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This page is for the Antagonists in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.


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Beastmen

    Thymilph the Raging Wave/the Crasher 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thymilph_gurren_lagann.jpg
Voiced by: Kiyoyuki Yanada (JP), Paul St. Peter (EN)

The first General Team Dai-Gurren faces. Thymilph is a ferocious and none too bright ape man. He's the most respectable of the generals, but also the deadliest. He pilots the Byakko, a powerful Gunmen that fires massive energy blasts, and owns the Dai-Gunzan, a massive walking fortress. Oh, and he's sleeping with Adiane.


    Adiane the Elegant 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/adiane_gurren_lagann.jpg
Voiced by: Michiko Neya (JP), Megan Hollingshead (EN)

The psychotic female member of the Four Generals. Adiane is a scorpion-tailed temptress who tries avenging Thymilph's death. Viral has a secret crush on her, but she's such a violent monster that she doesn't acknowledge these feelings. She pilots Sayrune, a Gunmen that transforms into a scorpion, and uses an aquatic centipede flagship named the Dai-Gunkai. Unlike her fellow generals, she has the ability to make water appear out of thin air- and tons of it, at that.


  • And effortlessly blocks all of Yoko's shots in the first movie.
  • Avenging the Villain: Adiane used Thymilph as part of a plan to gain status amongst the generals, but it backfired when he died, and she's forced to take matters into her own hands.
  • Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other:
    • Adiane angrily declares she was sleeping with Thymilph to manipulate him after Guame calls her out on it. But when she dies, she seems genuinely sad she didn't avenge him. Not the response of a manipulator.
    • In the manga, as she is about to die, she sees an apparition of Thymilph. She smiles, and the two hold hands until she's killed.
  • Ax-Crazy: Kills people for shits and giggles.
  • Beauty Is Bad: The hottest of the Four Generals, and the bitchiest.
  • Beware My Stinger Tail: She is apparently a scorpion Beastman, though no other features appear.
  • Blood Knight: Like other Beastmen, she loves fighting.
  • Cat Fight: With Yoko in the first movie.
  • Dark Action Girl: A very violent one.
  • Death by Irony: She tried to avenge Thymilph's death, and was killed by his personal battleship.
  • Duality Motif: The reason she wears an eyepatch. Her left eye is gold, while her right eye is red. She switches the patch around every now and then depending on whether she wants to look seductive or menacing.
  • Eyepatch of Power: For no revealed reasons. See above. It also wraps around her entire body.
  • Hoist by Her Own Petard: Captures Nia and tells Team Dai-Gurren to point all of Dai-Gurren's cannons at Nia and open fire. Instead, Yoko shoots Nia free from Sayrune (after two Close Call Haircuts). Now all that firepower is aimed right at her. She tries to convince herself her enemy won't shoot... then Attenborough proves her VERY WRONG.
  • Hyperspace Arsenal: She can conjure up water inexplicably, in outrageous amounts to boot, whenever she wants.
  • Irony: Like Viral, she's one of the more human looking Beastmen (seriously, remove the scorpion tail and she could easily pass for human), but is far more vocal about her anti-human beliefs.
  • Jerkass: Not to the extremes of Cytomander, though.
  • Lady of War: Shows herself to be a graceful fighter with her Femme Fatalons and scorpion tail. She's called Adiane the Elegant for a reason.
  • Making a Splash: The General of Water.
    • According to Parallel Works Kittan Zero, Adiane actually has the unexplained ability to create obscene amounts of water out of thin air. That would explain the terrestrial locomotion of her Dai-Gunkai.
  • Meaningful Name: Adiane is a combination of adenine and undine. Any guess why she shared a bond with Thymilph?
  • Moral Myopia: Happily throws herself into this trope when Nia tries to get her to connect her rage over Thylimph's death with Team Dai-Gurren losing Kamina, to no avail.
  • More Deadly Than the Male: Much more violent and psychotic compared to the male Generals.
  • Nice Job Fixing It, Villain: When Team Dai-Gurren first finds Nia, and after it comes out that she is the daughter of the Spiral King, they are distrustful of her. Then Adiane shows up and tries to break Nia's spirit before killing her by publicly announcing that Lordgenome thought of Nia as a doll and has cast her out and discarded her, ordering Adiane to kill her along with the rest of the humans. But when Team Dai-Gurren hears this, this causes them to trust Nia as she is now firmly on their side, and they're enraged at Nia being abandoned, to boot.
  • Psycho for Hire: A little unstable.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: Beats down the entire brigade, on land!
  • Scary Scorpions: A tail, to be more exact.
  • The Smurfette Principle: The only female member of the Four Generals.
  • Sorry That I'm Dying: In her final moments, Adiane regretfully asks Thymilph to forgive her for not being able to avenge him, and then gets torn to pieces by a gunfire.
  • Statuesque Stunner: Adiane is enormous, and completely towers over even Viral, who's over 6 feet tall already.
  • Tsundere: A very dark version. She insists to Viral that she was playing Thymilph and gets angry at Guame for making insinuations about their relationship. However, there are several hints that she did care about him. Her last words are an apology to him for failing to avenge his death.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: Viral puts himself in harm's way to save her. She thanks him by beating him bloody. This is apparently par for the course for the Four Generals.
  • Unholy Matrimony: With Thymilph.
  • Vagina Dentata: Her Gunman. It looks like a woman's torso as well.
  • Water Is Womanly: She is the Water General and only female among the Four Supreme Generals. Her name is based in part on the water elemental Undine and, unlike her fellow generals, she has the ability to make tons of water appear out of thin air for her Gunman to have the advantage in sea combat. She has long blue hair and wears a slinky dress. But like violent water currents, she is very cruel and impulsive.

    Guame the Immovable 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/guame_5426.png
Voiced by: Kiyoshi Kawakubo (JP), Doug Stone (EN)

Guame is the eldest of the four generals. The closest to the Spiral King, Guame doesn't worship him like the other Beastmen, and in fact was willing to disobey the man. Part alligator and part armadillo.


  • Anti-Villain: He was in on Lordgenome's agenda.
  • The Battle Didn't Count: Manages to survive a Giga Drill Break(er) in his first direct battle with Simon due to his Ganmen's unique control scheme allowing it to pitch him out before the drill made contact.
  • "Blind Idiot" Translation: The subtitles refer to him as "Guame the Immobile".
  • Death Is Dramatic: Gave Lordgenome a farewell speech speared on Simon's drill, then got blown up in his crumbling battleship.
  • The Dragon: To Lordgenome.
  • Dishing Out Dirt: The General of Earth.
  • Dirty Old Man: A highly disturbing one at that. His actions with Nia are especially telling; he gropes her and offers to spare her life in exchange for sex. He even slobbers when he laughs.
  • Evil Counterpart: Of Boota. It's heavily implied Guame was Lordgenome's pet after going through Spiral Evolution.
  • Fallen Hero: Lost his resolve when Lordgenome lost his, and turned bitter and cruel.
  • Good Smoking, Evil Smoking: The man smokes a rather ornate pipe, guess what? He's morally ambiguous!
  • Hoist by His Own Petard: First, he broadcasts his battle with Team Dai-Gurren to Make an Example of Them to the rest of humanity, only to lose in front of the whole world and fill other rebels with hope. And in his fortress Gunmen, trying to crush Gurren Lagann only causes it to drill through faster, leading to his death.
  • Impaled with Extreme Prejudice: Simon drilled straight through his battleship from below, and the drill gored him right through his own shell and out the abdomen.
  • Meaningful Name: Guame is a combination of guanine and gnome.
  • Nigh-Invulnerable: His battleship survived a crash with Cytomander's and came out unscathed.
  • Non-Action Guy: He doesn't have Viral's skill in a fight, Thymilph's strength, Adiane's balls-out craziness, or Cytomander's willingness to cheat. He is the smartest of the four, however.
  • Really 700 Years Old: In a manner of speaking. He's about as old as Lordgenome, and thinks 200 years is still young.
  • The Strategist: Relies on his brains rather then his Gunmen.
  • Team Pet: Was once this to Lordgenome, until evolution turned him into a snobbish and revolting codger.
  • Tornado Move: He summons a weird tornado of pink energy to guard Teppelin by rolling around on his shell.
  • Uplifted Animal: If it really was him in the Parallel Works that reveals Lordgenome's backstory, then he's not even actually a Beastman and is instead an animal that evolved rapidly due to excess exposure to Spiral Power. He may even have Spiral Power himself.
  • Vagueness Is Coming: Makes references to humanity's "true" enemy and how Spiral power will doom them, but never provides specifics. Somewhat justified in that he's speaking either to himself or Lordgenome, so the details aren't actually needed.

    Cytomander the Swift 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Sissy_Villain.png
Voiced by: Akio Suyama (JP), Steve Staley (EN)

The incredibly fey air general. Cytomander is a bird man with a serious ego. Guame chastises him for being too brash, and when he's on the losing side of a battle, the guy really flips his lid. His personal Gunmen is Shuzack, and his flagship is the Dai-Gunten.


  • Agent Peacock: He is incredibly fabulous but he owns perhaps the most powerful General fortress in the series. Also literally a peacock man.
  • Ax-Crazy: The moment he loses his edge in battle, his sanity wears down to vapor-thin until, finally, he's Laughing Mad.
  • Blow You Away: The General of Air. He even seems to be able to teleport using air.
  • Calling Your Attack: Subverted. It's a running gag that every time he tries to, it always ends in failure.
  • Curse Cut Short: When he sees the massive Dai-Gurren thundering right towards his Shuzack.
  • Break the Haughty: His calm behavior turns less and less calmer as he begins to lose.
  • Combat Pragmatist: Captures Yoko so Viral could kill Simon. It doesn't work.
  • Chainsaw Good: Uses a buzzsaw as his weapon.
  • Evil Genius: Notices Team Dai-Gurren's weakness, and capitalizes on it.
  • Feathered Fiend: He appears to be a peafowl-man hybrid.
  • The Friend Nobody Likes: None of the other Four Generals mourn his death due to him being a bastard even by their standards. The movie has Guame mock him mere seconds after he dies and his presence isn't needed to form Do-Ten-Kai-Zan.
  • Hidden Depths:
    • Despite his obvious flaws, he gets a lot of respect from the bird-like beastmen. When Simon goes to prison, one such beastman is mad at him for killing the guy.
  • Jerkass: The biggest among the Four Generals, and arguably the biggest in the series.
  • Laughing Mad: When the tide of battle turns against him it drives him crazy and this happens. It's bad enough that it almost mirrors a trollface.
  • Meaningful Name: Cytomander is a combination of cytosine and salamander. Him being a flashy peacock parodying Japanese glam rock has more to do with his mecha's theme; it's named Shuzack, after Suzaku, a mythical bird in Japanese folklore.
  • Non-Action Guy: Only wins fights through cheating.
  • Sissy Villain: Gigantic boa? Rainbow colored lights? Stands on a stage wearing a body suit? Yes.
  • Small Name, Big Ego: "Maybe it's not that they're so weak, it's that I'm too powerful!" *laughs manically* Now, watch as I get my ass handed to me, go insane, and die!
  • Smug Snake: Spends his time insinuating that the other generals are incompetent, it doesn't work out.
  • Suicidal Overconfidence: His brimming overconfidence finally gets him killed when Team Dai-Gurren rams him with their battleship prow, sending him crashing into the Dai-Gunten, where both it and he are obliterated in the carnage.
  • Ungrateful Bastard: As with Adiane, Viral saves his life, and as with Adiane, Cytomander declares he's going to horribly punish Viral, who just seems to take it in stride by now. Unlike Adiane, Cytomander is rather understandably pissed at Viral for putting his honour before Cytomander's victory.
  • Villainous Breakdown: When his ass is getting kicked he laughs crazily. At the point of his death, he's pretty much gone completely insane.
  • We Have Reserves: Horrifies Simon with his willingness to get his own men killed. This makes even the other three generals hate him.

    Lordgenome 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lordgenome_gurren_laggan.jpg
Voiced by: Narushi Ikeda (JP), Jamieson Price (EN)

Lordgenome is the ominous Spiral King who rules the planet from his capital city, Teppelin. An immortal human who lived for more than 1,000 years so far, he cares little for people, treating the strange girls he surrounds himself with as dolls to be cast aside when they've outlived their interest to him.


  • Abusive Parents: His reaction to Nia asking him why was she born was to have her placed in a container and thrown into a valley with similar containers to die, implying he's done this to children he's sired previously. His generals tell Nia that her father only thought of her as a doll, and her questioning her own existence led to him getting rid of her. He doesn't have any issue with treating her as the enemy after she join Team Dai-Gurren.
  • A Good Way to Die: The second time.
  • Ambiguously Brown: Though his outfit and facial features suggest he might be of Turkish or Middle Eastern ancestry. His Parallel Works, however, show that he was light-skinned when he was younger.
  • Anti-Villain: While his methods can be pretty brutal, the fact is that Lordgenome oppresses the human race to preserve it. Having faced the Anti-Spiral before, Lordgenome knows that, if unchecked and left to develop and reproduce, the human race would once again get noticed by the Anti-Spiral, which would spell its complete and utter destruction, and even if they beat the Anti-Spiral, they will cause the universe to implode. He keeps the humans backward and living in fear because the alternative is much, much worse. And after the Time Skip, his worst fears become realized... except the human race will not be getting annihilated, because the heroes are just that awesome.
  • Awesomeness Is Volatile: It makes your head catch fire!
  • Back from the Dead: A few episodes after his defeat and after the time skip, his head gets revived by Rossiu to help analyze and reveal more of the world's past.
  • Badass Arm-Fold: Never uncrosses his arms while fighting in Lazengann (unless he's doing a Limit Break).
  • Big Bad: For the first arc.
  • Brain in a Jar: Spends most of the time following his death this way, but briefly regains his body just before the ending.
  • Blood Knight: If making one of your servants strong enough to test your number one enemy doesn't count, then coming out of your Gunmen just to beat him with your fists while laughing maniacally does.
  • Captain Ersatz: In keeping with TTGL's status as a spiritual finale to the Cut Short Getter Robo franchise, Lordgenome's Back Story is extremely similar to Prince Kamui's Character Arc in Getter Robo Arc, down to how he received the Lazengann in a similar manner to the BUG; his Beastmen are also genetically-engineered Half-Human Hybrids similar to Kamui. Lordgenome's kingdom, built around the city-sized Dekabutsu, also bears a loose resemblance to the enigmatic "Saint Dragon" future glimpsed in Shin Getter Robo (a Scavenger World where someone piloting a city-sized Getter attacks evolved humans to prevent them from expanding beyond Earth; a version of this Getter later appears before Kamui in the final pages of the manga, its motivations unclear).
  • Carpet of Virility: Starts out normal, but when Lordgenome gets really fired up it becomes a spiral shaped one!
  • Color-Coded Wizardry: His Spiral Power glows red as opposed to the usual green. What this exactly entails is the source of much debate.
  • A Day in the Limelight: The last Parallel Works video, which serves as a prequel telling his Start of Darkness.
  • Deal with the Devil: He made one with the Anti-Spiral: in exchange for betraying his Spiral Warrior comrades and suppressing the human population of Earth's surface to below one million, the Anti-Spirals would spare what remains of humanity.
  • Despair Event Horizon: His encounter with the Anti-Spiral early in life put him on a catastrophic nosedive into one of these, which led to the status quo seen at the start of the series. He snaps out of it in time for the final battle with the Anti-Spiral, in which he is role is critical in Simon's victory.
  • Didn't See That Coming: He's very surprised that Simon has a Core Drill which he uses to kill him.
  • Disc-One Final Boss: After the first arc, the Anti-Spirals take his place.
  • Dying Moment of Awesome: Twice!
  • 11th-Hour Ranger: He regains his body and joins the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in the climax.
  • Emperor Scientist: Presumably how he took over the world. He knows how to create Beastmen and their Gunmen.
  • Evil Counterpart: To Simon, which is pointed out when Viral calls him "usurper of Lordgenome's throne". The 8th Parallel Works video reinforces this with his past, using the Cathedral Terra and Dekabutsu as his versions of the heroes' Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren and Arc-Gurren respectively. The Lazengann even combines with the above two to transform into the Cathedral Terra Lazengann.
    Lordgenome: There was once a man who fought as you do, also unaware that his actions would ensure humanity's extinction.
    Simon: What are you talking about?
    Lordgenome: Nothing you need to know, you'll be dead soon after all.
  • Exotic Eye Designs: They're spiral-shaped, a trait shared by the Lagann in one instance, Kittan in his Heroic Sacrifice, the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, and Simon in the epilogue.
  • The Extremist Was Right: Thanks to his actions, Earth was kept safe from the Anti-Spiral for nearly a millennium. Yes, his rule was oppressive, but it was better than the planet's destruction.
  • Fallen Hero: Tried to overthrow the Anti-Spirals pre-series but was vanquished and became an oppressor of mankind like the Anti-Spirals he fought against.
  • Flaming Hair: That's sheer spiral power there.
  • Heel–Face Revolving Door: Starts out as a Spiral Warrior fighting the Anti-Spirals, does a Face–Heel Turn and takes the role of the Big Bad at the beginning, takes a neutral role as the Biocomputer, and finishes how he started.
  • Heel–Face Turn: After he is brought back to life.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: In the final battle, he takes the blow of the Infinity Big Bang Storm so that he can convert it into a massive amount of Spiral Energy for the Gurren Lagann's ultimate transformation.
  • His Name Really Is "Barkeep": "Lord" is not his title, it's part of his name. In a bit of Gratuitous English, it's officially meant as the first part of one word.
  • Genius Bruiser: Genetic engineer, master computer hacker, really beefy and able to beat up a mecha with his bare hands.
  • Hot-Blooded: So much so that he ignites his own head.
  • I Am Not Left-Handed: After Lazengann is defeated, he starts overpowering Gurren Lagann by beating it using raw strength alone.
  • I Did What I Had to Do: He excuses his tyrannical rule as necessary to ensure the survival of at least some of humanity.
  • Incendiary Exponent: Tends to catch on fire when he does awesome things, such as beating up a mecha with his bare hands, or doing interstellar travel by foot.
  • I Was Quite a Looker: He could easily be considered attractive now, but in a very harsh, hypermasculine way. We see in the last Parallel Works video that he used to basically be a male version of Nia.
  • Inconsistent Spelling: Intuitively, one would think "Lord Genome" is two words with the former being a title, but officially his name is romanized as one word ("Lordgenome") which is all part of his name.
  • Meaningful Name: Lordgenome genetically engineered the Beastmen. Including the Four Generals, which adds another layer of logic to their "DNA base + alchemical spirit" based names.
    • Also, he was one Spiral Knight and the DNA helix, where the genes are localized, is in spiral format
  • Mirror Character: Simon and Lordgenome are both legendary Spiral warriors brimming with Spiral Power willing to fight the Anti-spirals for humanity's freedom. While Lordgenome is an opponent at first hoping to crush humanity to keep them safe, Simon fights for their freedom even in the face of certain doom and his indomitable will brings them victory.
    Lordgenome: There was once a man who fought as you do, unaware that his actions would lead to the universe's destruction.
  • Mr. Exposition: He becomes this after becoming the Bio-Computer for Team Dai-Gurren. Any information involving Spiral Energy, the Anti-Spirals, the War against the Anti-Spirals, and scientific phenomenon is explained by him.
  • Nonstandard Character Design: Unlike most of the characters, he's given a more... Let's call it traditional Anime Muscular Man look.
  • Offhand Backhand: When Simon ejects Lagann to use just it against Lazengann, Lordgenome gives Rossiu an annoyed "go away" before slapping Gurren to the ground with his tail.
  • Offing the Offspring: He callously abandons his daughter Nia to die in a metal container ejected from his palace. The graveyard of similar capsules implies he'd done so with frightening regularity.
  • Oh, Crap!: When he realizes that Simon has just slammed the Core Drill into his chest. You know, the thing filled with enough spiral energy to power Gurren Lagann.
  • One-Man Army: His Parallel Works video shows that he wasn't defeated by the Anti-Spiral so much as he was convinced they were right about the danger of the Spiral Nemesis. Then he turned against his entire Spiral Army and wins.
  • One-Man Industrial Revolution: As shown in the last Parallel Works Video, Lordgenome was the forerunner and inventor of a number of scientific marvels utilized by humanity in their war against the Anti-Spiral. These achievements ranged from aerospace engineering and spacial-temporal travel to genetic engineering.
  • Promoted to Playable: He and Lazengann became playable characters in Super Robot Wars X-Ω.
  • Rank Scales with Asskicking: And don't you forget it! There's a reason all the militant beastmen obey him without question.
  • Really 700 Years Old: He doesn't look like it, but he's at over 1,000 years old.
  • Royal Harem: One of the many ways he passes the time is having sex with his personal harem made of young girls trained for servitude in Beauty Village and sent to him by Guame. From these concubines, Lordgenome has spawned countless children (Nia included) that he raises and later discards on a whim. The concubines also act as a Battle Harem by becoming drills for his Lazengann.
  • Redemption Equals Death: Becomes a good guy and then dies to provide an opening for the rest.
  • Social Darwinist: Subverted at least at the end.
  • Spiritual Antithesis: To Gendo Ikari. Both Tragic Villains are older males who serve as the Archnemesis Dad to one of the series' protagonists, engineered the life of a blue-haired Mysterious Waif,note  have loose similarities to Darth Vader of Star Wars, and secretly have Well-Intentioned Extremist motives. However, while Gendo was more of The Chessmaster and never engaged in direct combat, Lordgenome puts up a spectacular fight once Simon reaches his stronghold. Both characters also reflect the protagonists of their respective series, reinforcing their opposite nature: Gendo, while masculine with an air of coolness, isn't notably manly because he's essentially what his cowardly son Shinji would be if he grew up, while Lordgenome is one of the manliest characters in the show and was a lot like adult Simon in his youth. Furthermore, in the end, Lordgenome pulls a Heroic Sacrifice, while Gendo continues trying to go through with his plan only for Rei to betray him.
  • Start of Darkness: The 8th Parallel Works video provides a glimpse into his past and how he became the man we see now.
  • Status Quo Is God: A literal example. He lost his own war against the Anti-Spiral, so he had to put himself in a position to ensure that they don't exterminate humanity. He forced the human race underground and kept them under a safe number so the probes of the Anti-Spiral don't react to exterminate the race. He then got rid of the probes as soon as they start to gain sentience and killed every human that tried to go to the surface. It's implied that he did this for hundreds if not thousands of years.
  • Strong Family Resemblance: He looks nothing like his daughter now, but when he was her age, the only difference besides gender is that he lacked her Exotic Eye Designs, as he was fully human.
  • Strong Flesh, Weak Steel: During his fight Simon, he ends up breaking Gurren and turns Lagann into a broken, armless mess. He's ultimately killed when Simon blasts a hole through his chest with his Core Drill.
  • Techno Babble: Once he was so incomprehensible that even Leeron didn't understand him.
  • Torso with a View: After being impaled by Simon's Core Drill. This somehow doesn't prevent him from talking.
  • Tragic Hero: Was originally the heroic Spiral Knight of the Galaxy, before the Anti-Spiral showed him the truth of the Spiral Nemesis. After that, and also realizing the undefeatable nature of the Anti-Spirals, he cuts his losses and becomes a Well-Intentioned Extremist, slays all of his Spiral comrades, and becomes a brutal tyrant to keep the human race alive.
  • Tranquil Fury: During his fight against Gurren Lagann, he attacks quite ferociously, yet maintains a stoic face and voice, as well as his Badass Arm-Fold. He only starts to show hamminess when he activates Lazengann's Limit Break; after that, during his fistfight with Lagann, he goes into full Blood Knight mode.
  • "Uh-Oh" Eyes: Due to the sheer trauma he went through, His pupils became permanently white, while his irises became spiral-shaped as his strength grew. His eyes were originally blue.
  • Use Your Head: In the second compilation movie. When it comes to hacking, there's the realistic way, there's the Hollywood Hacking way, and then there's the Lordgenome way, in which one plugs in and physically beats the security system into submission with one's forehead.
  • Villain Team-Up: In Super Robot War Z2: Hakai-Hen, he meets with Gaiou before Scenario 44 on the Earth route and receives two Dino DAMON in exchange. Given they were both Fallen Heroes and Anti-Villains, it isn't surprising.
  • Walking Shirtless Scene: He has nothing on under his robe to cover his uber-muscular physique.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: Maybe. He enjoys his fight with Simon a little too much.
  • Worthy Opponent: He starts to heavily enjoy his fight with Simon by the end, and even gives him a bit of respect as it was his most difficult battle in 1000s of years.
    "I haven't had this much fun in a long time boy, now back into the dirt with you!"
  • Worf Had the Flu: In his prime, Lordgenome single-handedly took down the entire Spiral Fleet himself, but a thousand years of boredom and idleness had weakened his spirit and by extension his Spiral Power, something he himself admits. Simon's victory over Lordgenome was after a millennium of tedium had worn his spirit down; if he had been at his full power, he could have cleaved through Gurren Lagann and Dai-Gurren with one swipe of Lazengann's drills before they even saw it coming.
  • Zen Survivor: Made bitter by his defeat at the hands of the Anti-Spirals, he doesn't tell anyone what he's learned and warns them only in a cryptic sense.
    "When the land overflows with a million apes, the Moon shall become Hell's messenger and completely destroy the world of the Spirals."

The Anti-Spiral

    The Anti-Spiral 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/image1.jpeg
Voiced by: Takaya Kamikawa (JP), Dave Mallow (EN, series), Crispin Freeman (EN, compilation movies)

"You seek beauty in struggling to the bitter end- a trait instinctive to those bewitched by the power of the Spiral... Nevertheless, that is an act which has been repeated time and time again. Now, follow the same fate as those Spiral Warriors... WHO CAME BEFORE YOU!!"

The ultimate Big Bad of the series. This bizarre being appears to be the embodiment of the collective mind and will of the Anti-Spiral race. As he resides in Another Dimension created by the Anti-Spirals, he has near-infinite levels of power, up to and including manipulation of the very laws of nature.


  • Absolute Xenophobe: Wants ALL forms of life gone or at least incapable of evolving to prevent the Spiral Nemesis from coming to pass, and by hell or high water, he makes sure of it.
  • Aliens Are Bastards: To borderline monstrous extremes. And the worst part is he's convinced he's the good guy even after crossing the Moral Event Horizon over and over and over again.
  • Art Shift: In The Movie, he shifts from "Skinny" to "Uber Muscular" a few times, also gaining a more versatile expression range that borders on Nightmare Fuel when he smiles deviously.
  • The Bad Guy Wins: In a sense. Sure Simon kills him but the Anti-Spiral winds up having the last laugh when Nia, who was an extension of its will, fades away on her and Simon's wedding.
  • Bald of Evil: Lacks hair, but then again, he lacks pretty much any other features as well aside from vague eyes and a mouth, pretty much doing the bare minimum to even resemble a human being.
  • Blank White Eyes: His default expression.
  • Big Bad: Of the entire series, although it doesn't show up until after the Time Skip. During the Beastmen Arc, it was effectively The Man Behind the Man, since Lordgenome's plan to keep humans living underground also benefited its goal.
  • Big "NO!": Along with Rapid-Fire "No!" and Big "NEVER!" During the final battle.
  • Boomerang Bigot: The Anti-Spirals were once Spiral beings themselves.
  • Cold Ham: Even in his more quiet moments, he's still a ham.
  • Combat Breakdown:
    • At the climax of the final battle, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann charges the Anti-Spiral mech in an attempt to get at the Anti-Spiral pilot. The Anti-Spiral mech halts Gurren Lagann's charge by skewering it with Combat Tentacles, only for the next inner layer Gurenn Lagann to launch and carry on the charge. Layer by layer both sides continue until Viral rips Lagann free from Gurren and hurls it at the Anti-Spiral pilot to skewer it.
    • The Lagann-hen retelling takes this even further—not only do both sides reach an even higher level of mech during the battle, the Anti-Spiral takes the initial advantage, tearing through each layer of Gurren Lagann and shattering each drill down to Gurren Lagann's—which holds. On its own, Gurren Lagann then tears its way back towards the Anti-Spiral much like the original telling; Lagann's final charge ends with the Anti-Spiral stopping it, only for Lagann to come to life and hurl Simon on its own initiative into a fistfight with the Anti-Spiral. Both sides proceed to beat the snot out of one another.
  • Combat Tentacles: They are typically drill-shaped, similar to the Lazengann's drills.
  • Creepy Monotone: Speaks with an unnerving calm, at times making him sound like a scientist who is merely conducting an experiment rather than a Sufficiently Advanced Alien with incredible power. By the final battle, however, he's ranting a mile a minute and shouting attack names just like everyone else.
  • Deity of Human Origin: Sort of. A Humanoid Abomination created by someone, instead of more traditional cosmic god.
  • Desperation Attack: Uses his tentacles to shred Lagann as it descends on him, but cannot stop it in time. In Lagann-Hen, he does, but Lagann throws Simon at him and begins a one-on-one fistfight moments later, which ends with Simon killing him. When he tries to stab Simon with his tentacles, he dodges, grabs them and pulls him towards him to give him a massive punch to the face that makes him bleed.
  • Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Being a Reality Warper, he could probably have erased the Spiral team in seconds when they entered his realm. However, his modus operandi has it that to inflict absolute despair, he has to first provide a glimmer of hope, meaning that he wants to defeat the team on their own terms.
  • Dimension Lord: He resides in his own universe.
  • Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: "We have no need to understand. We only need to know." Rather suspect considering the Anti-Spiral itself is a Spiral Race, meaning it shares too much in common with the heroes to truly be unable to understand them.
  • Evil Feels Good: Despite claiming he/they have no emotions, they seem to enjoy inflicting Absolute Despair on their enemies.
  • Evil Knockoff: In response to the heroes' advance, he creates a twisted version of their own mecha, and even fights using drills during the climax. In the second movie, this includes his own version of the Giga Drill Break.
  • The Evils of Free Will: Though that's a little bit more justified when the force that is and is created by free will and makes free will possible is what is fueling entropy.
  • Face Death with Dignity: When he's killed, his last words are "If this is how it must be, protect the universe at all costs."
  • Fantastic Racism: Well Intentioned Extremism not withstanding, he absolutely deplores and hates other spiral races, considering them reckless fools who need to be restrained. See Absolute Xenophobe. However, he does seem to have relented in this in his final moments, having asked Simon to protect the universe.
  • Fatal Flaw: Pride. He is so confident that he toys with enemies instead of crushing them with his full godlike power, which proves to be his downfall.
  • Final-Exam Boss: Fighting him involves attacks and weapons used by multiple Spiral Warriors, as well as every version of Gurren Lagann (with Lagann, by itself, delivering the final blow).
  • A Form You Are Comfortable With: Sort of. He agrees to fight the protagonists "on your own terms", meaning the Evil Knockoff mecha mentioned below. His reason for doing so, however, is not to relate to them, but rather to humiliate his opponents by defeating them in a Mirror Match rather than simply Reality Warping them into nonexistence. He does this because if he assumed a form more powerful than them, they would simply Spiral Power their way up to his level, so limiting his own power in effect limits theirs as well. Additionally, he considers that defeating an opponent slowly and on their own terms generates more despair, which is what he's after.
  • Good Old Fisticuffs: Believe it or not, unlike most divine-level aliens he's not at all above getting down and dirty with his bare fists.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: Of the Lordgenome arc.
  • Hero Killer: Part of the Anti-Spiral's backstory is that he's killed countless Spiral warriors before. He tries to break Team Dai-Gurren by rubbing in their face the fact that making it to his dimension does not make them special. He fails, of course. Of the main group, he does kill Kittan and possibly many minor characters who were all heroes in their own right (depending on whether you're watching The Movie or not). Also, while he didn't kill Lordgenome, he did break him.
  • Hive Queen: Subverted. Although often known in fandom as the Anti-Spiral King, he's not actually a ruler but a collective avatar of the entire Anti-Spiral race.
  • Hope Crusher: His main method of eliminating spiral energy (which is derived from hope and courage) by dangling brief glimpses of victory in front of their enemies before snatching them away in the cruelest and most unfair way possible to destroy their will to fight. He does this because he knows that despair is the only way to truly stamp out Spiral Power and thus the Spiral Nemesis.
  • Hot-Blooded: He can claim that the Anti-Spirals discarded all of their emotions all he wants; he nearly matches Simon in this respect during the final battle.
  • Humanoid Abomination: It's humanoid in shape, but the Anti-Spiral's lack of features and sketchy animation style makes it seem as if he's "Out of Sync" with reality, which, in a manner of speaking, he is.
  • Hypocrite: As noted above, the Anti-Spiral is quick to abandon his vaunted stoicism in the final battle.
  • Jumping Off the Slippery Slope: When the Anti-Spiral race discovered the possibility of the Spiral Nemesis, rather than theorize on ways to slow it or lessen Spiral Energy consumption they instead jumped straight to removing their own capacity for it and then to genociding literally every other Spiral Race in existence.
  • Kamehame Hadoken: Uses a Big Bang this way.
  • Knight of Cerebus: Even when Thymilph and Lordgenome darkened the show, there was still enough lighthearted and playful humor. Come the timeskip and this guy, things become even less amusing and much darker.
  • Knight Templar: His goal is to prevent The End of the World as We Know It from occurring. All fine and well, if not for the fact that his means of doing so are so draconian that they defeat the purpose.
  • Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: Despite having almost enough power to curb-stomp the heroes (the exact limits of his power are unknown, and may even be infinite), he always takes the form of his enemy, with just a tad more power, to demoralize his enemies and make them lose spiral power. When the heroes take the form of the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann with the help of a Big Bang, the Anti-Spiral matches it by breathing.
  • Loss of Identity: Purging themselves of Spiral power and stopping their own evolution resulted in their entire race becoming blank beings with no clear identity.
  • Master Race: Deconstructed: They conquer the universe for the sake of their own existence.
  • Mind Hive: The so-called "Anti-Spiral King" is the collective psychic embodiment of the Anti-Spiral Race.
  • Mirror Match: The Anti-Spiral's combat strategy is to meet his enemies at their own level and then outmatch them in combat to increase their despair. This backfires on it due to Team Dai Gurren forcing it to call upon so much spiral power that it fuels its own Villainous Breakdown.
  • Nonstandard Character Design: He is drawn as a vaguely-human black silhouette, with very simple white eyes and mouth. This helps illustrate his alien nature.
    • Foreshadowed by Lordgenome. He imitates the Anti-Spiral by sealing away his emotions and suppressing his fellow spirals, only to succumb hot-blooded passion when pushed to his limits. The Anti-Spiral ultimately follows almost the exact same course in its fight with humanity.
  • Not So Stoic: Once it's pushed to its limit, the Anti-Spiral fights back with a sheer hot-bloodedness that arguably rivals Simon's.
  • O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Simply having to throw around the kind of power he needs to fight Team Dai-Gurren at the end appears to cause the ostensibly emotionless Anti-Spiral to start making dramatic and violent displays of emotion, possibly because he's tapping into long-untouched wells of spiral power himself.
  • Order Is Not Good: The Order to Team Dai-Gurren's Chaos. Showcased in it's rather bland and lifeless mechs it sends against the group as well as the fact they're all interchangeable and indistinguishable from each other. Even Lordgenome's forces had more personality and a bit of fun to them.
  • The Omnipotent: He has complete control of his pocket universe, up to the ability to manipulate probability. The only reason he doesn't just annihilate the heroes is due to gaps of information.
  • Reality Warper: Can alter probability: the force of nature that sets forth the laws of reality. That would make the Anti-Spirals the equivalent of first-order beings. The next step up from that is God.
  • Red Eyes, Take Warning: His swirling eyes have flickering splotches of red as he anaylzes Nia.
  • Royal "We": Justified, as he's a Mind Hive speaking for his entire species. In Japanese, he uses 我々 (Wareware).
  • Serial Escalation:
    • The Anti-Spiral can call upon immense reserves of power to meet its enemies at whatever level they're at and then outmatch them just enough, and repeatedly rises to meet Gurren Lagann's new Evolutionary Level.
    • Also, in terms of sheer focused spiral power, Lordgenome was the greatest user of Spiral Power until Simon met him in battle. During the Astral Finale, Simon goes into battle backed by Team Dai Gurren and part of a whole city. The Anti-Spiral, on the other hand, is fueled by an entire planet's worth of spiral power.
  • Slasher Smile: A very sickening one whips across his face as Simon dashes toward him with a drill arm in Lagann-Hen.
  • Sufficiently Advanced Alien: Perhaps even Perfectly Advanced Alien. Ironically, Anti-Spirals have evolved so far, they stopped out of fear it would unravel creation itself.
  • Shadow Archetype: Just as the protagonists are trying to keep their race alive and are very determined to do so, the same is true for the Anti-Spiral race, which he points out as part of his Breaking Speech during the final battle.
  • Techno Babble: Has a few shades of this.
  • Unmoving Plaid: Adding to his inhuman feel.
  • Well-Intentioned Extremist: All the races the Anti-Spiral has destroyed or crippled is to ensure they never evolve far enough to trigger the Spiral Nemesis from coming into being — thus averting universal destruction and prolonging the universe's existence indefinitely. Whether or not the Anti-Spiral is right about the Spiral Nemesis or just pointlessly paranoid, he's sincere enough about his convictions in the end to accept his own destruction and urge Dai-Gurenn to protect the universe in his stead.
  • Villainous Breakdown:
    • The final battle pushes the Anti-Spiral to its limits and beyond. Despite its entire existence being opposed to the advancement of spiral power (which is fighting spirit as a Power Source), when Team Dai-Gurren refuse to give up and keep getting stronger it must call upon this power at unprecedented levels to counter, which causes the Anti-Spiral's Emotion Suppression to break down. As the battle wears on, he launches into "The Reason You Suck" Speech and really blows his stack, subjecting Gurren Lagann to Metronomic Man Mashing and letting his whole mech bellow like a wild beast.
    • ''Lagann-hen of course takes it even further, showing the skinny, monochromatic Anti-Spiral seething to all but bursting with blood red aura when it rises to meet the new Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. When Simon throws a Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Breaker at him, it openly emotes, showing obvious interest in the coming clash and astonishment and rage when the basic Gurren Lagann survives Combat Breakdown to parry its ultimate drill.
      IMPOSSIBLE! NOTHING CAN WITHSTAND OUR POWER!
    • It's also done visually with the waves of ships it sends, the first wave are the Tron-line, notably faceless ships, followed by the larger ships comprised of stoic deity-like faces that will become agape when cornered, and finally with his variation of the Gunmen, is a demonic-looking, skeletal creature who looks like it's in a perpetual state of insanity and rage.
  • Walking Spoiler: His appearance reveals the cryptic warning that Lordgenome left the heroes, which reveals much of his motivations, as well as the existence of the Beastmen and the reason he oppressed humanity.
  • Willfully Weak: The Anti-Spiral deliberately tailors its forces to be just slightly stronger than whatever its enemies are currently using. If the enemy manages to surpass that level, it shows off yet another force powerful enough to put them back at square one. This is all part of its strategy to destroy the morale of an enemy by showing that no matter how much they claw and sacrifice for victory, the Anti-Spiral will always be just beyond them.

The Spiral Nemesis

    The Spiral Nemesis 
https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/rsz_spiral_nemesis.png

An apocalyptic force that is said to occur when the universe's Spiral Power goes out of control.


  • Ambiguous Situation: One of the greatest questions spawned by debates over it is "Does it even exist?" The answer will most likely never be revealed, but the characters do seem to acknowledge it as a valid possibility.
  • Apocalypse How: Class X-4. If it ever occurs, that's it, everything's done.
  • Captain Ersatz: Of Getter Emperor, a universe-threatening entity born in Getter Robo's Bad Future as a result of humanity and Getter Rays evolving out of control.
  • Greater-Scope Villain: If it is sentient then it is this, though it's equally possible that the Spiral Nemesis is simply a naturally occurring event, in response to overuse of Spiral Power.
  • Natural End of Time: While how natural it is is debatable, the Spiral Nemesis is implied to be a Big Crunch scenario resulting from Spiral Beings (life that evolves and possesses willpower) producing enough Spiral Power that the sheer amount of energy-mass they create it causes the universe to collapse.
  • Negative Space Wedgie: It's basically a cosmic force that can cause the universe to implode from Spiral Energy going out of control. Heck, it's even to the point where Simon sees it as a Black Hole, a real life example of a Negative Space Wedgie.
  • You Cannot Grasp the True Form: While the Spiral Nemesis is known as an apocalyptic force or event, the exact mechanics don't seem to be possible to explain in human terms. The two times any representation of it is shown, it takes wildly different forms. Lordgenome sees himself losing control of his powers, which consume the Earth and become a monstrous hydra-like beast that tears galaxies to shreds with its multiple heads. Simon sees a massive black hole in a white background that swallows and spaghettifies everything near it, including him and Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann.

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