Gurren Lagann

I cried non stop the entire final episode good god, the level of hype is unrivalled and we got such a bittersweet ending. When you think of anime, this is exactly what you think of, I haven't seen a anime do anime better than this. The level of scale, like you cant forget we started underground with fuck all knowledge on whats going on and by the end of the anime we are having multidimensional space fights with a completely different species. The anime portrays humanity better than anything else, the way they set up the story and the power source reflecting humanity's will and soul, its just so perfectly done. Firstly I gotta shoutout the characters, Kamina, his death hit me so hard that I was ugly crying and every single time he made an appearance after in some way I was crying, like when they were trapped in an infinite loop of dimensions and Kamina appears in all of them to break every character free, the symbolism of him is just crazy good. The flag, everything, he is the core of team Gurren Lagann, that is how you do death in a story, not some pussy revive the character back or fake it like One Piece does for a lot of characters. In fact all of the sacrifices made during their fight for humanity to prevail were done so well, every death was just so badass and its not something you can even be upset by because every character chose that fate, chose to push forward no matter if it cost them their lives. I feel bad for Simon that he didn't get a "happy" ending because of Nia's death but I think he was satisified with it still because he knew it would happen and they managed to get married even though it was the shortage marriage of all time. Simon from where he started to what he became is probably the single best character development of all time, I have never seen a character have such a huge impact on another on this scale before, he was just so fucking badass by the end. It fully reflected the Kamina in his heart, he was never gone. Shoutout to Lord Genome too, his lore was so well written and the redemption he got by the end was perfection, he knew when he got that chance to have his body again that he wouldn't waste it and gave his life up to win the fight, afterall he was just a simple warrior who lost previously. The first like 15 episodes of the anime him being the main bad guy, that episode where he lost to Simon, that moment was just insane where he basically laid it on him theres a much great danger and what he was doing was protecting the planet from them. You can't blame him really he was just someone trying his best to keep everyone surviving knowing that there was no hope because he lost previously, he did what had to be done. You could say that because he was the way he was, it lead to a spiral power so powerful that it eventually spiralled into doing what he could never do. The time skip was amazing, I usually do not like them because they are not done well but this was good because we got to see what humanity was like when they got freedom. Rossiu was the best way to portray it too because he turned into someone who became timid, once he got that freedom, he did whatever it took to protect it in a cowardly manner rather than continuing to look forward and surpass what humans are currently capable of. I was mad at him when he arrested Simon but I couldn't hate him because that is just how humans are. Rossiu even tried to take the easy way out by killing himself, I am glad he wasn't allowed to because its better to live with the sins you commit and try to make it right rather than just giving up. Another goat character was VIRAL, my god he is just a complete badass, his rivalry with both Kamina and Simon was top tier and then once he joined the team he was so badass too, he was "cursed" with immortality but hes used it for a good cause of being the leader of the new generations of Gurren Lagann. Kittan was kinda whatever throughout, I didn't really care much for him but he became so badass by the end, especially when he sacrificed himself after hugging Yoko. Yoko went from fanservice to a well written character too. We didn't see her for ages after the timeskip, I was just waiting for her to show up again and then we got the lore of what she has been up to. It was sweet seeing her being a teacher looking after a bunch of children, it made me happy that she found her place outside of just fighting all the time. I was hoping she would pilot the Lagann with Simon after Kamina died but she never really took that place as centre character which im fine with in the long run. She couldnt have been really because she couldnt be a love interest for Simon after she was in love with Kamina. Nia took that spot as the love interest. She was introduced out of nowhere but she became such an important piece of the story and a lovable character. I want to touch on the whole Spiral and anti spiral shenanigans because that was my favourite foundation of the story. The anti spiral basically shut themselves down because they feared the end of the universe, they stripped themselves of the spiral energy and locked away all spiral energy races. What I was surprised about was why exactly did they keep the spiral races alive, why didnt they kill them, I never really found any suitable explanation for it, they kept using the reason of wanting to cause them the most amount of despair possible. I guess they wanted to inflict that onto others so they never felt like they themselves were in the most despair because they werent even living a life, just motionlessly laying there as they were scared of the universe ending. The contrast was done perfectly, yes humans keep evolving and yes there is always risk to it but you cant just stop living because of it, you have to find ways to adapt and move on. This is why I love this anime, it makes me think about humanity. We dont even think about it because its just normal to us but every day our bodies adapt to keep living, constantly fighting off any illness or whatnot, we dont even tell it to do that but it still does. Its just in human nature for us to continue to fight, adapt and evolve, its the reason why we are the most superior species on the planet. They said near the end that the spiral energy was a combination of the deaths of people and the future generations, I think that sums it up perfectly, time is constantly moving forward never a moment of standing still, it just hits deep for me. All that is left to be said now is the animation and production of it. How the fuck is this from 2007, the animation is literally from the future, it looks better than 99% of anime airing now. The final fight was so insane, its probably the most insane fight Ive ever seen in anime. It reminds me a lot of a certain fight in ff16, just pure epicness. So many scenes just popped the fuck off, so many badass quotes, so many just still frames of picturesque moments. Tldr - This is what anime is, easiest 10/10 of all time and I regret not watching it way earlier.