History Anime / TENGENTOPPAGURRENLAGANN

** Rossiu is repeatedly called out for this post-Timeskip. And rightfully so. He [[spoiler:makes Simon a scapegoat (after the latter had just finished defending the city from TWO Mugens), puts Simon in a KangarooCourt (appointing himself as the judge and stocking the prosecution and probably the jury with people who were more loyal to him), uses the aforementioned Kangaroo Court to sentence Simon to death for the sole sake of calming the public. He then orders Gurren Lagann and the other Gunmen scrapped, evacuates everyone outside of Kamina City to underground shelters to survive the ColonyDrop, and continues doing this even after he learns that they have no chance of surviving. He then leaves half of Kamina City behind without a hint of remorse.]]

* RousseauWasRight: [[spoiler:EVERY major antagonist turns out to be trying to do what they thought was best for the world. [[IncrediblyLamePun Including Rossiu]].]]

* RedOniBlueOni: Reversed: uber-HotBlooded Simon and Kamina wear blue, while the level-headed Yoko is a redhead.
** Played around with in regards to Jorgun and Balinbow (each twin wears red and blue shades respectively, but have the same basic HotBlooded personality).
** And played straight Post-TimeSkip [[spoiler: Simon and Rossiu.]]
** Also, compare capes. Simon is just a ''tad'' more restrained than Kamina and wears a blue BadassLongcoat. Kamina's BadassCape is crimson.

* HeroesWantRedheads: Kamina, Simon and Kittan all end up falling for Yoko.

* {{BFG}}: Yoko's rifle. It's clearly based on the Barrett M82 anti-materiel rifle, a [[CoolGuns cool rifle]].

* BladeBrake: The OVA.
* TheBlank: [[spoiler:The Anti-Spiral robots. Only appropriate, as "Mugann" can be translated as "faceless".]]
* BluntMetaphorsTrauma: Nia.
* BoisterousBruiser: Kamina.

* {{Bokukko}}: The not-particularly-masculine [[GenkiGirl and very enthusiastic]] Kiyal uses the even more masculine "ore", which really stands out in her very feminine voice.

* PrecociousCrush: Simon had one on Yoko as revealed in episode 8. [[spoiler: Seeing Kamina and Yoko kiss breaks his heart and causes him to lose focus which leads to a chain of events that causes Kamina's death.]]

[[caption-width-right:350:'''[[CatchPhrase WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE?!]]''']]

* CatchPhrase: Kamina has several, all of which border on being ArcWords: "Who the hell do you think I am!?"

** Manliest of all is Kamina. So much so just wearing his CoolShades at least triples your manliness. [[CatchPhrase WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK HE IS?!]]

* WhoAreYou: Inverted or...something. The hot-blooded heroes were rarely actually asked, but often answered their opponents preemptively [[LargeHam and at great length]], always ending with the series' CatchPhrase / ArcWords, "JUST WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?"

* {{Bishounen}}:
** Kamina to an extent.
** Post-timeskip, Simon and Rossiu.
** Cytomander, although in Cytomander's case it can be easily hidden behind what we might call his [[AmbiguouslyGay "enthusiasm"]].

* LoadBearingBoss: With Lordgenome's defeat, not only does the capital city ([[RuleOfCool itself a giant robot]]) start to break apart and explode, but [[KeystoneArmy his army's mecha all simultaneously lose power]], thus assuring victory for our heroes.
** [[EpilepticTrees Possible]] [[FridgeBrilliance justification]]: [[spoiler: As beastmen are later reveled to be non-spiral lifeforms, it's quite likely that Lordgenome's immense reserves are powering the entire army.]]

** [[spoiler:The Anti-Spiral plays it straight in the finale: "Infinity...Big Bang! STTTTOOOOORRRRRRMMMMMMM!" ]]

* FinishingMove! [[PunctuatedForEmphasis GIGA!!! DRILL!!!! BUREIAKAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!!!]]

* SingleStrokeBattle: While not a ''literal'' case of this, '''GIGA DRILL ''BREAKAH''''' is genuinely shown as such, complete with landing in a crouch before the enemy mech explodes.

* LongTitle: Not the series itself, but rather Kamina/Team Dai-Gurren's theme song. Taku Iwasaki sure had a lot of fun making up titles for the tracks on the soundtrack. The Team Dai-Gurren rap theme's title is very, very, very long. The Japanese title is ''Rappu ha Otoko no Tamashii da! Muri wo Tōshite Dōri wo Kettobasu! Ore-tachi Dai-Guren-dan no Tēma wo Mimi no Ana Kappojite Yo~ku Kikiyagare!!''. The OST cut of the song adds "(Short Start Edit)" to the end, since the 60 second-ish orchestral opening is cut. One translation of the title, "Rap is a Man's Soul! We Kick Reason to the Curb to Make the Impossible Possible! Open up Your Ears and Listen to Our Team Dai-Gurren Theme!!", is so long that when used as a filename, "(short start edit)" is cut off at "(short ", and the length of the title caused all sorts of weird bugs to happen to Windows Explorer until he finally cut "(short start edit)" to "(SSE)". Oh, and to make it worse, the most common English translation uses wording that makes the title at least two words longer.

* {{Keigo}}: Nia speaks like this. It leads to her version of Kamina's phrase: "ARE YOU AWARE OF WHO EXACTLY I AM!?".

* TheFourGods[=/=]FourIsDeath: The Four Generals of the Spiral King; their Gunmen are named after the Chinese gods. [[spoiler: And they all die]].
* FourElementEnsemble: The Four Generals and their battleships thematically represent this idea.
** Tympilph is fought in a field of volcanos and commands the Dai-Gunzan, "zan" meaning mountain.
** Adiane is fought in the ocean and commands the Dai-Gunkai, "kai" meanng sea.
** Cytomander is fought in the sky and commands the Dai-Gunten, "ten" meaning sky.
** Guame is fought on land (and can burrow underground) and commands the Dai-Gundo, "do" meaning earth.

* SurprisinglyGoodEnglish: Quite a few of the songs on the soundtrack have legitimate, understandable English lyrics. Examples include Viral's theme Nikopol, all versions of 'Rap Is A Man's Soul' (commonly referred to by its famous lyrics, "ROW ROW, FIGHT DA POWAH!", and it's surprisingly good rap to boot), and 'To Hell With Gattai!'

* CatchPhrase: Kamina has several, all of which border on being ArcWords: "Who the hell do you think I am!?" The MouthFlaps actually match fairly well from Japanese to English, so WTHDYTIA [[LuckyTranslation didn't have to be altered at all]]. Just so you know, in Japanese it's 俺を誰だと思ってやがる ''"Ore wo dare da to omotte yagaru?!"'')

%%* GirlInABox: Nia.

The series is also something of a [[{{Homage}} tribute]] to ''Manga/GetterRobo'' and Creator/KenIshikawa in general, being written by Ishikawa's editor and "number-one fan" Creator/KazukiNakashima half a year after the former's unexpected death, and incorporating enough of its lingering plot threads[[note]]Most notably, the late-series moral conflict over whether humanity pursuing "the power of evolution" will cause them to destroy the universe[[/note]] that it can be seen as a [[SpiritualSuccessor pseudo-sequel]] to the [[DiedDuringProduction unfinished]] ''Manga/GetterRoboArc''. This extends to its appearances in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'', where it's treated as [[SpiritualAdaptation an honorary Getter entry]] for the purpose of mechanics and roster (even being allowed to take Getter's place in the traditional ''Anime/{{Mazinger|Z}}[=/Getter/=]Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' "Holy Trinity").

* AuthorityEqualsAsskicking: Thymilph, Lordgenome and the [[spoiler:Anti-Spirals]] all succeed in doing major damage to Team Dai-Gurren.

* ArmorPiercingQuestion: [[spoiler:Anti-Spiral Nia]] insists that she is a virtual life form with no emotional ties to her past. Simon counters with: "If that's really true, why are you still ''wearing that ring''?" This brings about the conclusion of the IKnowYoureInThereSomewhereFight and [[spoiler:Nia]]'s transition from ManchurianAgent to DistressedDamsel.

* OffModel: Episode 4 had a guest director, and is considered to be a visual low-point in the series.
** Done intentionally, if That Other Wiki is to be believed.

The series is also something of a [[{{Homage}} tribute]] to ''Manga/GetterRobo'' and Creator/KenIshikawa in general, being written by Ishikawa's editor and "number-one fan" Kazuki Nakashima half a year after the former's unexpected death, and incorporating enough of its lingering plot threads[[note]]Most notably, the late-series moral conflict over whether humanity pursuing "the power of evolution" will cause them to destroy the universe[[/note]] that it can be seen as a [[SpiritualSuccessor pseudo-sequel]] to the [[DiedDuringProduction unfinished]] ''Manga/GetterRoboArc''. This extends to its appearances in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'', where it's treated as [[SpiritualAdaptation an honorary Getter entry]] for the purpose of mechanics and roster (even being allowed to take Getter's place in the traditional ''Anime/{{Mazinger|Z}}[=/Getter/=]Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' "Holy Trinity").

The series also has a notable relationship with ''Manga/GetterRobo'' - being written by one of the editors of the original manga, and incorporating enough of its lingering plot threads[[note]]Most notably, the late-series moral conflict over whether humanity pursuing "the power of evolution" will cause them to destroy the universe[[/note]] that it can be seen as a [[SpiritualSuccessor pseudo-sequel]] to the [[DiedDuringProduction unfinished]] ''Manga/GetterRoboArc''. This extends to its appearances in ''VideoGame/SuperRobotWars'', where it's treated as [[SpiritualAdaptation an honorary Getter entry]] for the purpose of mechanics and roster (even being allowed to take Getter's place in the traditional ''Anime/{{Mazinger|Z}}[=/Getter/=]Franchise/{{Gundam}}'' "Holy Trinity").

* CloudCuckooLander: Nia; at first it seems to come from her sheltered up-bringing but it quite clear she isn't all there in the head when even after 7 years in the outside world she still surprises everyone with her quirky misunderstandings. Simon even remarks he has a hard time understanding what she says.

* AwesomenessIsAForce: [[RuleOfCool Spiral Energy]] literally run on this and allows the heroes' hot-bloodedness to manifest as anything from giant drills to [[spoiler:galaxy-sized robots]]. Essentially, pure awesomeness surpasses all known laws of physics.

* AfterTheEnd: The story takes place thousands of years after Lordgenome [[spoiler:wiped out his fellow Spiral Warriors]] and forced everyone else underground