Gurren Lagann

Overall Rating: B+
Summary: This Shōnen anime takes place in a post-apocalyptic world where humans have been forced underground and live in isolated villages. The villages each have their own leaders and beliefs about the surface world, but few ever venture up to the surface themselves. Due to frequent eartqaukes, which damage the villages, individuals known as "diggers" are constantly digging tunnels to expand the villages.

The series follows Simon, a fourteen-year-old digger from Giha Village whose parents were killed in a cave in. One day, Simon finds a small, glowing drill while digging, and fashions a necklace for the strange drill. After finding the drill, he runs into Kamina, an eccentric trouble-maker who dreams of finding his father on the surface. After recruiting Simon to help, Kamina tries to get past the village chief to break the ceiling of the village and get to the surface, but the chief stops them and throws Kamina in jail. Simon is let go as he is the village's best digger, so they need him too much to throw him in jail. Apparently, he is the rich, white male of the village.

While Kamina is stuck in jail, Simon returns to digging, only to find a "big face" deep in the tunnel. He breaks Kamina out to show him, but they are interrupted by the collapse of the ceiling, and an enormous robot falling into the cavern.

Yoko, a girl wearing a preposterous outfit consisting of a bikini top, hot pants, boots, and a scarf, appears with the robot and tries to take it down with a HUGE gun, but she misses a one-shot kill because Kamina is an idiot (this is a running theme in the show).

Simon takes Kamina and Yoko to show them the "big face", which is actually a small robot! The drill he found earlier turns out to be a key that he uses to activate the robot, which they name 'Lagann'. Together, Simon, Kamina and Yoko use Lagann to destroy the invading robot and break through to the surface.

The surface is a desolate wasteland inhabited by creatures called "beastmen" who pilot "Gunmen" (mecha like the one they just destroyed and Lagann. Simon and Kamina decide to defeat the beastmen so that humans can once again claim the surface, and set off on a journey to fight as many beastmen as they can find. Yoko and Leeron (your standard gay mechanic whose a friend of Yoko's) join them on their adventures.

This show is kind of hilairous. The more I watch it, the more self-aware I think it is. If you don't mind some fan-service and you are looking for a fun series to follow, then you should check this one out. In fact, I probably would have given the series an "A" if it weren't for the gratuitous fan service in the first few episodes. It seems to get toned down after a few episodes though, so I am looking forward to the next disc.