Gurren Lagann - 04 April 22
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Summary:
Though starving, Kamina, Simon, Leeron, and Yoko make their way towards the enemy base. At one point in their travels, Kamina starts trying to train Simon on gattai (combining) by throwing rocks at him and ordering him to fly. Simon running away from the rocks gets interrupted when the Gurren get attacked by a group of masked assailants who think that Simon needs rescuing from a Ganmen. Kamina, however, is not the Beastman that his assailants think he is, and the misunderstanding soon gets cleared up. The three girls who “saved” Simon introduce themselves as Kiyol, Kinon, and Kiyal, and the guy who attacked the Gurren introduces himself as Kittan. They are Beastmen hunters - the Black Siblings. After the introductions, the girls go off to find food for everyone and end up discovering a large and furry pink something that already looks dead. Meanwhile, the Kittan reveals to Kamina and Simon that they’ve been after a 16-faced Ganmen. As they soon find out, the pink fur-balls they attempt to eat are the 16 pilots, and all of them soon escape to their respective Ganmen.
With Kittan’s help in providing covering fire, Kamina starts up the Gurren and Simon starts up the Lagann. Simon wants to combine immediately with Kamina, but Kamina refuses because Simon’s not putting his soul into it. Before they can go through with anything, their 16 enemies also combine into a larger Ganmen. Remembering how Kamina wanted him to fly, Simon tries to avoid all the enemies, but gets knocked into the air anyway. Kamina chooses that moment to combine into the Gurren Lagann. It squares off against the combined enemy Ganmen, but being starved, Simon and Kamina are unable to overcome their opponents. Realizing the graveness of the situation, Simon’s pet Boota bites off a piece of its own rear and feeds it to Simon and Kamina. This re-energizes them enough to beat their enemy and win the day. In the end, the two groups part ways with Kittan extending an invitation for Kamina to the join the Black Siblings and Kamina doing the same for Kittan with the Gurren Brigade.
Preview:
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Well, the first thing that stood out to me was that the animation quality dropped dramatically, at least during the non mecha parts. As many people have pointed out, this can be attributed to the different style, but there’s also the issue of them reusing footage (particularly with the 16-faced Ganmen). It was still fun to watch and had plenty of action, though the Boota offering part of himself to be eaten seemed kind of weird. Overall though, this was probably my least favorite of the episodes so far. Still, the next episode looks very promising…
Anryu at 12:48 am on April 22nd, 2007
aww man! the animation dropped? thats disapointing to me
OMGZergRush at 12:53 am on April 22nd, 2007
Well its not like every ep could have the same quality as the first 3, the studeo would go broke
DEATH at 12:58 am on April 22nd, 2007
Yeah the animation scared me a little. I hope it’s better next week.
Flou at 1:03 am on April 22nd, 2007
It’s not that the animation dropped, it was just a different animation director.
7Th at 1:08 am on April 22nd, 2007
Different animation director. It wasn’t a really a drop, just a more “Artsy” style. The thing actually “Moved” better even if superficially it looks “weird”. The guys working here have actually quite a cult following.
Anonymooo at 1:15 am on April 22nd, 2007
I can live with the animation not being as “OMG HOLY CRAP AMAZING” as it was in the first three episodes. It’s gotta drop at some point, and it’s better that it drops now, when the series is establishing itself, rather than later on in the series when everything feels really important.
wrex at 1:16 am on April 22nd, 2007
They should’ve tried to cook those fuzz balls first…
jiv at 1:17 am on April 22nd, 2007
Maybe it was both. They didnt have a big budget, so they decided to make things more stilized.
Fuhrer at 1:47 am on April 22nd, 2007
Flou is right. Its not a drop in animation its just that they had something of a guest animation director for this episode. Its the same guy who did Noein, some episodes of Beck and other random episodes of shows like Samurai 7 and Aquarion.
Alastor at 2:38 am on April 22nd, 2007
Episode 4 was basically completely the work of Osamu Kobayashi - directing, animation directing, and storyboarding were all him. You can look up his other works on ANN.
It’s not a situation where the budget has gone through the floor, it’s one where a director with his own style has been given complete control, and it shows.
Much like how Sousei no Aquarion episode 19 and the third opening of Eureka 7 were entirely the work of Satoru Utsunomiya, or that episode of Samurai Seven that was directed by Hisashi Mori (aka Hisashi Nakayama).
Alastor at 2:43 am on April 22nd, 2007
Episode 4 has some great animation, the movement is fluid and the director imprinted his own artistic vision. This episode is going to have a cult pretty soon. If you thought the budged went down, or that the animation dropped, you need to watch less naruto and expand the catalog of series you are following; still, I can see why a lot of people will not like this episode.
blue at 3:16 am on April 22nd, 2007
more like director changed
I personally thought the animation style kicked ass.
TripleA at 4:31 am on April 22nd, 2007
As a viewer who considers consistency to be of utmost importance, I would have to say that this episode sucked for me. It’s not that I didn’t like the animation style, I just think keeping consistency in a series is more important.
Ddadain at 7:01 am on April 22nd, 2007
Take for example The Animatrix, if it was all directed by a single person, it wouldn’t be as great.
Personal bias should remain personal.
There are other great series that frequent a change of animation styles, one of which is Noein
Well… maybe not a lot of people would have liked it, but anyways 
I haven’t watched the episode yet, but am hopeful since I’m more interested in the story itself and how the characters interact rather than scoff the fun out of an episode just because the animation changed style. That’d be just wrong and you wouldn’t be getting anything out of it other than disappointment.
mw4 at 7:14 am on April 22nd, 2007
I’ve watched the raw. What in the world was going on in this episode?!
yomax at 4:54 pm on April 22nd, 2007
The animation was terrible indeed,compared to the previous 3 ep,but i like the music at the combine (gattai?) part.
brooklyn otaku at 4:55 pm on April 22nd, 2007
TRUE DAT!!!! it aint easy putting out that type of fly animation everytime, i for one whole heartedly accept the idea of switching up the animation directors once in a while. consistency is good for paychecks, good for food prep, BUT NOT SOMETHING I WANT IN MY ENTERTAINMENT! switch it up negro, keep me on my toes. besides what other mech type show out there now can touch this.. P.S ”
“”"”"NOEIN FUCKING ROCKED!!!!!”"”"”
Exinjeru at 7:01 pm on April 22nd, 2007
too bad he’s not the noein guy, just some random guest director
http://imdb.com/name/nm0462046/
7Th at 11:40 pm on April 22nd, 2007
Random my ass… he’s the famed Osamu Kobayashi…
jaalin at 1:52 am on April 23rd, 2007
i’ll say it flat out - the animation was crap in this episode. i don’t care that it’s done by a different director, i don’t care that this director is supposedly famous. his style is clearly inferior to the previous 3 episodes IN THE CONTEXT OF THIS SHOW. a weekly 20 minute adrenaline rush demands fluid animation, not some 1 frame per second disjointed crap where the characters look like shit. the whole idea of “art” is irrelevant in this context - would lucky star’s animation be more appreciated if picasso came and did some of his emo cubist blue red artistic shit all over it?
felt like i was watching one of those trash daytime kiddie animes with the 500 yen + free ramen lunch budget.
my hope that they don’t pull more gimmicks like this later on.