< Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann/Awesome


TTGL normally has at least one of these an episode, sometimes more. And if they ever don't, it just means they're taking a run up for the next episode. Better pack a lunch buddy, you'll be here for a while. The series might as well be called Crowning Moment of Awesome: The TV Show! This page also functions as a summary for the series.

  • This is added at the top because it most likely takes all the awesome you'll read below and makes it even better. IT'S IN Super Robot Wars Z 2!!!!
  • The prologue. Despite it possibly being an AU scene where the Spiral Nemesis takes place and Simon and the others wage war on "every single star in the sky" the pure awesome of it sets the tone for the rest of the series.
  • Kamina's introduction in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Followed rapidly by him picking a fight with a giant robot, on foot, with only a katana.
    • Kamina's intro might not be so much a Crowning Moment of Awesome, but a "Hey, he's a pretty cool guy", though Yoko's introduction definitely counts.
      • This troper didn't realize how awesome Kamina was going to be until he started self-narrating.
      • This troper nearly died of Testosterone Poisoning watching that scene.
    • Word of God states that he would have won, if Yoko hadn't interfered. That's right. Kamina, an over-the-top hot-blooded badass with a katana, would've defeated a humongous mecha, though it could kill him with ease.
  • Lagann breaking through to the surface. The fact that the song that plays during the ascent is the same tune that plays during the below-mentioned Giga Drill Break should give you a clue.
  • Viral delivering two No Holds Barred Beatdowns against Kamina in the same episode, quickly topped by the first union of Gurren and Lagann, which involved stealing Viral's helmet.
  • WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM KIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIICK!!!!!!
  • When Simon and Kamina snatched Thymilph's Dai-Ganzan, now the Dai-Gurren. Followed by Thymilph's epic-level pwnage at the receiving end of the series' first Giga Drill Break.
  • Then comes Kamina's death. You could feel his soul ascending into godhood as he said "Later, buddy".
    • When beggars die, there are no comets seen; / The heavens themselves blaze forth the death of princes.
    • Even in his dying breath, after getting sliced and stabbed by Thymilph's mecha, Kamina mustered up all his life and strength to deliver his final blow to the enemy. Now that's what you call a blaze of glory.
      • Of course, after you think he's dead already, and then he pushes himself up with the fairly nonchalant "Can't a guy get some sleep around here?" Before yet another Bright Slap and the best Hot-Blooded Duet-speech with Simon before they get to the ass-kickin' makes rooms, homes and entertainment centers erupt with cheers, then get stunned to shocked silence when you see the light pencil drawing and hear Simon's whimpering "...Bro?"
      • The manga implies that he's already dead.
        • So does the anime. When we see the computer schematic showing Lagann's drill boring down into Gurren's cockpit during this scene, the stick figure representing Kamina is black, not orange like it normally is.
        • All this basically means that Kamina avenged his own death personally.
      • Reenacted in Super Robot Wars Z 2: Hakai-hen
  • The manga's scenes leading up to Kamina's final battle. Kamina and Yoko stands, looking out on the battlefield while talking, and Kamina spontaneously makes a vulcano erupt. After that, he just casually says that a battlefield for a great battle has to look awesome.
  • Anytime Simon and Kamina combine into Gurren Lagann is a Moment of Awesome in itself, but the sequence usually includes a bonus moment for Kamina: combining involves a massive drill bit breaking into Gurren's cockpit, inches from Kamina's head, and he never even flinches.
  • Simon getting over his Wangst due to Kamina's death just in time to defeat Guame. His rallying speech and Theme Music Power-Up is so effective, you can feel the Wangst demons that Neon Genesis Evangelion inflicted on the genre being exorcised even as he spoke.
    • The cherry on top for Simon's Crowning Moment of Awesome: When everyone else goes 'wtf/ohcrap' at Simon's reappearance, Leeron is smiling smugly the whole time, as if to say "It's about time."
    • This is accompanied by a Giga Drill Break that tops the previous one in pure awesome.
    • Closely matched by the movie's take on the scene.
    • Back to the anime version, this Crowning Moment of Awesome is preceded by a smaller, subtler CMOA: Team Dai-Gurren is imprisoned. They all vow to dig their way out of their cell through the surrounding bedrock walls with their bare hands (and heads, and teeth!). The problem? It's freaking bedrock, and they all fail to make any progress. While they're all complaining, slowly but surely, everyone turns around. They're caught off guard by Simon, who is silently and steadily carving out a hole in the bedrock wall with just his tiny core drill. Remember, this is the guy who everyone had all but given up on during his Heroic BSOD following Kamina's death. Yoko realizes that Kamina wasn't kidding when he said how Simon was the one who always helped and even inspired him. For good measure, the Lagann meets Simon in the hole that he dug.
    • Reenacted in Super Robot Wars Z 2: Hakai-Hen
    • Guame gets one in that scene for somehow dodging the Giga Drill Breaker. While almost completely immobilized due to how his gunmen reads pilot input.
  • Nia running straight onto the Dai-Gurren's deck and ordering Adiane to cease her attack. Keep in mind that Nia is a young girl with no weapons and Adiane is piloting a mecha that could crush her in an instant.
    • Don't forget her variation on the Arc Words of the series: "Are you aware of who I am!?"
  • Leeron's plan for attacking the Dai-Gunten, an enemy Airborne Aircraft Carrier, with the Dai-Gurren, a battleship with feet, by running up a mountain, jumping what must have been a decent fraction of a mile into the air, and then trying to kick it. It missed. And turned it into a spinning back kick. Keep in mind, the Dai-Gurren just leapt to an altitude where the fall would almost certainly destroy it, just to attack another ship, and it can't fly. They just did a swallow kick with a robot the size of a freakin' battleship. A feat topped later by using a now flight-capable Dai-Gurren to simply stab the Dai-Gunten with its pointed bow, which also took out one of the Four Generals at the same time, which is also incredibly satisfying due to said General's Oh Crap of epic proportions. The Hell am I saying? Everything in this anime is of epic proportions!\\

Before even that Oh Crap, is the part before that one, where said general Cytomandra is wondering how one pathetic gunman could stand up to his entire fleet after Team Dai-Gurren's forces were split to deal with ground assaults. Simon just calmly charges up his Spiral Energy, creating mini-drill missiles, enough to destroy all the grunts in the air that were currently dispatched. The look on the birdman's face cracks straight into an unhinged grin, then he cackles in a total WTF-this-must-be-a-joke way. The fact that Simon was able to break his pompous attitude in such an awesome way just cements the fact that Simon is now secure with who he is and he wouldn't have it any other way.

  • The entire fight between Simon and Lordgenome can be considered a Lensman Arms Race in Badassery. Every time Simon uses Heroic Resolve to get the upper hand, Lordgenome promptly smack him down again only for Simon to get back up again, more determined than before. The whole thing culminates in Lordgenome beating up Lagann bare-handed, with flames of Spiral Power coming out of his head, followed by Simon using his Core Drill to drill a hole through Lordgenome's chest.
    • Not to mention Lordgenome shrugging off a "Giga Drill Break" like it was nothing.
      • That's okay, because a little bit later he gets one-upped by Simon and Nia's "Giga Teakettle Break." Seriously, listen to them, they sound like a teakettle boiling... and it's awesome.
      • The speech leading up to that part is pretty damn awesome as well. After Lordgenome tells Simon he has no chance of winning, Simon delivers a Shut UP, Hannibal that pretty much sums up his character development up to this point in the series, all as the "get ready 'cause shit is about to get real" opening of the song "To Hell With Gattai!" plays.

Simon: QUIT YOUR STUPID YAMMERING! I'm not gonna lose! Nia, Yoko, Rossiu, Ron, Kittan, Dayakka- every member of Team Dai-Gurren believes in me! The me that my bro believed in... the me that I believe in... isn't ever gonna lose to the LIKES! OF! YOU!!!

    • Every time we see Lordgenome in Lazengann, he has his arms crossed. He pilots his giant robot without using his hands.
    • Or Lordgenome managing to talk WITHOUT LUNGS.
    • The most awesome part of this fight is when After Simon has attempted to take the Lazengann with a Lagann Impact, gets out of Lazengann, saunters down the vertical surface of its face, and punches the Lagann off. Men, there is not enough italics in the world for that moment.
    • And lets not forget what happened after the battle. Simon and Nia return victorious, with Sorairo Days playing in the background, the two of them look down at Team Dai-Gurren cheer for them, and then they look at the sunrise. And on the screen it says:

The Battle of Tepplin, Day 7

Tepplin Castle, the Spiral King's Capital: Fallen.

    • You can't help shedding tears of joy at that moment.
    • And then it says STILL To be continued.
  • Rossiu gets one with just one sentence:

Rossiu: Open your eyes, Lord Genome!

    • I prefer this one, spoken as TTGL is being pummeled by the force of a Big Bang (as in the primal explosion that created the universe) and he watches on from his balcony as the fate of the world hangs in the balance. . .

Rossiu: It looks bad. . . but it'll take more than that to kill them. (Cue badass scene of the entire population of the Earth staring up defiantly into the final battle between the Dai Gurren-Dan and the Anti-Spirals as the opening theme plays)

  • Simon unleashes the Giga Drill Maximum.
  • Kittan, channelling the awesome power of Kamina, picks a fight with a Mugan, on foot, with only a shotgun. Not as awesome as Kamina, but really, who is?
  • Yoko destroying two Ganmen in a matter of seconds with nothing but her trusty BFG and a small hover vehicle.

Yoko: School's out. You failed.

Simon/Viral: JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM!?!
Gurren Lagann: * unleashes a gargantuan wave of Spiral energy*
Anti-Spiral fleet: ** EXPLODE**

  • Arc Gurren-Lagann Megaton Punching an enemy Mugan so hard it smashes a hole in the very fabric of space-time, into which the Mugan falls and promptly explodes. Captain Falcon, eat your heart out.
    • This Troper needs to reiterate: He hits the enemy so hard, that the enemy hits * nothing* and * breaks it.*
    • In The Movie, Arc Gurren Lagann confronts Cathedral Lazengann (which is basically Chouginga Gurren Lagann minus Cool Shades and under the Anti-spirals), and giga drills through its arm and into its core, while stopping a punch. While Arc GL is large, the arm it drilled through was the size of New Zealand, and throwing a punch.
  • Simon causes Nia to wake up back to her original self. She suddenly goes from preaching the Anti-Spiral's talk of absolute despair to "Are you coming for me?" with all of the reverb gone from her voice. Not quite the same as all the combat Crowning Moment of Awesome but this troper still punched the air when it happened.
  • Any time any music is playing,that's a good sign that a Crowning Moment of Awesome is on the way. ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH!!!
  • Simon teleports halfway through the world, rips the Gurren Lagann through a wall, ejects from his cockpit, slides across the ground for a good hundred feet, brings his hand back, and with a fantastic scream of "ROSSIU!!!!! CLENCH THOSE TEETH!!!!" he slugs Rossiu right in the goddamn face. All at once he honors fallen brothers, puts the Scrappy of the series in his place with gusto, acknowledges Rossiu's basic decency and good intentions, and punches a man so hard his headband holding his hair in that Fei-like style explodes from the sheer ungodly awesome of the punch. Rossiu's lucky he had a HEAD after that.
    • It's almost a CMoA for Rossiu too, just for being conscious after that hit.
    • In the second movie, this honor goes from Simon to Kinon, though it's not quite as awesome. She just silently enters Rossiu's room and gives him a hard smack, then tells him off as stated above.
    • It was actually foreshadowed in the uncut version of episode 8: Yoko doing a Foe-Tossing Charge through the onsen-Ganmen just to punch Kamina in the face.
  • Jougen and Barinbou throw Gimmy and Darry's ruined Gulaparls back at the main ship, then turn and laugh manically as their Twin-Bouku mecha explodes... with such force an entire Anti-Spiral fleet dies with them.
    • Right now I wish I could remember the names of the other four background characters who gave their lives to protect the Chouginga Arc-Gurren; especially Leite's husband, who destroyed a giant missile with a katana. They deserve some Nominal Importance after what they did.
      • Those would be Zorthy, Kidd, Iraak and Makken. Makken was the one with the katana.
      • In Lagann-Hen, They all survive
    • Related awesome. In the midst of all this heroism, tech gal Leite is suddenly made aware of her husband Makken's death, him having sacrificed himself to save the ship and everyone onboard. She gives herself one moment to mourn, simply whispering "darling..." (the acting sells it) and then immediately goes back to work and does not stop working and doing her part for the entire battle. In what must have been an emotionally excruciating time for her, she held it together and continued her vital role as part of the team- and even assists in the Tengen Toppa battles despite never piloting before! (fortunately Makken lives in the movie. She damn well earned that happy ending.)
  • Boota proves that humans aren't the only ones who can use Spiral Energy.
    • Not to mention Boota's awesomeness resulting in an aura of flowing spiral energy making his fur spikey, making him look like what can only be described as Super Saiyan Boota.
    • Bah! It's Boota's drill tail that makes him awesome!
    • It's a mecha the size of the moon being powered by a hamster.
    • No, what's really awesome is when everyone is trapped in the Lotus Eater Machine, Boota, havin transformed into a humanoid, punches the Anti Spiral King. That, along with several other things, bumped SpiralKight!Boota up to this troper's fourth favorite character of all time.
  • Kittan pulls a Heroic Sacrifice to release everyone from the Ocean of Despair, by flying into the Death Spiral Machine in the Space King Kittan, being crushed under the ocean's pressure, then ejecting out in the tiny King Kittan and unleashing a massive Giga Drill Break on the Machine--something only Simon and Kamina had ever pulled off before. And then Kittan dies while laughing about how awesome the whole thing was.

John 8:52-53: At this they exclaimed, "Now we know you are demon-possessed! Abraham died and so did the prophets, yet you say whoever obeys your words will never taste death. Are you greater than our father Abraham? He died and so did the prophets. Who do you think you are?"

    • Just to clarify the awesomeness of this moment: The spaceship's nigh-omniscient bio computer calculated the odds of this succeeding as 0%. Not as in "ridicilous small chance larger than 0%" (say, 0.00001%), but as exactly zero percent. Afterwards, it said: "I see theoretical calculations mean nothing to you".
    • And let's not forget that at this point in the series, the troper who wrote the above example felt it was appropriate to refer to the King Kittan as tiny.
  • Dayakka and Gabal start the fightback against the Anti-spiral just as its about to grab the Earth with an I'VE GOT THE BEST WIFE IN THE UNINVERSE SWING!!!!
  • Chouginga Gurren Lagann attacking every single point in time and space simultaneously.
    • Point-blank was always Attenborough's specialty. Who knew that he would get such scope for his talents?
      • This scene has Attenborough actually reach the point of enough dakka. Enough dakka is described as having a gun that can shoot every single point in space and every single point in time simultaneously. No shock that it is this show that does the impossible. Too bad they never reached too much dakka.
      • Attenborough's Crowning Moment Of Awesome come a bit later as he give the ASK a taste of his own medicine by using probability altering missiles on him.
    • Just... Chouginga Gurren Lagann. Holy shit, Chouginga Gurren-Lagann. The mech "that matches the Gods themselves" emerging from the Space Ocean in a blaze of Spiral Power. Tearing through the anti-spiral battleship's shield with one fricken' hand and ripping its face off. And calmly shrugging off one of the most insane attack barrages in the history of anime ("As if such a puny attack could stop me!" Simon roars as the anti-spirals smack him with planets. PLANETS!) before wrenching off its sunglasses and using them to cut in half a battleship the size of a solar system. There's only one word to describe Chouginga Gurren-Laggan, and that word is FFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!1!11!!11!
    • Chouginga/Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann does two things when it is actually being formed. First off, Transformers was found brutally murdered, forensic scientists claim the fatal wound was made with a massive drill. Second, just as Simon's My Bro Is Dead speech exorcised the Wangst demons of Evangelion from the Anime medium, the dub removed all stereotypes about bad dubbing. Both the writing of the dialog in English and Yuri Lowenthal's absolutely impeccable Hot-Blooded and emotionally charged voice acting instantly made dubs acceptable forever. Though, given the Unpleasable Fanbase about dubbing...
    • Chouginga Gurren Lagann is actually almost invulnerable to any form of attack imaginable in normal curcumstances. The Anti-Spirals can only hit it by manipulating the laws of probability!!!!
    • How as the fact that Chouginga Gurren Lagann was creating a GALAXY just by existing not been mentioned? (granted, it wasn't very important storywise, but yeah).
    • And in the Movie, Simon - AND the Chouginga - are CRYING BLOOD. So much badass, only blood tears can represent what's going on properly.
  • Kamina coming back from the dead for the sole purpose of telling Simon how awesome he is, breaking him free of the Lotus Eater Machine that captured him in the process, with Libera Me from Hell playing in the background.
    • Kamina: What's wrong, Simon? Did you lose it? Your drill?
  • Nia has her own Crowning Moment of Awesome at the end of the next-to-last episode. As the Anti-Spiral is deleting her, suddenly her engagement ring starts flashing like a Core Drill. She closes her eyes and smiles for a second. Then she glares down at the Anti-Spiral, struggles, pulls her arm forward, and summons Gurren Lagann out of her ring. All of that while we get a quick close-up of the Anti-Spiral's face with the biggest Oh Crap expression ever plastered across it. That glare makes this troper cheer like a fool every single time.
  • The entire final battle set in Anti-Spiral space. Not posting what happens, it needs to be seen to be believed.
    • Two words: Galaxy. Shurikens.
    • This Troper read the spoilers before watching the actual anime. Even knowing what's going to happen did not prepare me for the dosage of Crowning Moments Of Awesome that ensued. The anime is so awesome, it will nullify Spoilers as well.
    • Simon's speech:

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 in 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!!!

      • Not only is it awesome in and of itself, but Simon's drill no longer simply pierces the heavens, it CREATES them. That one sentence alone proves that dubs aren't always worse than the original.
  • The construction of Arc Gurren Lagann and Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann.
    • And Chouginga Gurren Lagann, for that matter.
      • AND the emergence of The Show's Namesake Mecha, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, from the middle of a Galaxy.
      • The ONLY acceptable description of that moment is a comparison to an avenging angel. The role of "newborn god" is reserved for Super TTGL.
  • In the construction of Chouginga Gurren Lagann, Simon's digging goggles spontaneously transform into Kamina's shades, then into star-shaped shades. Then, the moon-sized robot gets even cooler shades that cannot be described with words.
  • From Parallel Works: Cathedral Terra Lazengann. Holy hell.
    • Hell, that whole Parallel Works (number 8, for the curious) has nothing short of 2 minute long Crowning Moment of Awesome. The pounding music is icing on the cake.
  • In this Live dubbing, Nobuyuki Hiyama (Viral) and Fukui Yukari (Nia) are re-doing the fight between Simon and Guame(note: Nobuyuki-san cannot do a kid's voice). It's pretty funny, right up until the part where Simon does the Giga Drill Break: Nobuyuki goes into full Guy Shishioh Hot-Blooded mode, and the crowd just goes off.
    • Just shows that whenever a Giga Drill Breaker is concerned, hotblooded-ness will follow suit.
  • Parallel Works Six: Double Giga Drill Break.
    • This troper's theory is that the second drill is just to make up for the lack of epic sunglasses.
  • Let's not forget Lordgenome taking on an entire big bang's worth of energy in an epic heroic sacrifice. "LAZENGANN... OOOVERLOAD!!!!"
    • He intentionally takes the full brunt of the attack, undergoing a "quantum breakdown", just so that he can become one with the energy, infecting it and turning it to their side.
    • And turning that Big Bang into a DRILL. A galaxy sized drill. With his talking head on the tip.
    • To quote /m/: "Most men are lucky enough to get one manly death. Lord Genome (sic) got two of them."
      • And then, feeding that drill to the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, giving it a powerup equal to all the energy the Anti-spiral just threw. A powerup so huge that it causes the spiral-power meter to climb from nothing to a never-before-seen rainbow color immediately, shatter, and continue to increase out into EMPTY SPACE, in total defiance of all logic.
  • Hell, the whole damned SOUNDTRACK is made of Crowning Music of Awesome! Even through the Narm.
  • The manga adaptation takes the anime and makes it even more awesome. For example, the Giga Drill Break is 11 pages long.
  • In The Movie : GIGA DRILL BREAAAK! DAI GURREN-DAN SHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!!!!!!!
  • Also in The Movie, Simon, Lagann having failed him, climbs up Cytomander's Ganmen using only his core drill, his tunneling drill from back in Jiiha and his own brute strength. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, since he's doing it to rescue Nia, who is refuses to stop believing in Simon despite being told that all her hope is completely worthless. Also, the whole thing is shown side-by-side with Yoko remembering Kamina's story illustrating how he secretly relied on Simon any time he was in a tight spot. Cue Manly Tears.
  • Once again from the movie: Adiane v. Yoko. On foot!
  • This troper has, alas, not seen Lagann-hen yet as she does not live in Japan. But she has heard about one particular scene from the final battle. Team Dai-Gurren is fighting against the Anti-Spiral when the Big Bad lets them know just what will happen to Nia if they kill him. The entire Team loses all will to fight. That's when Nia, immobilized by the Anti-Spiral until this point, breaks free, materializes her own Gunman, and proceeds to BEAT THE EVER-LOVING SHIT out of the Anti-Spiral, all while delivering a hot-blooded speech of EPIC proportions! In the face of Nia's absolute, utter determination not to give up, no matter the cost to herself, Simon lifts his head and rejoins the fight.
    • Not to mention that in the same film that everybody in the Dai-Gurren group gets their own Tengen Toppa mechas wich eventually combine to form the ultra-powerful SUPER TENGEN TOPPA GURREN LAGANN, who happens to look like a giant energy KAMINA-SAMA!
      • This troper is thoroughly convinced that Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is not a mecha, but the physical incarnation of Kamina-sama's soul. Even if on a smaller scale.
    • Or Simon Literally punching out the ASK, before engaging in a one-on-one fist fight.
  • This far without mentioning the Dai-Gurren destroying Teppelin's hammer? Shameful.
    • Also, soon after that Dai-Gurren's final attack!
  • The final battle is so fast-paced and HSQ-high that we don't have time to appreciate Yoko's epic sniping feat. Weird scale aside, the Anti-Spiral's home planet is still a planet, and it shows up as about the same size as Earth, or at least within one or two orders of magnitude. The Grand Zamboa was attacking at the time, and so its head was moving, and the slightest twitch of a robot that size breaks relativity in half. So the planet was moving back and forth ridiculously quickly. And Yoko only takes a few seconds to aim at the thing. To summarize: Yoko snipes a planet moving back and forth at speeds so ridiculous that "superluminal" doesn't even come close to beginning to describe them, from across a galaxy, while under heavy fire, after aiming for only a few seconds, in one hit. Why does this not get more attention?
    • Because by the time this happens, we already know that Yoko never misses. . . she prepares.
  • By the climax episode, there is a mech the size of a GALAXY, and it's being piloted by a mech the size of a planet piloted by a mech the size of a city piloted by a mech the size of a building piloted by a guy who created all these mechs from the energy produced by how awesome he is. That's just... nuts.
    • Actually, it isn't the size of a galaxy. It's 10 million light years tall. Our galaxy is only 100,000 light years. The largest galaxy we've found is 5 million light years. The Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagannn is twice as tall as the largest galaxy we have ever found is wide. Compared to it, our galaxy could be stepped on and the mech wouldn't even notice.
    • It is topped in the movie version. They managed to summon an entire ARMY of these, along with a mecha the size of the universe, who proceeds to cause it to collapse under what can only be described as pure, undiluted awesomeness
  • You know, I found the epilogue to be a Crowning Moment of Awesome. Despite the bittersweetness, everyone's future really suit's them. Except Nia's. Plus, Simon's little comment at the end, showing that he's willing to accept his fate for once, letting Nia's spirit go to rest, and letting the next generation drill it's way through the heavens... Awesome in a bittersweet way. It suits the show.
  • Don't forget Yoko's most badass line of pure awesome "So, I leave for a while, and you have to go and become a real boring bitch." Said to Anti-Spiral Nia who, as a monotonous shell of Nia's former lively self, fits that description perfectly.
  • In the climax of the first movie, the Four General's battleships combine into Doten-Kaizan. Let's take stock; a walking battleship, a mobile fortress, a flying aircraft carrier, and a centipede-like submarine, all combining into a gigantic battleship that Viral says has "no blind spot from any direction". Team Gurren reply by channelling all their power into Simon and Rossiu's Giga Drill Breaker, which completely obliterates Doten-Kaizan in seconds.
  • This troper has finally seen the second movie albeit in RAW but due to the awesomeness of the scene, you could really tell what they're trying to say. MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. From:
    • Grand Zamboa Tearing TTGL to pieces.
      • Details on this one. Up until this point, the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was an invincible, unstoppable, humongous robot that could take down anything. Not only does Grand Zamboa actually BEAT the TTGL, it repeatedly slugs it on the ground before crushing the body flat with its larger arms, then proceeds to homage another Gainax series, and literally begins to go to work on the TTGL with its hands, ripping it limb from limb, tearing it apart with a brutality only matched by Evangelion Unit 01 in mecha. It ends the entire event by lifting the broken husk of humanity's savior, AND QUARTERING IT. The Anti-Spiral King was PISSED.
        • And this was all achieved by revealing Nia's ultimate fate should the Anti-Spiral be defeated, which caused Team Gurren to freeze up momentarily. Thats right, The Anti-Spiral King caused a Heroic BSOD in the entirety of Team Gurren.
    • And then, when the Antispiral picks up TTGL's head to finish it off, his attack is blocked by a drill coming out of it. After all, the head of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is...
    • Nia materializing her own mecha and proceeding to spear GZ.
    • Team Gurren all materialising tengen toppa versions of their own gunmen, including:
      • Viral's Enkidulga, with 14 arms, all catching the anti spirals spears and saving Nia's mech.
        • Do remember, this was achieved by a being who cannot use spiral power whatsoever. That makes it double the awesome for Viral.
      • Yoko's which contains huge galaxy scaled sniper rifles (and Breast Missiles. With teeth). Note the plural.
      • Baribou and Jougan then proceed to catch the freaking galaxy shuriken with their mech, and crush them with their fists.
      • A galaxy sized version of the Dai-Gurren battleship rising out of the space sea, carrying a Team Dai-Gurren flag made of fire
        • Not being awesome enough just being a galaxy sized version of the Dai-Gurren, the Tengen Toppa Dai-Gurren also has the Chouginga Gurren Lagann Cruiser form as it's bow.
    • When everyone has finished summoning their mecha, they gather for a Asskicking Pose. The amount of awesomeness contained in that scene is so high, a volcano spontaneously erupts as a homage to Kamina's final combination with Gurren Lagann in episode 8. In space. Larger than a galaxy. I repeat, they materialised a volcano galaxy in space and blew it up just to show off their awesome, without even thiking about it.
    • ...Aaaaand then the angered Anti-Spiral King gets one right after when he furiously rips through their flag to inform our heroes that he's NOT going out without a fight, The Grand Zamboa then grabs two nearby galaxies and slams them together,creating a BLAST WITH ENOUGH POWER TO CREATE A NEW UNIVERSE, holy shit! The resulting explosion is so massive entire clusters of galaxies are born from the impact,with the only thing bigger than the attack being the sheer amount of Ham being released by the Big Bad.
      • Anti-Spiral King: BUUURN IN THE EVERLASTING HELLFIRE OF CREATION!!! BE UTTERLY ANNIHILATED, DOWN TO THE VERY LAST SCRAP OF D! N! A!!!
    • When GZ threw the Infinity Big Bang Storm, Lordgenome, in an even more badass version, walks out into the beam, naked and on fire with Spiral Power, and proceeds to materalise Lazengann. Worth mentioning at this point: every other mech generated has been a Tengen Toppa version in order to match the scale of the whole thing. Lordgenome summons his regular mech!
    • Feeding the Big Bang-powered drill to Tengen Toppa Lagann (NOT Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but Lagann itself), which then proceeds to overload and impale all the other members of the Team Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren with an overload of Spiral Energy, and hence forming...
    • Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Which is so huge the galaxies themselves look like dots at this point. Oh, and it looks like a huge Kamina on fire. The energy overload is so huge, we get to see what can only be described as Super Saiyan Simon.
      • Once the Asskicking Pose is finished showing off all the Tengen Toppa versions of their mechs, Simon elevates himself beyond Kamina's level by quoting the man himself from way back in Episode 3:

Simon: It's time to do 'that'!
Entire Dai-Gurren-dan: "That"?
Simon: Isn't it obvious? GATTAI-DA!

      • The STTGL has a comparison shot as soon as it's formed. Its foot dwarfs the Grand Zamboa, which was equal to the TTGL. Of course, the ASK doesn't stand for this and effortlessly powers up the GZ in a second to match the STTGL. To reiterate, the Dai-Gurren-Dan went through all of that to get the STTGL and the Anti-Spiral had equivalent power accessible without going out of its way!
      • Even the sequence deserves a Crowning Moment of Awesome. It took not one, not two, but THREE scenes in three different angles to convey the awesomeness of STTGL's summoning.
    • Giga Drill Break O War. Seriously. They did not one, but TWO, Giga Drill Breaks, with mechs that dwarf galaxies, and drills that dwarf the mechs. The contest is so powerful that it apparently destroys the pocket universe they were in by sucking the entire contents of the universe into the center contact point.
    • GZ shattering the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's Drill, proceeding to compete against frantic attempts to counterdrill by Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, Arc-Gurren Lagann, and finally...
    • The stand-off between the drills from the GZ and Gurren Lagann. Gurren Lagann matches the force of GZ's Giga Drill Break, and holds out aganst it. And then proceeds to SHATTER IT. Let's reiterate. Something the size of a building, countered a Giga Drill Break something the size of a UNIVERSE. And broke it. Mere words are insufficient to describe how much awesome that contains.
      • Not that unusual for this series, really; both of the Big Bad fights (Lordgenome and the Anti-Spiral) gradually decrease in scale towards the end. Presumably it's for the same reason that Simon's drills are cone-shaped: it focuses all that power down to one tiny point.
      • Also worth mentioning is a little, easily-missed moment during the Gurren Lagann breakdown. In the original series, Gurren Lagann springs readily out to do battle with the Grand Zamboa. In the movie, Gurren Lagann appears whilst indulging in a little Badass Arm-Fold.
    • One that may go unnoticed in the final battle with the Anti Spiral unless you look for it. As Viral gets a closeup just before he detatches Lagann, his uniform is in rags. Either he was dodging the Anti Spiral's drills during his part of the assault, or he's been tanking them without skipping a beat in anything he does. It's hard to tell which one is more amazing.
    • How it all ends. After being launched at ASK by Lagann, Simon proceeds to engage the ASK in a fist fight, ending in him forming a core drill roughly the size of his head using nothing but his own blood mist hanging in the air. And finishing the ASK in a Single-Stroke Battle. My friends, you have not lived till you have seen this movie. That is all.
      • That description doesn't even begin to describe its awesome, the epic fist fight between the Anti-Spiral and Simon is THE most Awesome moment of TTGL. Watch and be in awe
      • Not to sound like the fist fight was not epic at all, it was, but I see your fist fight, and raise you the Giga Drill Break O War that destroyed the universe they were in. One cannot help but engage in Manly Screaming while watching them. Behold!
    • No mention of Lorgenome's hacking of Cathedral Lazengann? First the Lordgenome Head gets that shock like he did in the anime, but instead of just laying there, we see the whole area go wire frame then "HACKING!" A wire frame of Lordgenome begins running through what seems to be wireless connections, smashing effortlessly through numerous firewalls until he reaches the Catherdral Terra cyber space. He runs into a room off to the side and tries to open a box with a green key; when that doesn't work, he smashes the box on the ground; when THAT doesn't work, he smashes his head against it, breaking it open.
  • You'll notice that most of the posts before this one were in chronological order. In fact, it's really more of a complete summary. If you read all of them, you now know the entire movie. That's right, the movie doesn't go any significant amount of time without a Crowning Moment of Awesome.
  • Gurren Lagann casts were introduced in an anime convention. There's Tetsuya Kakihara (Simon), Marina Inoue (Yoko), Yukari Fukui (Nia), Nobuyuki Hiyama (Viral), Mitsuki Saiga (Rossiu), Rina Sato (Kiyoh), Kana Ueda (Kinon), and Kana Asumi (Kiyal). Kisho Taniyama (Kittan) wasn't going to make an appearance due to some stuff. Anyways, MC announced that Kamina-sama himself wasn't going to appear today and the crowd goes boo. AND THEN HE APPEARS!!! The crowd goes off!
    • That pretty much cements how most of the fans appreciate Kamina more than the main guy himself, Simon...
      • It was love from the moment he challenged a giant mecha with nothing but a katana. Not even a SHIRT, just pants and tattoos. Up until that, he was just some hilarious guy wearing sunglasses underground.
    • Actually, that wasn't an anime convention in the video. It was a Gurren Lagann only event in which the (infamous) live dubbing took place.
  • Episode 21: "That's easy. We'll stop the moon." Said as though it's no big deal.
  • After Nia is dragged back to the Antispiral's home world in Lagann-Hen, Simon goes from being a cute guy to a man dripping with testosterone in less than a minute. Less than a minute. This must be the moment that forever transformed Simon into Garlock/Starlock.
  • It's brief, but Kyle Hebert managed to be in the same room as Katsuyuki Konishi during AX 2010. Both say Kamina's catchphrase in their respective language.
  • I can't believe that nobody has mentioned how Kittan (supposedly) got his Gunmen. Doubles as a Crowning Moment of Funny, it can be seen here
    • Kiyoh's yoyo trick, starting at 4:08, has to be mentioned.
  • Parallel Works 15: Gunmen Symphonia Lagann gattais with EVERYTHING. It must be seen to be believed.
  • While the manga adaptation is known for being a great read, there is one wholly original moment that must be mentioned. In the fight against Guame, Simon is fighting the Gember with Lagann alone, as the Gurren and the other Team Dai-Gurren Gunmen have been stolen. In comes Yoko, though, having jacked the Dayakkaiser, firing off shots to aid Simon. But Guame destroys the mech's barrel, so what does Yoko do? Why, she takes a cue from Kamina himself, telling Simon they're going to do "that thing" and then jamming Lagann into the top of the Dayakkaiser, reciting her own hotblooded speech as the two combine into DAYAKKAISER LAGANN. And then she uses its massive cannon to fire off a GIGA DRILL BUSTER!!! And this is why we should all read comics.
    • Not the Dayakkaiser. The Yoko W Tank.
    • The speech goes like this

Yoko: With thoughts of a man gone in my heart, I knowingly took on this impossible fight. A womans got her pride. With a maiden's prayers and rage, I'll blast you away along with your cheap trap, so prepare yourself!!!!
Yoko: Here we go Simon!!
Simon: O-okay!!

  • The events leading up to Kamina's Giga Drill Breaker. In the manga, when Lagann uses Gurren Boomerang (throws Gurren's sunglasses), the shades align themselves to hit 5 Gunmen surrounding the Gurren and cut them all in half. In the anime, the shades hit 2 Gunmen jumping at Gurren from behind, followed by Gurren-Lagann creating 12 excessively long drills to stab 12 Gunmen jumping at it. causing them all to explode.
    • Of course, the dialogue leading up to this was pretty epic too.

Kamina: "LET'S SEE YOU GRIT THOSE TEETH!"
Simon: "Bro ... You're alive."
Yoko: "Kamina!"
Kamina: "Simon! Just who the hell do you think you are? Isn't your drill the drill that will pierce the Heavens, the Earth and through to tomorrow? What's taking you so long? YOU'VE WON! THIS GIANT MUG IS YOURS! Don't be so insecure.
Simon: "Okay." Takes control of the Dai-Gunzan. "IT'S OKAY, EVERYONE! THE DAI-GUNZAZN IS OUR NOW! COME ABOARD!"
Thymilph: "You filthy naked apes. That Dai-Gunzan was a gift from the Spiral King himself. I'd rather destroy it than let it fall into your hands!"
Kittan: "You bastard!"
Kamina: "An old codger of a beast who doesn't know when to quit... Simon... Come here. Let's finish this in one go."
Simon: "Bro..."
Kamina: "Combine ... Our final move. FOR THE LAST TIME, LET'S FIGHT TOGETHER AS GURREN-LAGANN!"
Kamina: "Whether it's impossible or laughable, great men open up paths of battle!"
Simon: "If there's a wall, we smash it down. If there's no path, we'll make one with these hands!"
Kamina and Simon: "THE MAGMA OF OUR SOULS BURNS WITH A MIGHTY FLAME!"
Kamina: "KYOUDAI GATTAI! GURREN-LAGANN!" (Everlasting Combining; literally, Brotherly Combination)
Simon: "Me"
Kamina: "US!"
Kamina and Simon: "JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE---?!"

  • While Dub-versions of anime generally tends to be less favored among fans, Yuri Lowenthal does have a rather epic way of pronouncing "Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann".
  • Perhaps one of the defining moments of awesome in TTGL was one particular scene in the formation of Arc Gurren Lagann, when it cuts to black... then snaps to Gurren Lagann slamming up into the cockpit with a stoic Badass Arm-Fold. It's an incredibly powerful scene, and it still would be even if it weren't succintly demonstrating that this is a Humongous Mecha piloting a Humongous Mecha several times larger than itself
  • It's only the english dub, but when these four words are said chills will go down your spine TENGEN TOPPA! GURREN LAGANN!
  • While it never gets played in the show, this particular version of the opening is even more awesome than the original. Yes, it sounds like hypocrizy, but this is done by Masaaki Endoh, so it's automatically Crowning Music of Awesome. Just listen to it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mNFm7-Ugob E&feature=related


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