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A few months ago, I was thinking about Gurren Lagann. Not sure what exactly led to it, but I was imagining alternate universes. You know, like what it would be like if it was Simon and Yoko who grew up in Giha Village instead of Simon and Kamina, or if different people died, or if there were more episodes (than 26 [episode 16 doesn't count]).
A few days ago, these thoughts returned, and one stuck out for me:
A few days ago, these thoughts returned, and one stuck out for me:
- Spoiler:
- What if Simon died instead of Kamina? What if Thymilph had gone and struck the miniature Gunmen actually hijacking his battleship instead of Gurren? (Most of) All the other events of the show would stay the same, just Kamina living instead of Simon.
A lot of this show revolves around Simon's coming of age, his ascension to adulthood and leadership, to independence and exploration, to shedding his lowly earth-digging duties and becoming a sailor of the cosmos. This works because Simon has lots of character to develop. At the beginning, he's a wimpy, easily-frightened, undriven sidekick to the local gangleader. But, right from the beginning, he displays his hidden potential. When his bro dies, he is forced to grow on his own, to become something that doesn't involve adding "Kamina's" before it.
But what about Kamina? As a flashback in episode 11 (showing a conversation just before the battle in the eighth episode) shows, Kamina relied just as much on Simon as Simon on Kamina. Much of Kamina's badassery was just an act he put on to hide his insecurity. He pushed on because he "refuse[d] to be laughed at by that [Simon's] back". So what do we get when Kamina loses that inspiration?
For the record, I find nothing wrong with the original Gurren Lagann. It's great, and I'm not suggesting that this replace the canon or anything. I just think that the idea of an alternate reality where we see Kamina grow instead of Simon is interesting.
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