Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann thoughts

[Rockmal91]

Hey, I'm new to this site and I wanted to ask this question because it bothers me, alot. As a Christian, I have watched Gurren Lagann and I enjoyed it early on, but then it started going on of the talk about anti spiral which it seems in the story seems to be a godlike power. A lot of it seemed to be talking as though the team was fighting God himself or something of the such. I remember watching it about a year ago and then I recently got the collection, but I'm disturbed by this in the series as it begins to seem completely anti- Christian. Even though its no talk of God, they seem to poke at what it seems like the hidden message or something. For anyone who has seen it, I would like to know your opinions on it. I would very much appreciate them. Thanks.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Though the aspects of Gurren Lagann that you mention can be interpreted as not necessarily reflecting a biblical picture of the world, I wouldn't classify the message of TTGL as anti-Christian at all. There is a distinction there that should be maintained. To say that if something isn't explicitly pro-Christian then it's anti-Christian is to be guilty of expressing a false dichotomy.

Good analogues for spiral power would be willpower, fighting spirit, the will to live, or human courage. A huge part of the message of TTGL is that human beings, as a "spiral race," are unique among life forms in that they can achieve their difficult-to-grasp, seemingly impossible goals through sheer effort (and the theme of the unique-ness of human beings, considered by itself, is actually a very Christian sort of theme). If you try, you can do it! Again, is this a complete, explicitly biblical picture of the world or of man? No. But, really, what entertainment gives us that anyway? And, even if entertainment doesn't provide that, it's not necessarily anti-Christian stuff.

Though there is mention of "kicking logic to the curb," the spiral power cannot make 2+2=5. The series isn't promoting the idea that human beings are or should be gods. It is simply encouraging the notion of "ganbare!" (work hard! do your best and make your dreams happen! etc.) an idea that is near and dear to the Japanese heart, as evidenced by the sheer amount of anime that promotes it.

Keep in mind that the creators of the show are (1.) trying to be entertaining and (2.) paying tribute to 1970s super robot shows (zany affairs to be sure). So, with these facts in mind, it should be no surprise that the powers, abilities and scale of the show are quite over-the-top.

[Atria35]

I can't say it any better than what the Doc said. Something not being Christian =/= it being anti-Christian, and TTGL has many Christian themes in it. It also doesn't say that humans should be God, or anything like that.

[Agloval]

Well, unlike Atria and TheSubtleDoctor, I think my impressions lined up more with yours. I think for some of its audience TTGL gets some of its drive from the feeling that the proper response to omnipotence is a Byronic raised middle finger. That's a feeling I dislike. And I don't think that's just my response to common or garden hotbloodedness, because I didn't feel that way about GaoGaiGar, G Gundam, Shin Mazinger Z or Mazinger Z vs. the General of Darkness.

That said, I don't think that makes TTGL intentionally or unintentionally anti-Christian, though the show is unsurprisingly un-Christian.

[Atria35]

^ You see, I thought that was a rebellion against beings who had taken on the role of God, unjustly. So.... yeah! xD

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Were the Spiral King or anti-spirals set up explicitly as omnipotent? Sure, they're the establishment, they're the shapers of the world, but from within it rather than outside of it. Even the anti spirals are mortal, spacial, temporal beings.

Even though the human race was created by the Spiral King, I really don't think the conflict with him is meant to be an allegory about god or religion. Don't have any arguments at this juncture; just didn't get that feeling.

While the audience may read a death of god narrative into TTGL, I think the creators might have had in mind a more "earthly" sort of message. As we know, TTGL is a Japanese work. Before looking for universal messages, I believe that, hermaneutically speaking, it is important to first look at what a creator may be saying about his/her own personal situation in his/her place in the world. I think the crushingly stringent Japanese social structure is much more immediately pressing to the Japanese psyche than a moral, metaphysical or religious structure imposed by a very western sort of "god" or "gods." So, if I'm right, TTGL might be about "ganbare!" knocking down economic and social walls rather than religious ones. Sort of like: "I CAN succeed, despite the few 'incorrect' choices I made that, according to the society I live in, force me into this less-than-desirable social /economic status! Society tells me no; impossible. But, I say YES!"

Or, maybe I'm crazy.

*EDIT I should note that I think that this is a fascinating discussion, and I do think your interpretation has something going for it, agloval.

[Nate]

I liked TTGL better the first time I saw it when it was called Getter Robo.

[mechana2015]

I'd always seen the antispiral as something standing in the way of natural order, and therefore the way things were meant to be, which is why they became so violently against the spiral races. They discounted free will and the possibility of goodness, presumed all that was left was the capacity for destruction, and therefore I saw them as the ones acting as 'against God', if a spiritual overtone was to be taken. Another difference I saw was that they were incredibly powerful but I'd actually hesitate to call them godlike, and even more so for the spiral king. Both groups were actual civilizations or people, incredibly powerful people to be sure, but nothing more than the equivalent of a nation or a General, ruling the area of space they had conquered or acquired. It just happened that the anti-spirals owned... everything, at the time of the story, and that Genome was just trying to protect people from the anti-spiral. In a way one could see it as a rant about imperialism or oppression in general, not something about spiritual matters.

[Maokun]

When putting fiction stories under this kind of scrutiny, it's useful to remind yourself that it is occurring -in most cases- in fictional "universes". Sure, sometimes those universes clearly mirror our own or serve as a metaphor/parody/other of it. Then analyze what kind of cosmology or world view that universe is working under.

In the case of TTGL, we are clearly offered an universe which has NO god. This universe came about by rough evolution, faintly guided by the "spiral force" which is just a name for the drive imbued in things and beings to move forward and retain individuality/life in a constant, losing fight against the cold, dead and unavoidable force of entropy that wants to return everything to primordial nothingness. There is not a higher being or creator in this universe, nor a desire from any party to become one. The anti-spirals are simply a race of beings who once attained what seemed to be the strongest spiral force and after failing to defeat entropy with it, decided to prevent any other race from attempting the same.

[Wallachia]

This might be reading a little too deeply into Gurren Lagann, but...
[spoiler]"Simon isn't God, Gimmy." [font="Arial"]~Yoko, Episode 25, around 18 minutes in.[/font][/spoiler]
If God exists in the Gurren Lagann universe, then that quote right there establishes the (possible) fact that the Anti-Spiral was not God, and that neither him nor the spirals were able to achieve that level of power.

You wouldn't have to worry about an anti-Christian theme where the good guys fought God, because they fought a villain pretending to be God and the villain did not treat humanity fairly.

[TheSubtleDoctor]

Slightly off-topic:

When putting fiction stories under this kind of scrutiny, it's useful to remind yourself that it is occurring -in most cases- in fictional "universes". Sure, sometimes those universes clearly mirror our own or serve as a metaphor/parody/other of it. Then analyze what kind of cosmology or world view that universe is working under.

Yeah, but isn't good fiction meant to indirectly communicate something about our own universe? Sure, for the purposes of entertainment value we enjoy seeing an internally consistent universe and the events within it playing out according to established rules; however, I don't believe that that's "all there is" to fictional stories. Part of their value lies in their ability to tell us something that the author thinks about the world or human beings without actually coming out and saying it.

[bigsleepj]

I enjoyed it, but I am unable to take it seriously on any philosophic level. Whatever the flow of the plot or logic is outside of the genre of mecha anime, it lives in the moment.

[Agloval]

I think the crushingly stringent Japanese social structure is much more immediately pressing to the Japanese psyche than a moral, metaphysical or religious structure imposed by a very western sort of "god" or "gods." So, if I'm right, TTGL might be about "ganbare!" knocking down economic and social walls rather than religious ones.

That certainly sounds very plausible. I'm not sure it plays so strongly into how the show comes across to viewers who've grown up in societies with less crushingly stringent structures (though I suppose even in very loose societies people are still somewhat subject to the same pressures). As an Englishman watching TTGL, with English subtitles, in England, I'm probably more likely to get a whiff of a death-of-god narrative, or a god-is-unjust narrative than a Japanese viewer.

And it is just a whiff, not anything close to an overt agenda or something intentionally put into the show. It's just that I can see how the story could come across as Rockmal described, because I felt some of that myself.

[Maokun]

[quote="TheSubtleDoctor"]Yeah, but isn't good fiction meant to indirectly communicate something about our own universe? Sure, for the purposes of entertainment value we enjoy seeing an internally consistent universe and the events within it playing out according to established rules]

Oh indeed. I was just trying to point how this particular universe has such a clearly established mythos which is totally different to any theistic conception of the universe, that trying to establish a parallel symbolism will most likely end in pulling at straws. Perhaps the best you could do to put that conflict in terms of our worldview would be that they are fighting "destiny."