Gurren Lagann, Vol. 1

Great anime, weak CD
While the others sing the praises of this anime, and they are well deserved, I feel the need to speak out on the CD. For an extra $10 you get a sountrack CD. Normally this is a good value, but not in this case. The CD is 4 tracks. The first is the long version of the opening theme, the 2nd is another different piece, and the other 2 are short versions of the first track that are virtually indistinguishable from each other. Basically, you will be paying $10 more for 2 tracks of music. Not a good deal at all. Save yourself some money and just get the regular edition.

Awesome release package for an insanely awesome series.
If this is your first foray into the realm of "Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann," then shame on you. If you've already shed many a manly tear and generally been blown away by this series, then the R1 release you've been waiting for is finally here in all it's glory. Long story short, this DVD is one heck of a deal. You get 9 episodes where most releases give you 4, at most 5. While the only language is Japanese, the translators at Bandai did a great job of capturing the essence of each character in the subtitles. For those of you that watched the fansubs, you might chafe at the different wording of some favorite lines. Don't. No translation is ever going to be "the right one," and the meanings come across loud and clear in any case. The menus are great and fit the show perfectly. The extras are a little sparse, clean OP and ED only, but that's to be expected.
The bonus-CD with this edition is short but sweet. It contains the full opening song, "Sorairo Days," along with the edits for...

It's released! Finally!
For those that don't know, ADV originally licensed Gurren Lagann and was set to release it this past February. Unfortunately that didn't happen, and the fate of Gurren Lagann was in limbo as far as a US release date was concerned. Luckily, ADV sold (or dropped..not quite sure on the specifics) the license to Gurren, and Bandai entertainment picked it up. This is good for two reasons, the first being that Bandai upped the amount of episodes from the Japanese standard 3 per release, to a more palatable 9 episodes per disc (For a 27 episode series, it should be 3 sets total, which is great news) for an even cheaper price than the 3 episode releases go for in Japan. The second is that Bandai has recently aquired Bandai Visual, and hopefully, their knack for putting things out on Blu-Ray. Gurren Lagann was aired in HD in Japan, so a Blu-Ray release seems like a no brainer. Unfortunately, at this time, there doesn't seem to be any planned Blu-Ray release, but if the DVD sales are good, it...

Click to Editorial Reviews