I’d really meant to stretch these re-watches out a while longer. But with so much dead space on the anime schedule, something has to fill it. I’m make Seirei no Moribito last a bit but Gurren Lagann is getting blown through pretty fast. Summer looks skeletal too of course – and fall not much better to my tastes – but I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it I guess.
In most respects this amounts to a bit of a setup episode – really the last one of the series. After a couple of action-heavy weeks this is mostly hand-wringing about what’s to come – and it’s not good. Never mind that the moon would already be wreaking havoc with the Earth’s surface, we’ll suspension of disbelief that. What Ron tells Rossiu is bad enough, and it means the deaths of all the people going underground to shelter in the old cities. But that’s a price Rossiu is willing to as he makes the “hard decisions”. He’s probably hurt his shoulder patting himself on the back for it by now.
As Rossiu gets ready to turn Noah and ditch most of humanity, Kittan is busy hoisting death flags for himself. You can always justify what Rossiu is doing – that’s the trap of people like him – but Kittan’s approach doesn’t require any ethical callisthenics. Because there were people out there smart enough not to follow Rossiu’s orders, Kittan and the old guard can still fight – and because Lordgenome designed their weapons specifically to fight the anti-spirals, they’re a lot more effective than Rossiu’s “superior” weapons.
Simon and Viral expect to die in prison when the moon hits, but that doesn’t stop them from reminiscing about old times with the fists. With Viral the line between Beastman and human was always fuzzy, but never more than now. Viral’s taunting seems intended for a single purpose, to piss Simon off enough to make him fight not to die. And there’s still a role to play, one abdicated by Rossiu’s flight with his tail between his legs. Kittan made sure that Simon would have a chance to play that role, but it’s Yoko who shows up in the nick of time to make it possible.
