天元突破グレンラガン (Tengen Toppa GURREN LAGANN)

Or, Gurren Lagann for short.

The history of this anime's migration to the States is a bit confusing...well more just complicated, and uselessly so.

It first premiered in Japan in April of 2007 and was quickly licensed by ADV, with an official statement issued in June at Anime Expo 07. It was even cast for voiceover actors and promos came out advertising the release. Back in February, official cover art for the DVD was released, and so all we were left to do was wait until its (supposed) June 2008 release. June came and went, with almost no word on the release, until June 30. It was, for reasons unkown, removed from ADV's catalog of future releases. It was then announced at New York Comic Con 08 that Bandai now held the license.

I was lucky enough to be out yesterday at Best Buy (because I rarely ever get a chance to go there) and was just browsing through the anime titles, with the intent to buy the Cowboy BeBop collection for $40. I was about to leave when I saw that they didn't have any, and I look back for a second and the words in bold and all caps stare me right in the face. GURREN LAGANN. I nearly leaped for joy like a giddy little school girl. I grabbed it, bought it, watched it.

My one complaint is that...there's no dub. This is has both its pros and its cons.

The pros:
~DVDs will be released more quickly (vol 2 is due out early next month)
~DVDs have more episodes (vol 1 was two DVDs with 9 eps)
~No complaints about how they say names wrong, or just FAIL at Kamina's voice.

The cons:
~Reading is required unless you know Japanese
~No option to hear awesome English Kamina voice (if it even exists)
~Those names in the Japanese version that you have no idea how to pronounce, well...you still won't...

Other than those cons, there's really no reason why one shouldn't go out and buy the Vol 1 as soon as humanly possible. Bandai did a great job subbing it, although I do wish they had subbed the lyrics for the opening and closing sequences. And if you want to dish out about $10 more, you can get the Special Edition vol 1 which comes with the Sorairo Days single album. It's not necessary (considering that gendou.com has all the songs on the CD available for download...) but it's a fun/cool thing to have if you like all things Gurren Lagann. The CD has the opening song, Sorairo Days in three different versions. The full version, the first opening cut, and the second opening cut. It also has the insert song Happily Ever After, as well as the Romanized and Translated lyrics for the songs.

But this is an okay buy at $35 for 9 episodes and a CD.

If you're not up to spending $35 on the Special Edition, the normal edition runs anywhere from $19-$25.

Of course, if you actually want the dubbed version, you can watch the series premiere on July 28 on Sci-Fi. And then buy the DVDs NEXT YEAR...