Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann: Rebellion Perfected?

[Apparently Geasstards such as myself aren’t being pretentious enough about Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann. Rather than produce a direct rebuttal, I thought I’d write 1700 words about TTGL, splashing a few of Dore’s illustrations for Paradise Lost around as I did so, making a sly joke about Haman Karn and icing the cake by linking a few other suitably pretentious articles.

I totally haven’t had this in my drafts for a month, waiting for an opportunity to use it. The Animanachronism is hardly that devious, nor is he able to see into the future.]

Anyhow . . .

The rebel is a seductive figure who crops up all over the place in popular (and unpopular) culture. Inasmuch as there is a coherent thread to Western thought, Milton is to blame for this. As someone steeped (too deeply) in the Western literary tradition, my instant response to Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was to apply a rebellion stencil. Quite how well that works is another question, which will be considered below.

Spoilers ahead. Or rather, since this is Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann we’re talking about, GIGASPOILERS ahead.