Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann drew to a close this weekend, bringing to a climax Simon and the Dai Gurren Brigade’s quest for self-determination in the defiance of fate. Gainax did a laudable job of building up to a predictable but appropriate finish, avoiding what many feared would be a fall-on-their-face failure of a series conclusion.

There will be detractors, to be sure. Some people just cannot be satisfied. Bearing in mind that the story was at its heart a straightforward coming-of-age tale, all the pertinent loose ends were neatly tied up, the conclusion of the conflict was consistent with the over-the-top action that came before, and Simon’s eventual fate was appropriate to his character. Good job, Gainax. This was one of the better anime I’ve had the pleasure of watching.

Oh, and I was right about the brush-stroke titles in the end arc. Chalk one up for Burrowowl.

Why does Simon’s drill, the metaphor for his determination, strength, and courage, exist? Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a kid’s show, aired on Sunday mornings in Japan. Clearly Simon’s purpose is to be brave, honest, and strong without being mean, foolish, or petty, all qualities that we hope to cultivate in ourselves and in our children. Kamina’s reappearance, the Obi-Wan to Simon’s Luke, reminding us of what Simon (and hence, by proxy, the audience) admires and finds value in.

I can easily call this my favorite show on television these days, what with Battlestar Galactica and Heroes both between seasons, and not counting C-SPAN (which is hilarious). Gainax, however, has a well-deserved reputation for winding up a otherwise-excellent shows with severely disappointing endings. FLCL, Neon Genesis Evangelion, and Mahoromatic are felt by many to suffer from this bad-ending affliction, and over the past couple of weeks I’ve been dreading every symptom of backslide in Simon and the Dai Gurren Dan’s story.

This week saw the airing of episode 26: Let’s Go, My Friends. With but a single episode remaining, I’m cautiously optimistic that the fine folks at Gainax are actually going to pull this one off. This week we saw that the writers and producers can refocus their attention to the core theme of the show. There’s a suitably overwhelmingly powerful antagonist, a damsel in distress, burning manly spirit, and the fate of the universe at stake, all of which will potentially add up to a suitable climax and fitting denouement. Are they done killing off protagonists? Will Simon prevail? Have the heavens been satisfactorily pierced (as promised back in episode 1)? We’ll find out next Sunday.

I’ve been following Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann since it originally aired, going so far as to watch the raws before any proper translations are out, I just haven’t been posting about it all that often. 21 episodes in, this series maintains an excellent quality that goes beyond the actual animation production values, its genre clichés, the dialogue, or the silly mecha. Something that I’d been meaning to comment on for a while are the changes to the opening credits and title screens for each episode; as the story develops, the intros change along with it, reflecting the tone and theme of each story arc. Right now it feels like we’re winding towards the end of the third arc, so I figured I’d comment on the previous ones and speculate a little about the next one.

The first few episodes featured a title screen that reflected Simon’s primary influence, Kamina. It, like him, was rough-edged, sloppy, and bold. It looks very much like something he would have scrawled on a brick wall were he literate enough to.

The second set is purely Nia: soft, cute, round-edged, with a bright splash of cheerful colors. Given how gloomy Simon’s outlook is at the beginning of this plot arc, the title screens were a sharp contrast.

The most recent style reflects the world Rossiu has built up since the fall of Tepperin. It is stark, neat, and orderly. Unlike the previous layouts, this title screen is left-justified.

With five or six episodes left, I rather doubt this Rossiu-style title page is going to hold up. Simon is finally catching up with the “Captain GARlock” persona presented at the very start of the story, so I speculate that when Rossiu concedes leadership, we’ll get a new Simon-style. There are two ways I could see this going: one would be a spiral/drill motif, which I would find rather disappointing, the other would be more like the series logo itself, a fiery brush-stroke that conveys a certain spontaneity and boldness of spirit.