Eeyup! :D

Just checking... she got me to watch HIgh School of the Dead. :lol

The problem is that I like narrative with a structure. I want my stories to take themselves seriously. If they want to have fun, that's fine, but you can't go from dark and serious to "LOL I JUST CHUCKED 3 TRILLION STARS AT YOU!!!!" without a sense of mood whiplash and diminishing any sense of scale (Both in the literal and a story telling sense).

The ongoing problem is that every statement concerning Gurren Lagann is "It's so dumb, it's so ludicrous, it's so outlandish that it's AWESOME!"

She got me to watch Star Driver. :lol

The thing is that, it pretty much a celebration the Super Robot genre, and it abuses every trope and cliché from that genre. It does have some structure. It seems to be a coming of age story, if those interest you.

I'm not one to let a show get away with being cliche ridden just for the sake of being a homage.
It's why I loathe parody anime. Often times it's "Deconstructions" reaches Family Guy levels, which is to play it annoyingly and completely straight, then, at the end, point out how cliche it was to begin with.

Gurren Lagann doesn't really do that Family Guy thing. I haven't seen a lot of Super Robot anime, so maybe that's why I'm ok with it so far, because I haven't seen a lot of those tropes. (The only Super Robot shows I've seen are GaoGaiGar, and Star Driver). The only trope it seems to have used so far is the whole thing of "The specs of the machine don't matter, as long as you have courage!"

I don't know, I would say give it a chance. At least up until Kamina dies (episode 8). I intend to see it all the way through. I don't love it, but it's not a bad show either.

TTGL is one of my all time favourite animes. It's beautifully animated and directed, absolutely kickass, full of great characters, memorable moments and doesn't pull any punches.

For any fan of shounen anime, TTGL is basically the perfect package as it delivers all the thrills with slightly more complex characters, a generally more mature and darker tone and a bit of romance as well.

I hate how TTGL is tarred as this stupid mech anime parody watered down by years of otaku memes when the show actually has a lot to say and a lot to give beyond that but the thing is cast off by shallow people claiming the show itself is shallow.

I don't know where you're coming from.
From a quite literal point, I've never met another with a negative opinion on the series, but, much like my attempt at watching the critically acclaimed Akira, the animation looked good, but the story had no substance.

I may be the shallow one for not giving it enough of a chance, but I just didn't enjoy what I was watching.

Oh that wasn't aimed directly at you, I only briefly skimmed over the conversation above and as TTGL has become a cool to hate series over the years I shared my feelings on it. TTGL is one of the few animes I discovered when I was a bit older 16 - 17, that I adored.

Akira, or Gurren Lagann?