The dirty little secret of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, which becomes obvious only in hindsight, is that Kamina wouldn’t have worked out as a leader.  I appreciate that Nakashima Kazuki let that fact reveal itself slowly and naturally, but the time this episode rolled around it was pretty much laid out on the table.  One of the reasons Team Dai-Gurren needed Simon to step up and become a leader is become somebody had to do it.

I think Nakashima’s closing argument is the sequence where the team receives the (obviously fake) distress call from the village of bishoujo.  Kittan wants to charge right in to rescue them, despite some half-assed reluctance from the others.  Kittan’s argument is “Kamina wouldn’t have hesitated at all!”  Ron’s acknowledgment of that is effectively an acknowledgment of Kamina’s ultimate unfitness to be leader.  Simply put, the guy only had one gear and made mostly awful decisions.  He undeniably had the ability to inspire people, but sustainability as a leader requires a lot more than that.  But at least, to his credit, Kamina sort of knew all this.

This is obviously a trap, and the work of another of Lordgenome’s Four Generals, Guame (played wonderfully by the 78 year-old Kawakubo Kiyoshi).  It’s clear from the tenor of his conversations with the Spiral King (who Guame reveals is 1000 years old) that Lagann represents something quite dangerous to the beastmen, and is definitely something they don’t want the humans to have in their possession.  Guame is an interesting one, a more reflective and strategic opponent than the two great generals who’ve already been defeated by Team Gurren-Lagann.

This is mostly about Simon, though, and his literally digging his way out of his downward spiral.  Nia’s unwavering belief in him certainly helped, but ironically it was Guame’s decision to imprison everyone underground that led to Simon finding his mojo again.  If it’s digging you need, Simon is your guy, and the symbolism of that is not accidental.  He’s the one who does the unglamorous grunt work, who thinks about the potential consequences before charging right in.  In short, he hesitates – because good leaders hesitate when it’s appropriate to do so.

The most important thing Kamina gave Simon was a reason to believe in himself, because he never would have made it this far without it.  But Kamina was going to have to be swept aside for Simon at some point if this cause was to have any chance at success, and I’m not sure it could have happened any other way.  Simon is truly GAR here (he even gets an insert song), and his brand of GAR is a lot more interesting than Kamina’s because it comes a lot less easily to him.  Kittan, in the end, ceded leadership of the group surprisingly quickly – but then, he’s not the man to lead them either and it Kamina could see that about himself, maybe Kittan could too.