The comments on this post were cute. Specifically, though, I’d like to commend Higevs, Xerox, and lKnight for taking the bait. My mention of “magnum opus” was deliberately provocative, utterly random, though not without careful forethought and really a point I meant to expand on in this post; it was interesting, other post comments aside, to see what the term really means to each of them, and how their taste influenced their criteria for such judgement.

while light shows juxtaposed on serious ones make for hilarity…

Here’s the plan for my blogging of this series: having read practically every post about GL, I noticed one thing in common — practically nothing was said as everyone went into the blogger’s equivalent of cat proximity, which was basically posting screencaps of what happened during the episode while employing choice, eloquent, and concise vocabulary consisting entirely of phrases like “THIS WAS EPIC!!!”, “GAR”, and “I CRIED MANLY TEARS”, rather than offering any coherent dissection or discussion. Not like I’m judging or anything, just how I saw it.

It goes without saying then that I plan to blog this, and split this task of blogging up into three arcs of my own making, the sum of which will be arc 1 (episodes 1-9), arc 2 (episodes 10-18), and arc 3 (episodes 19-27), which will also serve as the final review. As editorial blogs are generally renowned for having an unsystematic blogging structure, I thought I’d change this by organising things a little, so that my readers know what to expect and whatnot.

With that in mind, let’s tackle the magnum opus bit first. Going by dictionary definitions wouldn’t hurt, since I’m a man of words and all that –the general meaning gleaned from the term would be construed as meaning a work of particular importance, something that doesn’t necessarily have to be the best (my question here is, who on earth’s judging? the Magnum Opus Committee? the United Taste Organisation?), but great enough to warrant it the term. In other words, a work that you particularly like for being brilliant.

It would be good to note at this point that I already have the impression of GL being Gainax’s magnum opus, at least from the collective Anglosphere opinion, which was unanimous in critical acclaim for the most part. Yes, my impression of whether this is Gainax’s magnum opus, because this is my blog, and for the sake of sanity and discussion I could really care less about what you think, although you can mention it in the comments. I’ll be raising this question again in my final post, the answer of which I hope to find during the viewing of the series.

My reason for doing so is this: the concept of trying to define a magnum opus is as fruitful and productive as trying to decide on what the “Best anime ever made” is. Magnum opus by what standards? Depth? Entertainment? Critical acclaim? Commercial acclaim? All of the above, and more? Which aspect should be give the most weight, if any at all? This task also happens to be made more difficult given the length and breadth of Gainax’s works, so any definition of magnum opus is best narrowed down to what my opinion of it is.

Having established my premise from which I’m going to blog about GL, here’s my initial impressions: it’s very familiar. This isn’t my discounting the setting and world in which it’s based, which is of course original material; it’s just that the base outline of it is like that word on the tip of your tongue, a momentary lapse of concentration in which you can’t really think of what you have in mind, yet can at the same time.

A decade or so of shounen and mecha might have played a part in this. My reason for believing Code Geass as Sunrise’s magnum opus is that it left practically no base, genre, or fetish uncovered in its capacity as an anime; ditto KyoAni’s Haruhi to a lesser extent. No, I don’t give a Gundamn about the other shows — do I really have to see them to pass judgement? Nostalgia blinds, and I’d rather not. Does Haruhi have everything I like about anime in 14 episodes? Yes. Did CG remind me of the same in 25? Yes.

…so do serious ones (”Mao!” “What is a human?!”)

I see the same thing happening with GL. The branding is slick but effective — an alpha male that dies early, a protagonist that struggles with his destiny yet grows into another cast of said alpha male, a phallic symbol in the form of a drill that oozes sheer masculinity. The end result is an uncompromising mix of shounen and mecha adhering to its core values that practically screams to be watched by its target demographic, a show that surpasses even the usual boundaries of anime when you realise that for once, you don’t have to be ashamed of watching this.

The masculinity aspect is important due to how the typical otaku would be far from being the epitome of manliness — Kamina’s death isn’t an end, but the means towards an end that helps endear the viewer to the show. His death has a two-fold purpose: firstly, it develops Simon’s character to the extent of becoming a replacement for Kamina, and prepares him for the leadership role in the Gurren Brigade; secondly, it helps the viewers identify with Simon as he grows as a character. Cruel as it may sound, Kamina’s role in the show would be like the training wheels on a bicycle; no one starts off without them, and everyone has to say goodbye to them at some point.

It shows acumen in a saturated industry where almost every clich�, shounen ones in particular, have been played to death. In an amusing parallel with Evangelion about pre-mecha piloting jitters, Simon’s initial lack of confidence made for a brilliant contrast to Shinji’s “I mustn’t run away! I mustn’t run away!” outbursts — instead of being chastised for it, Simon is consoled and reassured. Similarly, Kamina isn’t aspiring to, or apologetic about his maleness like characters of similar persuasion usually are — he is a man, through his actions, thoughts, speech, and various idiosyncrasies.

This is the driving force behind GL, and it makes no apologies about what feminists would essentially brand as phallocentric. While there is a tendency for characters to have their mannish natures as just another character attribute, Kamina makes it his, and in turn the Gurren Brigade’s credo. He isn’t doing it because he thinks it’s right, he’s doing it because it’s part of who he is, and he couldn’t be able to sleep at night if he didn’t have it otherwise.

Likewise, the drill as a recurring symbol is particularly brilliant for having several meanings at once. Having reconciled Kamina as the epitome of masculinity beforehand, his constant tirade about drilling to the heavens mean that we associate the drill with justice, freedom, progress, and basically everything that Kamina stands for. While originally used as a tool by Simon, he now uses it to liberate the world from the clutches of the Helix King, and as a result the battles are exciting not only due to the choreography, hat’s at stake, or the characters behind them, but also thanks to the subconscious programming employed in which we naturally associate the good side as the one with the drill, and evil as the one without.

That isn’t to say that GL has been without faults so far. If there was anything that would make me reconsider the magnum opus title, it would be the avoidable mistakes that Gainax made with episodes 04 and 06 that were more technical in nature than anything. While I wasn’t exactly seething with bile at the bad animation of 04 like others had, the end result jarred terribly with what the first three episodes had established, and disrupted the tempo that it had been building on.

The unwarranted recap in episode 06 as a result of censorship (the real episode is on the DVD) worsens the pace even further: instead of receiving real story, we’re instead reminded of events just passed; as a result, what would have been non-stop action is essentially broken for the sake of fanservice that didn’t even manage to make it to air. While as of episode 09 the plot and pacing has recovered to its pre-epic state, there’s no telling what might happen next with the addition of Nia, and I’m looking forward to any future developments.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 15th, 2007 at 11:51 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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