, just like that. it was pretty underwhelming. and all the motivational speeches are getting bland now. i wonder what they have in store for us in the future episodes.

episode 16:
just a compilation episode.

episodes 17 - 20:
this is where things actually start to become good. we learned what the spiral power actually is and what its purpose is. the spiral king was once a spiral warrior fighting a civilization called the anti-spirals. he was responsible for keeping humans alive by driving them underground so that the census won't be detected to reach 1 million. however, since kamina, simon, team dai-gurren decided to destroy all the gunmen and the spiral king and build a human civilization on the surface, the anti-spirals are free to eliminate the human race since there are no protectors anymore. they all knew this too late. with rossiu's decision to imprison simon for war crimes, sentencing him to death, and to evacuate a large number of humans (not all of them), they're set to wait in an arc ship for a year in space, waiting for the earth to cool down after the moon collides with it. at least, that's what's supposed to happen. nia, who is now a messenger of the anti-spirals carrying out the human extermination system, predicts that humans will only live in despair. it is an inevitable fact.

episodes 21 - 23:
everything fell right into place in the end. the battle outside earth was beautiful. the scale just kept getting bigger and bigger. they also added a bit of science fiction type of shit here. also, here i thought rossiu was someone who just wanted simon's downfall because of jealousy but i felt bad when he tried to kill himself. simon's starting to become like kamina but more level-headed and in his own character. the series is doing it right.

episodes 24 - 27:
now that's how you end an anime. from the start i've been having doubts on which direction the series is going to, not trusting in its ability to resolve what it started. but i was wrong. boyyyy, was i really wrong. not only did it give me answers to most of my questions about the plot, it also brought justice to kamina's image and abrupt death. it gave me more than what i can hope to ask for. the fighting scenes in space were the best battles i've seen in mecha anime (i've only watched one other mecha anime, evangelion, which is technically not much focusing on action) but holy shit. the whole last episode is just filled with goosebumps-inducing scenes. they didn't pull a conclusion right out of their asses, they wrapped it all up nicely. i'm still firm with the belief that the first few episodes could've been better but i'm not really gonna complain much because of how satisfied the last several episodes left me.

i was gonna drop this anime because i couldn't really trust it to be any better. but i'm really glad i was wrong. i'm really glad i saw it through. isn't that what the anime is preaching about? believe in the me that believes in myself. so that's what i did, i watched it from start to end. because i believed in the me that believes i can finish this. i'm not sure if i'm making sense but if you watched the anime and you're reading this "review" then you might understand me in some way. the only regret i have right now is that i didn't watch this when i was a kid. but i'm glad i did now. i'm so glad i did.