Gainax is at it again. This past week saw the release of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, the first new show of the season to properly grab me by the ear and drag me in. The first episode reveals to us a small village underground, where our protagonist, Simon, works drilling new holes for expansion of the settlement. Simon is an orphan, his parents having died in an earthquake some time ago. He’s gota headstrong buddy named Kamina that has dreams of traveling up to the surface, which the village elders deny even exists.

But as with all good Gainax titles, it isn’t the premise, or even the characters, that grab me here; it’s what Gainax does with them. No tedious exposition. No long brooding moments. No pandering to the intellect of the audience. Sequences where Simon is drilling are comical and stylized while still working to show us what he’s made of. Sequences where Kamina is puffing out his chest and trying to be manly walk the fine line between inspiring and laughable. Production values are excellent but not totally over-produced, in keeping with the tone of the story.

There are a couple of specific aspects to this show that get me thinking a bit. Kamina clearly thinks he’s the leading man in this story, what with his bravery, determination, and big ideas, yet Simon is the focus. This immediately makes both more appealing to me as a viewer. Something very similar was done with the character Balthier in Final Fantasy XII, and he was my favorite character in that whole game. This goes well past the normal self-interest you’d expect from any realistically-portrayed actor in a story. Where else has this been used, and was it effective there also?

The other aspect that has me thinking is the presence of giant robots. What the hell is going on when I’m liking giant robot shows? I may have to fire up some old Voltron episodes and do some soul-searching here…

Code Geass starts with a lots of strikes against it. Let’s list a few:

• Character designs from Shojou uber-group CLAMP. Aloof pretty-boys with angular features must be the order of the day.
• Giant robots. This is a draw for some folks, not for me. They tend bring a lot of baggage.
• Japanese patriotism. Everybody gets to be proud of their country, I get that, really I do. That said, oldies like Starblazers have already taken the sci-fi metaphor for America’s occupation of Japan everywhere that premise needed to go.
• High-school hijinks. Everybody can identify with school drama and school romance and school comedy. I have no particular problem with school-based stories, except when combined with other premises that I already take issue with. Throwing some stereotypical shy-students-in-love-dodecahedron tripe in with a contrived romantic-comedy harem or Japanese Liberation Front sci-fi war saga, and it’s bound to be trouble.
• Strong-headed student council president. This falls under high-school hijinks, really, but deserves special credit. Oh! Great ruined this character archetype for me with Tengo Tenge, though others had damaged it before him.
• A demure, frail, wheelchair-bound, kind-hearted blind girl. What? That’s a joke, right?
• Mysterious science-experiment-girl. Not the redhead in the picture above, but there’s what amounts to a djini in a bottle that has escaped from the evil empire’s scientific laboratories. This isn’t a thematic dead horse or anything.
• Mysterious ancient magic-girl. Same girl as above. Her mysterious sci-fi past also appears to be some kind of mysterious magical mythology past. Oh boy, this is really starting to add up.

But some how it’s working. I’m still not clear on why I even gave Code Geass a chance. There have been other titles that were well-received by the discerning anime fans that I just never got around to (such as Nadesico, also featuring giant robots), but fourteen episodes in I’ve found that production studio Sunrise has risen above the traditional confines of its component genres. The principle characters are accessible, in that you can readily identify the familiar archetypes they’re built around, but have layers of complexity built onto them. In most cases, this is done without getting too heavy-handed about character development.

Despite the heavy, heavy handicaps this series brings along from its very conception, Code Geass is a solid series with well-executed action sequences, an interesting cast of characters, excellent production values, and good pacing. Give the first couple episodes a chance, and it may draw you in, too.