Random Curiosity

Summary:

With the Chouginga Dai-Gurren sinking fast into what appears to be a body of water, Leeron explains that the water effect is because of how this space has been condensed so that it is ultrahigh density. Soon after they are completely submerged, the enemy ships start gathering above, so Attenborough fires the Chouginga Dai-Gurren’s main weapons upward, but the beams disappear before they can reach anything. Lord Genome thinks that it’s because this is a Death Spiral Field where spiral power is absorbed and converted to mass. Thus, the more they use their spiral power, the denser this space becomes. Simon, however, thinks that it’ll be fine if they increase engine output so that it’s coming out faster than it can be absorbed because he believes that their power is infinite as long as their hearts don’t break. He then summons up great spiral power that allows them to steer the Chouginga Dai-Gurren upward, but the Anti-Spirals won’t allow this to happen and send their ships in to stop them. On Leeron’s orders, Attenborough fires a wave of missiles upward, but there are too many enemies to be taken out, and the rest force the Chouginga Dai-Gurren further down.

Watching the situation from the ship’s hanger, a worried Gimmy asks if Kittan’s not scared of dying. Gimmy himself wants to fight, but he feels that his body won’t move. Kittan responds to this by calling Gimmy an idiot and pointing out that there’s no one who’s not afraid of dying. However, it can’t be helped because they do as they like, and they can’t do anything but move forward. Kittan believes that Jougan and Barinbou saved Gimmy and Darry because they wanted to save them, so they shouldn’t feel burdened. Kittan then boards his Gunmen and is a bit frustrated over how he didn’t say that very well. He thinks that Kamina could have encouraged Gimmy and Darry more, but Yoko feels that the Dai Gurren-dan was able to get here because of him - Simon had pulled from above and he had pushed from below. She suggests that this is the work of a fine man, and that gets Kittan embarrassed. The two then launch in their respective Gunmen to combat the Anti-Spiral ships that are holding down the ship. During the battle, Yoko almost gets hit by an enemy hand, but Kittan saves her by destroying it and in the process gets the right arm of his own Gunmen blown off. As the two start to get surrounded, Kittan asks Yoko if she can introduce him to her children when they return to Earth because he adores kids.

Before Yoko can answer him, the Anti-Spiral ships around them begin exploding due to Gimmy and Darry shooting them up as they arrive on the scene after having regained their fighting spirit. The four then continue fighting the Anti-Spirals until Gimmy suddenly notices a glowing field in front of them. Inside this field are a bunch of heads that resemble the Lagann, and Lord Genome reveals that these are spiral warriors of the past who challenged the Anti-Spirals to a fight. As Kittan and the others start to realize that others have come here before, the Anti-Spiral voice speaks up and confirms this. Warning them not to think that only they are special, the voice presents the history of defeat of the Spirals and refers to what is in front of them as the galactic spiral trench - the spiral graveyard. When Cybela then detects a high energy reaction coming from the deepest parts of it that’s drawing them in, Lord Genome identifies the Death Spiral Machine as the thing that’s creating the field. Things look bleak, but Simon urges his friends not to give up and not to let the Anti-Spirals do what they like. Simon wants them instead to take their regrets and turn them into strength.

Refusing to let things end in such a place, Simon orders the ship towards the deepest part of the field so that they can charge ahead and destroy the Death Spiral Machine. Agreeing with Simon’s assertion that this is how the Dai Gurren-dan does things, the crew points the ship downward towards the Death Spiral Machine. Lord Genome then explains that the Death Spiral Machine has an ultrahigh density space around it which they can only last 300 seconds inside of. It is also protected by a spiral conversion field, and their plan is to use their spiral power so that part of the field disappears, allowing them to then fire spiral missiles to destroy the machine. As the Chouginga Dai-Gurren continue forward, parts of the ship start to get flooded, so Dayakka and the crew try their best to wall those parts off. Leeron then sends Tetsukan down to help Reite, and Boota ends up teleporting down with him. Around the same time, one of the Gurren Lagann’s drills breaks, and Simon is too exhausted to continue. To Viral’s surprise, Boota shows up on his cockpit window wanting to be let in, and the little mole-pig starts powering the Gurren Lagann by himself. Citing that humans aren’t the only ones who can be spiral life forms, Lord Genome isn’t sure if this is a mutation or Boota reacting to Simon’s spiral power, but he knows that Boota had a huge amount of spiral power saved up in his body.

The ship soon enters within range of the Death Spiral Machine, so the crew fires a super spiral bullet at it, but the bullet blows up before reaching its target because of the high pressure. Since they’re running out of time, Yoko is about to volunteer to go out, but Kittan stops her and has Reite load the next bullet onto the Space King Kittan because he feels that this is his job. Before he goes, he surprises Yoko by kissing her and then apologizes for his selfishness. Remembering what Kittan had said about doing what he liked, Yoko feels that she can’t stop him and hugs him back. Kittan then launches in the Space King Kittan and gets close enough to the field to throw the bullet at it. This successfully opens up the field, but Kittan’s missiles pods have all broken due to the high pressure, and the entire Space King Kittan soon does so too. All seems lost until they detect King Kittan emerge from the Space King Kittan carrying one of the Gurren Lagann’s drills. With his eyes glowing spiral, Kittan declares that the drill is his soul, increases its size, and initiates the King Kittan Giga Drill Breaker attack. As the King Kittan gets vaporized along with everything else, Kittan thinks to himself that this is the spiral power and how it’s quite something.

After the huge explosion that takes out the Death Spiral Machine, Lord Genome announces that the chance of success for this was 0%, but he knows that calculations are useless with them. With the machine destroyed, a huge spiral energy reaction starts up because everything around them is reconverting to spiral energy. All this power means that Simon can now transform the Chouginga Dai-Gurren, and he does so after saying that he accepts Kittan’s dying wish. What emerges back into normal space is the Chouginga Gurren Lagann, and Simon promises to show his enemies the power of humans.

Preview

I’m actually quite disappointed that Kittan died, especially since I had him pegged to survive the series after the death scare back in episode 20. Still, he got quite an impressive death scene in terms of music, animation quality, and general coolness. In particular, I really loved the instrumental start to the insert song (what the eye-catch’s “fight the power” is derived from) and how it went so well with the kiss scene. That being said, the later parts of the song felt really weird because it combined the rapping with some opera-like music. Either song by itself would have fit the scene, but putting them together didn’t work so well for me. Of course, that’s a minor complaint of what was an awesome scene since we got to see Kittan finally awaken his true spiral powers before making the ultimate sacrifice.
So the KittanXYoko theory also didn’t quite pan out, though he did at least steal a kiss from her first since he probably knew that he wasn’t going to make it. She probably suspected the same thing, but she knew she couldn’t stop him, so she let him have the kiss and the hug. If Yoko survives, the only good match left for her is Viral, but the odds of that happening now are a lot lower than they used to be with only two episodes left. I’m not even going to consider Yoko and Simon together because that would require Nia not surviving, and I doubt such an ending would be very satisfying.
There are now only two more episodes left, and I’m really curious how they’re going to pace things and if or when we’ll ever see the opening scene of the series again. The scene in the preview seems to hint either at a look back into the past or perhaps some sort of Anti-Spiral illusion trap that Simon (or Nia?) gets caught in. I’d be worried if that were the only thing in the preview, but the rest of it looked like more space action, so I doubt they’re going to pull any really weird ending along those lines (though you never know).