WMG / Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Crossover Theories
• Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann Meta Theories

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The final battle against The Anti-Spiral was a Battle in the Center of the Mind, ala The Matrix.

Did you think the Anti-Spirals actually risk using their own Spiral Energy and thereby destroying existence? All the God Powers they exhibited were mere illusions projected by their Assimilation Plot.

• Doesn't Lordgenome say as much? "We are in a super Spiral space where thought is given form."

The Spiral Nemesis is a metaphor for overpopulation, and the Anti-Spirals are extreme Malthusians

Spiral Energy is the power of evolution, and evolution is achieved through procreation, and eventually, the Spirals will produce more Spiral Energy in an exponential rate than spacetime itself can contain, resulting into the Spiral Nemesis. Similarly, if our procreation rate (which is exponential and works like a logarithmic spiral) surpasses our arithmetical production rate, Earth's resources will be exhausted and will be turned into a Crapsack World where people are beginning to fight each other for oil/living space/food/what-have-you. See also:Soylent Green, when there are more Humans than Food.

It isn't Spiral itself that the Anti-Spirals feared, but procreation when idiots use it (e.g. teenage pregnancy, unplanned pregnancy, rape, etc.) They foolishly generate more of themselves (unwanted/defective children) before they are ready (expensive education and a job), and it will lead to disaster both for said Spiral, his/her family, and everybody else burdened with such "parasites", especially when they outnumber the smarter ones, leading to de-evolution.

The Anti-Spirals became obsessed with population control, and used transhumanism (artificial evolution facilitated by technology) to sterilize themselves and force themselves into an Assimilation Plot as a clean and godlike Singularity because Utopia Justifies the Means. However, they overdid their Well Intentioned Extremism and became greedy, wanting the entire universe for themselves, perceiving their First-world Singularity as perfect and cleaner than "those filthy proles stuck in their probability-children". Thus the Motive Decay of their good-intentioned philosophy into pure eugenicist xenophobia.

In the end, the Spirals do learn how to control their urges, with Simon replying that "humanity isn't that foolish", so that the Idiocracy that the Anti-Spirals feared would never come.

The opening? That was the anti-spiral rebellion

At the opening of the series, it is mentioned that, "All of the stars are our enemy". So it kind of makes sense that it would have to be a species able/willing to exterminate all other life for their goal, IE the "Anti-spirals" when they first learned of the spiral nemesis, or when they would have been at the height of their power.

• Jossed. The writer attributed that scene to an alternate ending where Simon didn't heed the Anti-Spiral's final warning.
  • Obviously, yes. But assuming the Anti-Spiral storyline was thought out that far in advance it's likely that Simon was meant to be fighting either them or the hypothetical Spiral Nemesis. This makes sense because what made it into the show was the Anti-Spirals playing around with a pocket dimension.

Spiral Energy (or something like it) does have an effect in Real Life: we just call it "chaos theory"

Butterflies in the East. Cause Spiraling Hurricanes in the West.

• Therefore, butterflies are the manliest creatures ever.
• Spiral Power is weaker in our universe. While it's capable of doing incredibly awesome things, it's still confined to the basic laws of physics. Perhaps the Anti-Spirals feared us, and ensured the laws of physics were immutable. There is some resistance, in the form of quantum physics.

The perpetual existence of the Universe that the Anti-Spirals want would be a horror beyond imagining.

The Big Crunch, the Spiral Nemesis; death; is ultimately a necessary function to the evolution of the Universe. Scientists even theorize that when the Big Crunch does happen, the singularity that it created will become a "Big Bounce": it will start another Big Bang, thus giving birth to new varieties of physics or life. Keep in mind, despite all their talk about protecting the universe, the Anti-Spirals have suffered such massive Motive Decay to the point of becoming nihilists who have zero concept of quality of life. As long as something continues to exist; in any form; they see it as their job accomplished. An endless, eternal And I Must Scream.

And that is why the Spirals choose a Dying Moment of Awesome in a Big Crunch rather than accepting the eternal paradise the Anti-Spirals offered.

The entire show is the past of Time Lord society.

Time Lord technology is to the point where it can be easily mistaken for magic. This is because it's powered partially by spiral power. Notice when we get a map of "Earth", it looks barely like Earth (there's a freaking land bridge connecting Asia and Australia and North and South America don't exist). Some even crazier things cause this world to become Gallifrey. The Doctor is, of course, the reincarnation of Kamina. How else could he go Serial Escalation so often, pull off insane outfits and get machines to do things that seem impossible (combining Gurren and Lagann shouldn't have worked, the TARDIS has a control panel made of random stuff)

Viral has had Spiral power ever since the beginning of the series

• Lets see, earliest example was when Viral saved Adine by catching Dai-Gurrens foot and threw it on its ass. He came up underneath it (drills maybe?) and caught a giant foot that probably weighed somewhere over three tons. Then he survived the explosion Adine's sub. In the penultimate episode, Viral gets caught in the dimensional labyrinth with everyone else, because it was a trap that targeted creatures that could produce spiral energy, and later; during the final fight, the show flashes to Viral saying something, and then Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann pulls out two katanas; weapons that Viral has been using throughout the series. Also, in the second movie, he gets a tengen toppa (spiral energy flames and all) with a design that reminds me of shiva and uses a sword in each hand.
• This may explain why, despite not being that high up in the chain of command, Viral is almost completely human.
• I hate (really, I don't want to) contradict you, but... the dimensional labyrinth was made to capture any Sentient Beings. Not Spiral Beings. And in the Tengen Toppa Scene, it's stated that Viral has absorbed some spiral energy from all his time with Team Dai-Gurren and with the Spiral King. Also I think maybe they mighta said something about because it's a fake "Super Spiral Universe"

Viral was turned into a Human-Beastman hybrid

• Viral was formerly a Beastman, with the same traits (lack of ability to use Spiral Power, immense strength), but Genome, in order to insure he survives to tell his tale, gave him the ability to use Spiral Power, and took away the unfortunate side-effect of going into the state of hibernation caused by his Beastman origins.

The Spiral King forced everyone underground not because of Anti Spirals and the Spiral Nemesis, but because he wanted a real version of Dwarf Fortress

• The Spiral King forced everyone underground, not because he was afraid of the Spiral Nemesis, but because he got bored of being an extreme badass, and wanted to unwind a little with some DF. Unable to play it on his computer because of the constant concubine swarm surrounding him, Lord Genome instead forced all humans to become his pawns, then made the beastmen to be the replacement for goblins and other monsters. Kamina was the one who colonized hell, and everyone going to Teppelin was a case of the 4th wall being shattered.

Rossiu's character shift during the Time Skip was the result of a delayed reaction to Nia's cooking.

• Everybody else on team Dai-Gurren agreed that the food tasted awful, but Rossiu reacted especially badly. Obviously a person's reaction to Nia's cooking is different based on the amount of Spiral Power they can manifest at the time. Therefore, Simon, having already managed to manifest crazy amounts of Spiral Power, enjoys her cooking immensely, while the rest of Team Dai-Gurren, who have manifested only enough to pilot Gunmen, merely think it tastes terrible. Rossiu, on the other hand, having grown up in the dreary Adai Village, cannot even get into the proper mindset to manifest Spiral Power, and reacts violently to Nia's cooking. Over time the effects grew more pronounced as Rossiu continued refusing to manifest Spiral Energy to counter the effect, eventually corrupting his personality and leading to the post-timeskip Rossiu. Fortunately, the effects began to reverse themselves once Simon purged Rossiu's body of the infection via a Spiral-infused punch to the face.
  • Best WMG ever.
  • Except the reason Rossiu got as sick as he did is because he forced himself to sample every dish where as the rest of the Dai-Gurrn Dan (sans Simon and Boota) only ate a bite or two.
  • Clearly what Rossiu ate is Anti-Spiral cuisine.

Garlock is the Anti-Spiral.

• The Anti-Spiral has said that his race was once a race of Spirals who sealed themselves into another part of the universe and stopped their evolution, which is how Garlock could be GAR and the Anti-Spiral - they were still Sprial at the time. At the end of the series, a galaxy-worth of Spiral races contact Earth (or whatever it's called), meaning that the Anti-Spiral had to defeat all of them, so all of the lights in the sky would have been their enemies.

Gurren Lagann and Megas XLR take place in the same universe...or rather Multiverse.

There are two possible version:

• The world seen in Parallel Work 8 is future earth after the Glorft have been driven off by Coop who traveled in time. Megas XLR is only a Stable Time Loop up to the point where Megas is sent back in time (hence, closing the time loop).

• Or, earth seen in Parallel Work 8 is the Mirror Universe from the finale of Megas XLR, who has been rebuilt after Evil Coop gets stuck in another dimension. Oh, and the Lagann Lordgenome find? A prototype Evil Coop was working on. Search your feeling, you know its awesome!

Nia's death was her own fault.

Think about it. The theme of the show is to go Beyond the Impossible. To keep on fighting even if the odds are 0%. Nia's chance of living out the remainder of her natural life was at 0% but that hasn't stopped the Dai-Gurren Dan before. If she had simply refused to give up and kept on fighting for the right to live her life with Simon then she would have. Since she decided to ignore the Dai-Gurren Dan's motto, the main theme of the show, she got struck full force by the Diabolus ex Machina and faded away.

TL;DR: Nia's a bigger idiot then we are led to believe.

• She wanted to die because she didn't want to cheat by abusing Simon's Spiral Energy to stay alive. They both agreed on that, because Simon promised the Anti-Spiral that he'll prevent Spiral Nemesis from happening, and excessive use of Spiral Energy was "banned".

The first 30 seconds of Episode one is when Simon finds the GGG

...Fighting the Spiral-Nemesis. With Optimus Prime and Coop helping Gai out.

You CAN'T bring back the dead with Spiral Power.

Lord Genome was never really came back to life, even as a bio-computer/head in a jar. It was more a clone with his memory than the actual Lord Genome. That's why Simon can't bring back Nia.

• I thought the same thing after seeing the ending - A possible reason they could bring back Lordgenome is because he was Only Mostly Dead, and Rossiu took his head and put it in a jar shortly after his defeat without anyone noticing. Surviving a huge drill hole for a few minutes/hours isn't that absurd, especially considering that Lordgenome was the second strongest Spiral warrior after Simon and he was already able to make himself immortal. Not being able to bring back the dead makes a lot of sense, since Spiral power originates from life forms, life in TTGL is clearly much more than a bunch of matter arranged into a body.
  • It's not that Simon can't bring Nia back, they decided he shouldn't, probably because Nia didn't want to make him abuse Spiral Power. Please refrain from using "can't" and "Spiral Power" in one sentence, ruining the Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
    • My interpretation is Simon is unable to bring Nia back/keep her alive with Spiral energy. It might be theoretically possible to do so but the only way he could would be to immerse himself in greater and greater amounts of Spiral energy. Given the looming threat of the Spiral Nemesis, Nia and Simon agree it just isn't worth it.

• Agreed. You could bring back a dead body with Spiral Power, but without Spiral Power of its own it's not truly alive, just a biological puppet or zombie. This is why Lordgenome had to insert some kind of hibernation-jazz into the Beastmen: to keep them alive without Spiral Power. Nia actually needed incredible badassery and willpower to generate her own Spiral Power when the Anti-Spiral's death left her without any Ontological Inertia. This would make sense, as Spiral Power seems to be some sort of materialized Ontological Inertia generated by the Rule of Cool.
  • He could have kept them all alive with his own Spiral Power, and probably fuel all of their Gunmen to Gurren Lagann levels of power just by sitting there on his throne. However, the Anti-Spiral brainwashed him into suppressing Spiral Power, that's why he went for hibernation and solar power.

• Makes sense. Spiral Power is connected to evolution, which is all about going ahead and adapting. Bringing someone back to life would be completely antithetical to that process.

Simon had one final adventure between his wedding and the epilogue.

As other tropers have noticed, Simon takes Nia's death a little too well. My theory for this goes as such:After the final battle with the Anti-Spiral, as they are all sitting in their Laganns, Nia discovers an internal message encoded inside her. It turns out that all of Lordgenome's daughters were potential messengers, and when a messenger dies, she is transported to an alternate universe as part of Anti-Spiral experiments. Before their wedding, Simon and Nia find out how to track her to whatever universe she will go to, and after the wedding, Simon does just that. He has a final adventure, where he rescues Nia, helps her get a human body, and returns home. They live in secret to avoid, as another troper has noted, people who might still want to kill her. Following the epilogue, Simon goes to his simple home, where an older Nia and their children can be seen.

Also, I have always thought of the alternative universe he travels to being one of many Neon Genesis Evangelion Universes, which he proceeds to fix as he searches for Nia. However, your mileage may vary with that idea.

• Considering that your idea helps to keep me from bawling on subsequent viewings of the series, I wholeheartedly support the theory. On another note, looking at things from that point of view also makes Simon's last line, where he stops himself just short of his traditional catch phrase, seem more...er...less(?) heartrending. He is deliberately staying out of the limelight for Nia's sake.

• Must... not... write... fanfic... Hold... together...

• Here's the thing: how did they find her before, when she was being analyzed by the Anti-Spirals? Perceptual dimensional teleportation using the wedding ring as the target. The one thing Nia leaves Simon before fading away is the wedding ring. It's almost as though she's flat-out telling him that they can find each other, wherever they are, no matter what happens. Depending on the way you look at the wedding, this can either make for a happy ending for the couple where he can find her wherever she is (or, dare I say, vice-versa), or it can give more impact to when Simon gave up his core drill (and therefore his handy/only access to perceptual teleportation via Lagann — cementing his "The dead would just get in our way," claim). Is his one spiral eye in the distant ending a delayed manifestation of his massive overdose on Spiral Energy in the final battle? Is it just a sign that he's embraced the use of spiral power in moderation, perhaps to visit his beloved? Does it mean he's rejected immortality? Or that he's shared half of his immortal life with Nia? Or is it because he no longer needs a focusing tool (the core drill) to tap into the more advanced uses of Spiral Energy i.e. dimensional teleportation/time travel/the impossible? Listen up, tropers. You be the judge, and don't let the claims of others get you down! In the end, yours is the only interpretation that matters. Believe in the ending that you believe in!

• The alternate reality Simon went to? It was the world of Parallel Works 01. The Simon and Nia depicted in the video are, in fact the Simon and Nia of the primary continuity. The versions of Yoko and Kamina seen are alternate versions native to that universe. Finaly, the monster that Simon faces at the end is a physical manifestation of the remnants of the anti spirals consciousness, holding Nia captive for revenge.
  • This is also consistent with the appearance of the monster; it's extremely similar in appearance to the Granzeboma.

The TTGL Universe is designed so that Main Characters can't have love interests

They kill off both of Yoko's love interests, and Simon's, and the Universe itself prevents Viral from ever having a relationship.

• Viral could have a relationship, he just can't reproduce.
• So, does this mean the TTGL universe is related to the Gundam universe?
  • By extension, Yoko's Kiss of Death is not only real but an actual precautionary measure designed by the Anti-Spirals. Spiral power is said to increase based on the person's potential for evolution, ergo, heroes with love interests generate much more Spiral Energy than they would normally. Not only is this power boost in and of itself dangerous, but if spiral power is actually hereditary then Yoko + Kittan or Yoko + Kamina = epic baby. The Anti-Spirals can actually manipulate probability, so they built a machine which ensures that as a hero's odds of reproduction near 100%, their odds of survival approach 0%. This is why Viral is completely unaffected by the machine no matter how strong he gets. Simon escaped its influence either because Nia was going to die anyway OR too far Anti-Spiral'd to even be compatible with a Spiral Race OR because the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagaan is a walking Screw Destiny in mecha form.

After Kamina dies, he becomes the god of evolution (Spiral energy)

Think about this. When Dai-Gurren is trapped in alternate universes, it is heavily insinuated that the spiral power of Simon still existed. Since it is Kamina who greets him, this means that a) the rebel Simon is the epitomy of all possible Simons, and thus is the one most liked by evolution, and b) that Kamina has become the embodiment of evolution itself, telling Simon and the rest that they should live up to their spiral potential. Another word for the embodiment of such a force is a god of it. Thus, Kamina is the god of evolution. It even makes sense, when you factor in that his reckless, destroy-anything-necessary and win-or-die-trying attitude suits the wild and powerful nature of spiral energy to a tee, along with him being the first to recognize what runs the ganmen, meaning he was probably very familiar with it to begin with.

• When I saw Kamina had come back, I had two thoughts. The first was, of course, "a REAL MAN never dies, even when he's killed!", and the second was, "Holy shit, they're saved by Spiral Jesus!".

Kamina is God

The Judeo-Christian one, to be precise. Consider:

• He refers to himself as Kamina-sama, just one syllable away from Kami-sama.
• He's the driving force behind the Gurren-dan, before his Heroic Sacrifice forced them to become better by themselves.
• His first disciple is named Simon (The first apostle Peter is also known as Simon-Peter)
• When needed, he manifests as a towering humanoid figure made of fire (Appeared as a column of fire at night to guide Moses and pals out of Egypt)
• Rule of Cool: You know you want this to be true.
• Who is it you say I am?◊
• Not to mention he dies chaste.
• There's no indication of a mother. For all we know, his father ended up having him out of sheer will.

• Let me just cite here: "Kamina isn't Jesus, he's John the Baptist, the crazy motherfucker who did what he damn well pleased and who taught the young savior everything he needed to know."
  • Objection. Simon's first Giga Drill Breaker is basically copy of Saint Peter's first curing a disabled homeless in "Acts of Apostoles". It happened directly after Jesus left his apostoles alone, similar to what Kamina "did". Thus, Kamina is both John the Baptist and Jesus, and Simon is both Saint Peter and Jesus.
• Kamina as Jesus? Please, that's obvious...

Spiral Races are attempting to contact us, possibly setting the events of TTGL in motion.

All the proof I need.

• I agree to that. From what is in this article, A giant light-blue spiral light appeared in the sky and GREEN-BLUE SPIRALING LIGHT Shot out from it! Now let's see what is the power of Spiral Energy and what color is Chou Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in the movie...

The Ganmen were built by Tony Stark

Because only one man could be badass enough to do so.

• Did he do it in a cave? With a box of scraps?
• Also, does this mean that his arc reactor uses Spiral Power?
• Tony... Stark... Arc reactor powered by Spiral Po- MY GODS! QUICKLY, TO THE FANFICTION PLACES!
• NO! TONY STARK IS LORD GENOME!(HE WAS EVIL IN SOME MARVEL COMICS)

The town of KurÃ'zu-cho is an example of what happens when a Spiral Nemesis Rises to power

In the manga Uzumaki, the entire town is...infected is a good word, by spirals. Particularly, all the spirals run inward, perverting the people and inflicting Nightmare Fuel that few of the townspeople are able to escape from.

The Opening Sequence of Episode 1 is the Bad Ending for the series.

The introductory sequence of episode 1 prior to the title card, featuring Captain Garlock about to take on all the heavenly lights in the sky, is the bad ending for the series, wherein Simon, instead of listening to the pleas of the Anti-Spiral, goes on to continue his space travels and becomes the Spiral Nemesis. The last shot of the scene before the series title and episode title is the last moments in the universe before Simon destroys everywhere and everywhen in Space-time with Chouginga Gurren Lagann and its Maelstrom Cannon.

• This interview says that the opening was originally supposed to foreshadow the ending. Along the way, it was retcon'd into an Alternate Universe where Simon does become the Spiral Nemesis.
• The obvious trigger of his action is Nia's death. How can he give up his power and authority now — now that only he can set things right! Even if it means amassing enough mass and energy to risk the gravitational collapse of the universe. Even if it means leading the Dai-Gurren-Dan into war with every living being. NOTHING is impossible to the truly audacious!
  • I saw it as Simon accepting Gimmy's suggestion of bringing her back through Spiral Power. Only, he can't do that. So he keeps pushing farther and farther, amassing more and more Spiral Power to try to truly do the impossible. The immense amounts of Spiral Power he begins to tap into alarm the rest of the universe, and pretty much everyone decides he has to be stopped. Leading to all the lights in the galaxy to be Team Dai Gurren's enemies.

The Prologue to Episode 1 takes place between the end of Episode 27 and the Distant Finale epilogue.

After the final battle with the Anti-Spiral, Earth makes contact with the other Spiral races who had been kept oppressed until Simon's victory. Of course, as Simon learns after the Time Skip, that doesn't mean that they all are grateful. Since Viral is taking the Cho-Ginga Dai-Gurren to a peace conference in the epilogue, 20 years after the previous scene, there's plenty of time for the other Spirals to unite against the Earthlings and plenty of time for the old hero, Simon, to fight once again for his friends and world to live in peace. The parallel between Humanoid!Boota's line "all the lights in the heavens are our enemies" in the prologue and Simon saying "all the lights in the heavens are our friends" might also support this theory.

• Maybe it's not all the spiral races uniting against humanity, but a single, evil spiral race that nevertheless gained the power to manufacture vast forces through the use of Spiral Energy. If the entire universe of spiral races unites against humanity, then humanity must be evil, and that takes us down the Bad Ending route.
  • Then again, Humans Are Bastards...

The Prologue to Episode 1 is part of Boota's fantasy realm in Episode 26.

Boota's heart's desire is To Become Human and fight alongside Simon. This is part of the Anti-Spiral's fantasy-vision (TM), which explains some inconsistencies, such as Boota's voice, Simon/Captain Garlock's attitude, and its apparently never happening in the "real" parts of the series. Also note that the prologue doesn't concern itself with who the Dai-Gurren Dan is fighting, only that they are fighting. Dream logic, and it also meshes with the Anti-Spiral's impression of the humans.

The Prologue to Episode 1 takes place eons before the series starts.

Sure, it looks like Simon and Human!Boota, but it's really a group of Spiral Knights fighting against the Anti-Spirals eons before the series began. The Anti-Spirals confirm that Spirals have been fighting and losing against them; there's even a graveyard of nigh-identical Gurren-Laganns to prove it. When Spirals get awesome enough to travel the Anti-Spiral universe, they tend to evolve to a similar form to the most awesome things ever: The main cast.

• More specifically, the leader of the Spiral Knights shown is Lord Genome right before the defeat that would force him to become a Knight Templar. The Cathedral Terra was his ship, after all.
  • No, that's no good as a theory. If you listen to the prologue, you can clearly hear Lord Genome's voice from offscreen. He's not Captain Garlock.
  • That was just the narrator. He just happens to have the same voice actor as Lord Genome.
• This theory is supported by Parallel Works 8, which shows a young Lord Genome (who looks very similar to adult Simon) standing in the exact same place on the exact same ship, even using the exact same pan out from its top along its body to show it off. Of course, this wouldn't explain the flags in the prolog with Kamina's glasses, so it's more likely they just liked the imagery and reused it, but...

The Prologue to Episode 1 is Kamina's father's war against the Anti-Spirals.

In Kamina's flashback, we briefly glimpse Kamina's father. If you look carefully, you'll see that he has blue hair, like the captain in the prologue. Also, Kamina's cloak (and by extension, his logo, which comes from the back of the cloak) once belonged to his father; he finds it on the skeleton of his father. Kamina's father led a similar rebellion against Lord Genome (and left Kamina in Jeeha Village); instead of killing Lord Genome, Lord Genome survived and warned him about the Anti-Spirals and possibly allied with him. Kamina's father then led an immediate attack on the Anti-Spirals, lost, and fled back to Earth, where he died, possibly because he was betrayed by Lord Genome and his Beastmen.

• To elaborate: First off; why exactly did Boota transform into a humanoid form towards the end of the series?

• Lord Genome explains it as using his own growth energy as species evolution energy. But that doesn’t explain how Boota knew how to do that. Nor does it explain why he turns back into his normal form once the fight is done with. The entire reason the Anti-Spirals didn’t just snuff humanity out of existence was because it had no idea what Boota’s energy signal was, but Boota seems to understand it completely. Because of this it’s safe to assume Boota is unique. He’s a pigmole the same things that Kamina used to bust out of the ceiling in episode 1.

• But Boota’s no where NEAR their size and lives for far longer than any other animal. 27 years from the start of the series till the end and he never grows or show any signs of aging. Why is Boota like this? And why does he know more about spiral power than even Lord Genome? There are a few other unanswered questions in the series too, such as where Lagann came from, it was buried underground, but it’s never explained who built it and why it is a unique Gunman. But all this can be explained if you pay close attention to the beginning.

• By which I mean the very beginning of the series. Like the opening scene. Who is this man? Simon at or after the end?

• No. There’s continuity errors galore in the first scene. First and most obvious, a beastman resembling Boota’s humanoid form is standing on the bridge in a uniform (during the finale Boota’s human form is only there for a few minutes, stark naked while everyone else is catatonic).

• Second off, if you take a close look at what the captain is wearing during the opening scene seems to be a mix of Garlock Simon’s outfit and Kamina’s. If it was Simon why wouldn’t he be wearing Simon’s exact outfit? Third and I argue most importantly, he jingles. As he walks you can hear chains clanking together. This scene just doesn’t meshup with any point in the finale. But it’s important to note they are on board Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren, which according to Lordgenome had seen battle against the Anti-Spirals before.

• Fast forward a bit to the end of the first act. While fighting Lord Genome speaks of a man who fought as Simon does.

• Based on the second act you’re supposed to believe that he is referring to himself here, but Lordgenome doesn’t elaborate to confirm. In the past Lord Genome betrayed humanity once he was informed of the impending Spiral Nemesis. But wouldn’t it be safe to assume that if he was in a leadership position he could’ve convinced his troops that abusing Spiral Power was not the answer? And even if he did attempt to as their leader, he’d at least have one or two humans back him up. But he did it solo so it’s safe to assume that he was not the man in charge. I believe that Lordgenome in this instance is talking about the Captain from the opening scene, not himself. Simon standing up to him reminded him of the Captain and he began to reminisce.

• So now you’re probably lost, wondering why I’m talking about this captain guy so much, why is he so important? Couldn’t it just be that one scene was an error? Well here’s why I think I’m right.

• The Captain jingles.

• NO ONE in the series jingles! Why does he clank his little chains together when he walks? Why is that one piece of information there standing out like a sorethumb? Well one other person does jingle although we only see it and him for a very brief moment.

• Dear ol’ Dad, Kamina’s father jingles. I believe that the captain in the opening scene is not Simon but is instead Kamina’s father based on the fact that we never get a good look at either of them, but when we do their silhouettes are the same and the captain in the opening scene jingles as does the skull chain around Dad’s bracelet which is one of the few details Kamina remembers about his dad.

Now lets take a look at the Parallel Works. The Parallel Works are a series of what are basically music videos that hold nothing in common though some fans believe them to be dreams that are in the labyrinth of infinite dimensional space. They’re basically depictions of things that have happened or could happen often told in an exaggerated manner that doesn’t fit perfectly into the series. There’s one in particular that is Lord Genome’s back story from when he was a kid through the first spiral war to his betrayal, him breeding the beastmen and enslaving the human race. In the beginning of this Parallel Work, a young Lord Genome sits in a playground surrounded by animals, among them are an armadillo (Guame), a bird (Cytomander), a scorpion (Adaine), and a gorrila (Thymilph).

• It’s safe to assume that these animals, then just a young Genome’s friends, later evolved thanks to spiral power into Beastmen and became Lord Genome’s Four Generals. It probably wasn’t an uncommon thing at the time for animals to be made into Beastmen companions and it’s possible that the Boota-like figure in the opening scene of the series was simply a pigmole beastman. But there’s evidence that hints that he is Boota. Mostly because Boota knows EXACTLY how spiral power works. Lets look at just a few instances of Boota knowing more than the resto f the cast. Well most obviously, and I mentioned it before, Boota’s transformation into a beastman.

• There’s also when Viral was wishing he could use Spiral Power and Boota came to his aid.

• And I think most importantly, in the very first episode, Boota shows Simon how to pilot Lagann.

• Boota knew about Spiral Power in the VERY FIRST EPISODE. Meaning he had to of had some knowledge prior to the start of the series which can easily be explained if he was present during the First Spiral War.

• So now I’ve pieced together a little scenario based off what we know:
  • Kamina’s Father leads the human race against the Anti-spiral forces along side Boota and Lord Genome in the First Spiral War.
  • Lordgenome betrays his race and defeats Kamina’s Father with a stronger will, preventing the spiral nemesis.
  • Kamina’s Father, defeated flees in Lagann with Boota and lives quietly underground the rest of humanity slowly brooding over his defeat.
  • Lordgenome creates Beastmen and Gunman variants that they can pilot without the use of spiral power (Lazengann and Lagann are old relics from the war, gunmen meant to be piloted by Spiral Races)
  • Kamina’s Father then has Kamina (and possibly others as Lord Genome has many children himself).
  • Kamina grows up hearing tales of hope, of the legendary Team Gurren that wielded untold power. Kamina spends his life idolizing his father and wanting to be just like him. He names Lagann and Gurren after old stories his father told him and gets the insignia off of his father’s cape to be the symbol for Team Dai-Gurren
  • After hundreds of years Dad finally decides he has some unfinished business and sets out to confront Lord Genome on his own.
  • Kamina’s father lacks the will to fight the anti-spirals and loses to Lord Genome and dies.
  • Boota remains in Geha village to watch over his war buddy’s son(s?).
  • Boota becomes attached to a young Simon and Kamina, living as their pet.
  • Simon uncovers Lagann, the gunman Kamina’s Father fled in and his adventure begins.

The Prologue to Episode 1 is the Awesome Ending.

While still one of the many possible realities, the one in the prologue was not the Bad Ending, but the most epic of them all. TTGL simply began on a path in which this ending was possible; due to constant branching of the timeline, we followed the path to the Bittersweet Ending. We have yet to see the true Bad Ending, or the true Good Ending for that matter.

• Particularly since we hear both Viral and Leeron's voices speaking, then see a more adult human!Boota, and then see what appears to be Simon.

The guy from the Prologue, Kamina's father, and Simon...all ALL THE SAME GUY!

We know that Spiral Energy can affect both space and 'time'. Now take a look at Future Simon...'LOOK' at him! Does he even look different than Kamina's father? There are only minor differences in their clothing: in terms of build and general appearance, they're all but identical. Indeed, one could say that Kamina's dad is simply a slightly older-looking version of Future Simon. Now, let's posit an Ontological Paradox here: Simon gets his hands on this Spiral Energy stuff; after that distant finale nonsense, he regains his awesome and goes on to fight "all the stars in the heavens". He is defeated and knocked back in time, along with the Gunmen in the Gurren Brigade, and eventually ends up being the very thing that triggers the Anti-Spiral attack on Earth. He later fathers Kamina before returning to the surface to die, possibly by suicide. This creates an interesting situation because the Gunmen, and Lagann itself, now have no actual origin...hence an ontological paradox, a time loop wherein the origin of the loop is either inobvious or impossible to determine. This, if you think about it, goes well with the infinite spiral theme of the show.

• This makes a frightening amount of sense. After all, they guy from the prologue does say that the attack he's about to use will twist the fabric of spacetime. It explains why Lagann is under Jeeha village as well. The timing might not be right for him to be the reason the Anti-Spiral attacked Earth, but otherwise it works awfully well.
  • It helps that Parallel Works 8 shows that Lord Genome found his Lagann-equivalent, as well, instead of just building it from scratch. Presumably, Simon brought back the dozens of other Lagann units as well.
  • In the manga adaptation, we get a better view of Kamina's father. He does look like old Simon.
• Then would it also make sense to say that Rossiu is Father Magi if he was there as well? They have similar voices in the dub epilogue and he even looks like Father Magi, too. It would also give a logical explanation as to why he stays in his village. It would be to stall Rossiu from commiting suicide until Simon and Kinone arrived. Because if Rossiu committed suicide, that would create another paradox. He could also have created their holy book himself to use as a tool to help stall Rossiu. This, however, would create another paradox because Rossiu should be dead.

The guy in the prologue is Kamina in an AU where he didn't die.

Kamina would have defeated Lord Genome and continued his reach for the heavens and acted on what he told Simon in episode 6. To reach the moon. Where he would find the Terra Cathedral and transformed it, inevitably leading to him riding in his battleship across the universe battling everyone he could find and exploring; until the rest of the Spiral races believed that he would destroy them. Of course Kamina would be crazy(and hotblooded enough) enough to declare war on everyone and everything, thus leading to " All the lights in the heavens are our enemy..."

The guy in the prologue is future Ryoma from Getter Robo.

Think about it. When we see him in Shin Getter Robo he's piloting an ENORMOUS ship with a face on the front (that can also transform into a giant robot), causes lots and lots of explosions and is literally the enemy of everything in the universe. In Āḥ, it's revealed that he's gone a bit crazy with the Getter Rays and is now on a crusade to evolve the shit out of the universe. Not to mention the prologue guy's line "we'll smash them along with space-time itself" sounds a lot like his own line: "leave it to me. I'll crush them, along with the moon!"

The guy in the prologue is Lordgenome, right after he first turns evil.

Any similarities to the main cast is a result of identical descendants.

• Actually no, we see Lordgenome taking the same stance and ordering similar commands in Parallel works 8. He looked entirely different then, no features between Lordgenome and GA Rlock look similar in any way.

The guy in the prologue is Simon, in an AU where Kamina died in the first episode.

The prologue was a result of Simon not knowing how to activate Lagann, resulting in most of Giha Village getting trashed and the majority of the population killed, Kamina included, before Yoko can take it down with her rifle. Simon is grief-stricken, to an even greater extent than when Kamina died in canon. When he figures out how to activate Lagann, he vows revenge on the Gunmen, embarking on a crusade to destroy them all. Among the way he gathers followers, half terrified of him, half in awe of his inhuman determination. However, he never meets Nia, and never snaps out of his misery. Eventually, he becomes so hardened he pretty much lives for battle. He goes on to challenge Teppelin. Many more people die, most prominently because of Nia's absence, but Simon still manages to struggle to Lordgenome. They face off; however, this time, Simon goes absolutely batshit insane on Lordgenome, tearing him to itty bits. After the battle is done, Simon goes around visiting the villages, bringing them to Teppelin, not bothering to change its name. Once he's got everyone there, he wanders off, not coming back for seven years. Viral never shows up; Simon killed him in their first meeting. Later, after the timeskip, he's back in town just as the population cap is reached. He's overjoyed to transfer his battle-lust to the Anti-Spirals. The Arc-Gurren is found, just as in canon, however without the presence of Lordgenome's head they never find out about the Moon really being the Cathedral Terra until after it's crashed into the Earth's surface. Simon takes control of it, then goes on a bloodthirsty rampage against the Anti-Spirals. Things unfold much as they do in canon, except that the remainder of the human race is onboard the Cathedral Terra. Just as normal, Simon faces off against the Anti-Spiral, this time alone. After ridding the universe of the Anti-Spiral, the Super-Galaxy Dai Gurren (not actually called this, since Kamina never named Gurren) travels the universe, looking for a place to re-settle. They come across another Spiral world; Simon offloads them there, while taking on several new crew members. One of them is Boota, in his spiral form. They sail around for several years, visiting Spiral homeworlds, and generally looking for the next fight, becoming increasingly violent as time passes. Eventually, though, the other Spiral races become wary of Simon's power. They amass a great army to defeat him. This leads to the prologue scene, where Simon says that "All the stars in the sky are my enemies" referring both to the massive fleet come against him and the fact that he was now an enemy of all the Spiral races on all the worlds. So, he activates the Spiral Nemesis, tearing the fabric of reality a new one. The entire timestream gets tossed back to before anything happened, with one exception: Boota. Boota gets thrown back with Simon, only with all his memories intact. So when Simon goes to try and use Lagann, Boota is able to get him to use his Core Drill in the slot. Thus, Kamina doesn't die (initially), leading to the canon events.

• Holy shit. You, sir, are a badass.
  • Original poster: I liked it so much I fanfic'd it. Read here.
• I had a very similar idea, with a major exception. In my concept, Nia dies much, much earlier, before Simon knows anything about Spiral Nemesis. After bringing her back once, it's too late to close the door between life and death, despite the danger. Humanity, instead of becoming the spiral race's saviors, becomes the instigator of Spiral Nemesis. The battle commencing in the prologue is the final battle which spirals out of control to the end of the universe. When faced with the end of all things, Boota is sent back in time, disguised as a pig mole, to subtly manipulate events so as to prevent Nia's death until Simon is wise enough to handle it.

The prologue is an alternate universe where Simon never found Nia

Simon eventually got out of his depression itself, and managed to beat Lordgenome and the human extermination system, which is why he has the Super-Galaxy Dai-Gurren. However, without Nia's calming influence, he became a very dark antihero after Kamina's death and without Nia and her ring, they can not go to the Anti-Spiral's home world so they are fighting massive battles in normal space and maybe it's me, but Simon seems to be exploding with sexual frustration.

• You need to read Sound of Pulling Heaven Down if you haven't already. Really, a few changes here and there and you have the backstory of said fanfiction.

[[WMG: Boota i

Lorgenome is Gene Starwind

Think about it. It makes PERFECT SENSE. And it explains everything.

Lagann was made by the Anti-Spirals

And it was a trap too. Think about it. There is a swarm of Lagann's in the condensed Space-Time Ocean. That means that nearly every race that attacked the Anti-Spiral's somehow gained access to identical machinery. The Anti-Spirals made Lagann, sending them out to every Spiral Race as part of their trap. Any Spiral with enough Spiral Power to operate a Lagann would be considered a threat. At this point, Lagann would subconsciously manipulate them into seeking out the Anti-Spiral's, where they could be destroyed. When Kamina died, Lagann stopped working because Simon was in a state of absolute despair, and assumed it's purpose was fulfilled. Once Simon manifested Spiral Power again, it chased him down to complete it's mission.

• This is supported by Parallel Works 8, where we see where they come from explicitly — they're dropped from the sky during an Anti-Spiral attack, allowing Lord Genome to find one.

Getter Rays are a form of Spiral Energy, but intelligent.

Corollary: Getter Emperor is the very definition of the Spiral Nemesis. It's described as having the physical diameter of the distance between the Sun and Pluto. Given the malleable size of TTGL, Getter Emperor might be bigger.

• In some Getter Robo shows/manga, the Getter Rays are sentient and are working to influence humanity towards some unknown goal. This usually involves making bigger and bigger robots. Sound familiar?
  • The Getter Rays are the embodiment of evolution and survival, like humans themselves they'll continue to grow and advance regardless of the consequences. The Getter Emperor starts off the size of Mars after Shin Getter Robo combines with it and continued to grow as the story progressed until the author sadly passed away.
• In the New Getter Robo series, the ultimate villains are basically Anti-Spiral monkey gods except they only go after the energy itself, not the species that uses it.
  • As are the enemies in the manga, though they do try to suppress the race using it. Funnily enough, the AFC's first action when humanity's Getter Rays use got out of hand was to try and Colony Drop the Earth with their space ship...
    • I think we can agree that all of this is probably because Imaishi is a massive Getter fan, and lifted a huge number of its concepts.

The laws of physics in TTGL consist solely of the Rule of Cool and Rule of Funny.

To quote (with some changes) its entry into Calling Your Attacks: Pre-Time Skip, the only time that an attack's full name isn't shouted (Certain Kill Giga Drill Breaker) and accompanied with a In the Name of the Moon-esque motivational speech, it fails epically. Compare the first time, the Heroic BSoD reboot, and the phail.

• Whilst it may seem attractive to think that the Rule of Cool is the only mechanism operating in TTGL, it's clear that the Rule of Funny exerts a significant force as well.
  • And, of course, spinning is awesome.
• Your citations of Calling Your Attacks fail to take into account that despite Lagann Impact being the full name of the other big attack used in that battle, it too failed. Depressing though it may be that the Rule of Cool failed in that aspect, it also worked out - Lord Genome blocked it by grabbing it and subsequently detonating the Rasengan's arm. Hmmm…
  • That was Lord Genome, character that he is, using his own badass Rule of Cool-ery.
• Or, more simply, there is only one Law of Physics: If it looks cool, Sure, Why Not.

Simon is The Pope.

While more than a few people out there have put out the comparison between Kamina and Jesus (there's a "Kamina Died for your Sins" motivator. Plus, Kamina's side was pierced by the Lance of Thymilph), the superficial similarities between Simon and St. Peter are far more striking. Consider:

• They both have the same [first] name (St. Peter is frequently referred to as Simon Peter)
• They are both connected to earth (Simon calls himself "The Digger" while Peter literally means "rock")
• They are recognized as the spiritual successor to their respective "churches"
• In the Gospels and Catholic tradition, St. Peter was entrusted the keys to Heaven, and the gates of Hell cannot prevail against him. Our Simon possesses the key (the Core Drill) to perhaps the most powerful weapon in the universe and uses it to overcome powerful enemies.
  • The passage in which Jesus tells Simon Peter this (Matthew 16:18-19) immediately follows Jesus asking "Who do you say that I am?"
    • Which led to this◊

Alternatively, Simon is God.

Kamina preached that Simon kept him strong, and keeps saying how badass and dependable Simon is, and without him he would've died.

• This requires an Arian christology (Kaminology?)

Lagann was originally a mining tool

...turned into a weapon. concider this: it makes drills which have no other purpose (appearantly) than digging through things, it was found underground (got stuck, too hard to excavate?) it is powered by another digging tool as shown when Simon was captured by Guame, and the shutters could be installed to protect the user against falling rocks.

• All true, except for the "Stuck" part. Lagann would never get stuck.

Viral was always immortal; if Lord Genome did anything, it was to give him a faint connection to Spiral energy.

Consider how many catastrophes Viral survives repeatedly- the most extreme being during the battle ending in Adiane's death. He manages to survive the almost complete destruction of his submarine Ganmen while deep underwater, but the porpoise-beastmen were presumably killed. Clearly, Viral is a tough customer, but that borders on the miraculous, especially given that this anime is usually pretty good about avoiding Disney Death. Viral may have well been immortal from birth; he himself bragged about his unusual skills and just never noticed. After all, it probably isn't as if he lost very often before meeting Kamina.
If Lord Genome did anything to Viral, it wasn't making him immortal, although he may have claimed it was.

Viral also shows some unusual traits for Beastmen. If his experiences in the Lotus-Eater Machine section of the next-to-last episode are any indication, he may long for a family and children. His first joint attack with Simon also causes a massive explosion far greater than Simon's prior attempts. Perhaps Viral, while probably not capable of directly drawing upon Spiral energy and probably still sterile, has more resonance than normal for a Beastman and acts as a natural amplifier for others's Spiral power?

• Viral couldn't have always been immortal, at least not in the way he was displayed to be after the time skip. When we get to the prison scene, we see Viral heal just shy of instantly. While we only see him injured for a short while in the beginning (you could just take that back to Cowboy Bebop level healing speed), he's obviously covered in the scars of his pre-altered life span. If he'd always been what he became, his skin would be perfectly smooth. He has high survival skills; but that could also be a lot of things. An efficient protection system in Enki, ability to breath under water (he is mostly shark, after all, it's not out of the realm of possibility) which allowed him despite injury to make it to the shore, and just the dumb luck that is characteristic through the series. More than anything, though, it probably just has to do with plot device (it's really hard to have a consistent villain, especially one who's supposed to do a Heel–Face Turn, if they die immediately). I'm not saying his survival ability isn't odd, just that there's enough for him not to be that way. I think the last paragraph is intriguing, though, and it's possible.

Lordgenome's, Guame's, and most importantly Viral's immortality was due to Spiral Energy

By the time Simon had been piloting Gurren Lagann by himself, it had been running entirely on Spiral Energy (as it no longer needed an electrical charge like the Beastmen's Ganmen). Viral had the ability to pilot Gurren because he had been given the ability to use Spiral Energy by Lordgenome. This unlocked in him the need to have a family ("Love changes the universe!"). However, he still couldn't control his Spiral Energy nor did he know he had it, so he was unable to help Simon initially when transforming Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann. Fortunately, Kamina appeared in Viral's fantasy, and when Viral snapped out of it, he gained a Core Drill, signifying his unlocking of Spiral Energy.

Guame and Lordgenome's immortality being based on Spiral Energy is more obvious, though. Guame had originally been an Armadillo, therefore he must've been a spiral being in the first place. Lordgenome just amplified his and Guame's Spiral Power to keep them alive.

Enki's helmet is an Amulet of Concentrated Awesome made by Lordgenome for Viral.

The helmet was designed to increase the Spiral Power of anyone who piloted the Gunman who wore it, as well as granting Spiral Power to those without it. Unfortunately, Viral grew to depend on it too much, so when Kamina took it and had it assimilated into Lagann, he began his infamous Badass Decay. Since Viral had the helmet for a long time, he retained some of its influence, and could hold his own against Gurren Lagann without it. This influence completely faded by the time Viral faced Simon in the Enkidudu, so he got curbstomped HARD.

After being assimilated into Lagann, the helmet augmented Lagann's Spiral Power, which, in turn, augmented the helmet's power. This infinite loop of power explains why Simon's Spiral Power reaches such great levels, culminating in the Final Battle. He permanently absorbs the power, however, as a side effect of being a member of a Spiral race. It's also why he surrendered the Gurren Lagann in the end - he would gain too much Spiral Power and become a living Spiral Nemesis.

When Viral was recruited by Simon as Gurren's pilot, the helmet recognized Viral as its original owner, and gave him the lion's share of its power, undoing his Badass Decay - and then some.

So why was Lordgenome able to defeat the Gurren Lagann with his Lazengann, despite Simon having the helmet? Lordgenome had a more powerful helmet made for the Lazengann to replace the one from his Spiral Knight days, just in case Enki's helmet was stolen or Viral rebelled against him.

Guame isn't a beastman.

One of the recurring aspects of this show is the emphasis on humanity. The more human a Beastman is, the more powerful; their mooks are barely recognizable as human, the Big Four are human with animal aspects, and Viral (the most important) is almost totally human, except for his arms. The exception is Guame, one of the Big Four, the most powerful our of them (he survived a giga drill breaker!) despite looking like a great big armadillo thing. What's more, he acts as an equal to Lord Genome; at least, he treats him like a soldier would treat his Sergeant, not giving the terrified groveling done by the others of the Big Four.

Guame is a member of a different spiral race who fought alongside Lord Genome when he was fighting the AntiSpirals, probably serving the same function as Kittan in the Gurren Brigade. After they were defeated and forced to retreat, Guame elected to stay with Lord Genome and aid him in his efforts to protect humanity. Boota sets a precedent for not all spiral races being humanoid. It also explains how Guame is able to create an energy shield around Tepperin - he's using his own spiral energy to do so.

• This is supported (at least the part about fighting against the Anti-Spirals) by a line in episode 11 where Guame tells Cytomandler that he and the Spiral King "have been friends for a long time".
• He can't be of a Spiral Race, however. The Anti-Spirals basically confirmed that the point of evolution is to reach a human-like shape, as it channels Spiral Energy most efficiently. Therefore, a true Spiral looks human-like (Although I'm not ruling out things like different colors or whatnot). But the rest of the theory works.
  • If a race can channel Spiral energy at all it's a Spiral race, the fact that they aren't as efficient as humanoid races is irrelevant.
  • Wasn't Boota able to harness a bunch of Spiral Energy? It may be that there are alternative forms on the same level as humanoids, but they're very few/the Anti-Spirals aren't aware of it.

Guame is the Spiral King's Boota

We see a cute armidillo-like creature at Genome's side when he is a kid in the opening of the Gurren-Hen Movie and again slightly later on when he becomes the Spiral King. Presumably, soon after that he finds a way to turn him into a beastmen in the same way he made the other beastmen and turned him into his most trusted General.

• CONFIRMED by the DVD version of Lord Genome's flashback: Guame is sitting on his shoulder, acting as his "Boota."
• Also confirmed by the 8th Parallel Works video, which shows they were together even when Genome was a kid. Some of the other generals may have been some of those animals.
• Perhaps Guame is one of the earliest (if not the original) Beastmen? After all, he does note that Cytomander, one of the other generals, is only a couple centuries old. Since Guame was modified from an actual animal, and not just made from bits of DNA and grown in a pod like the others, that might explain his Spiral-like capabilities. Natural Beastmen like Guame (though he's probably the only one) would have Spiral power since they would have it in their original form, but artificially-created ones wouldn't have that capacity due to the whole cloning thing.
• Or Guame as the little armadillo was, like Boota, a source of spiral energy and evolved himself into a humanoid in the same way that Boota did.

The Anti-Spiral homeworld seen on the Grand Zamboa wasn't the real thing

Rather, it was a protective capsule to protect the real thing, or possibly a symbol. Two reasons:

1. It makes no sense to put your home planet in the line of fire; but it's too cool an idea not to do, so a model it is.
2. It not being the real thing means that Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was larger than galaxies, which is much too awesome not to be true. Remember, main/Rule of Cool is the only genuine law of physics here.

• The Anti-Spiral we see is a cross between a Hive Mind and some kind of Astral Projection for the entire Anti-Spiral race. Thus, its source of power is the Anti-Spiral homeworld. Creating something as large as the Grand Zamboa out of nowhere takes an awful lot of power. Thus, sticking the homeworld in the head of the Grand Zamboa makes sense. Of course, the scale of the thing was pretty screwy at the time, so it's feasible that the homeworld could be the head jewel AND the Grand Zamboa is large enough to use galaxies as shurikens. Of course, given the nature of Super Spiral Space, it could just be that the Grand Zamboa started shrinking as it started losing power (and the fight).
• Or their homeworld is that large. It used to be the size of a planet, but they made it larger to serve as a computer.
• This does make sense. The Tengen Toppa Enkidu's sword gets lodged in the planet, yet it doesn't affect the Anti-Spirals.

The Anti-Spirals are Tragic Heroes against the Expansionist and Racist Species Humanity

Post-timeskip, we see that humanity keeps expanding without limit, much like a virus; the persecution of the beastmen that follows shows their intolerance. That may have been the tip of the iceberg as far as humanity's conquests went, and they possibly left hundreds or thousands of worlds barren or burning and their inhabitants dead or enslaved simply because they believed they could go anywhere and do anything - much like the Imperium of the Warhammer 40,000 universe. The Anti-Spirals may be Sufficiently Advanced Aliens that have watched humans from the beginning of their prehistory and hoped they would learn tolerance, self-control, and moderation; when they could no longer bear to see world after world be conquered, they decided to intervene. The downside was that confinement and despair only made humans more aggressive, and now they may spread farther and more ruthlessly simply to avoid being confined again.

• Except we see that there's quite a few beastmen living with all the humans with no problem. There's no evidence that beastmen are somehow persecuted other that the prison apparently being full of them; we can always rationalise that many of them are violently anti-human, refusing to give up the war they just lost) and are kept separate for the human criminals' safety. That Simon was put there is either a sign that they felt he could take care of himself or a sign that his jailers were angry at him.
• This may be the backstory behind Parallel Works #4.

The ending skips a crucial part of the story.

Judging by the general tone and theme of the series, there must be a missing scene in which Kamina comes back from the dead (after the most epic game of chess EVER), punches Simon, and tells him to go Beyond the Impossible and save Nia, leading to an epic quest for several mystical MacGuffins for reasons of that's just what needs to be done. Presumably, this would end in an epic battle involving mechas the size of universes. What we see post- Time Skip occurs after all of this; Simon is clearly just a Retired Badass and not a hobo.

• It happens in the SRW adaptation. There's a return of heroes after the Gunbuster does the Jupiter nonsense (slightly less time passes than seveal hundred years).

Gurren Lagann is a Giant Robot anime interpretation of The Bible, specifically the New Testament

It works, if you go interpret the characters like so:

• Kamina is an analogue of Jesus, as his philosophy and teachings directly inspires and drives Team Dai-Gurren.
  • It have to be mentioned that he also was pierced with spear!
    • And that the whole series is based around his determination to do his father's will!
• Spiral Energy represents The Holy Spirit of God, which imbues mankind with hope and strength to face creation and overcome life's challenges. True, some parts are more loosely inspired than others (like Kamina remaining dead, unlike Jesus in the New Testament, or how Spiral energy represents Darwinian evolution instead of Adam-And-Eve creationism), but otherwise, the series works as an excellent analogue for the Christian Bible's New Testament.
  • Word of God states that when he was pierced he actually did die, but then came back immediately after, seeing he was needed. He then gave Simon a painful lesson, further cementing the allegory.
  • But Kamina came back to tell some wise words to Simon, like Jesus did to St. Peter and granted him 'his legacy'
• Simon is an analogue of Simon Peter, both of them having gone on to becoming the principal leaders of their groups after the original leaders (Kamina and Jesus, respectively) left their world.
• Rossiu is an analogue of Judas Iscariot, albeit one who betrayed the second leader rather then the first.
  • And much like Judas has become sympathetic over time, Rossiu is understandable.
• Viral is an analogue of the Apostle Paul, first hunting down Team Dai-Gurren before joining them, similar to how Paul first hunted down Christians before becoming one.
• The Beastmen army, The Beastmen Generals, and Spiral King Lordgenome represent the combined forces of the Jewish Sanhedrin (who murdered Jesus) and the Roman Empire (who eventually took on the extermination fight against Christians for themselves).
  • And just like the Romans eventually converted to Christianity, Lord Genome joins the hero's side.
• Team Dai-Gurren represents the original Christians, with the world seven years later representing the peace and security Christendom eventually found.
• The Anti-Spiral race and Anti-Spiral himself represent the actual forces that Christendom is (or, depending on your viewpoint, should) be fighting: The Unclean Spirits/Fallen Angels and Satan, who desire to crush all living things by destroying their resolve.
  • Or they represent the God Is Evil interpretation, considering its currently the bigger threat to Christendom. Not to mention they're already on that level.
  • Or the Anti-Spirals are the wrath of the Old Testament God, Yahweh. They are without personal form and have a form only to serve the necessary functions. What is most indicative of it is their proclaimed status as guardians/angels of the universe. There is also how they were planning to purge the Earth. While it was no flood, the result was the same. Everyone has sinned. Wash them all away. Leave nothing. While more sadistic than the Old Testament God as the Anti-Spirals wanted absolute despair among the survivors, the desire was the same, eliminate the heathens who opposed him and inspire fear among those who live so they will never challenge Yahweh's rule again. And then because of Jesus, the Old Testament is beaten by the New Testament.
  • Or the Anti-Spirals, with them having appeared during the age of modernization, represent the crisis of faith and spirituality in the modern world. Spirals represent faith and Antispirals represent cold hard science. Spiral nemesis is an analogue for how everyone complains that religion encourages "go forth and multiply" and "convert others" leading to overpopulation and a Malthusian/dysgenics catastrophe, and the Anti-Spirals do see the Spirals as "idiots" and spreading their destructive ignorance, like how the more fanatical atheists see Christendom as a whole. He Who Fights Monsters ensue and the rationalists end up plunging world in further despair instead. Now, the spirals do accept those criticisms, but instead of further denial they evolve with these criticisms, abandoning its previous collectivist ignorance and embracing existentialist individualism, thus a Reconstruction.
    • The Anti-Spiral is Richard Dawkins? Well, he compared religious evolution to genetic evolution, and despite his "scientific" exterior he can get quite hotblooded.

Lordgenome is the Biblical Nimrod, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is set in an alternate universe where the Tower of Babel was fully constructed, humanity waged a war against the hosts of Heaven (the Anti-Spiral), and lost.

First off, just take a look at the buildings humanity constructs in Parallel Works Video 8. There are Kabbalistic ideas that the Tower of Babel was meant to be some sort of spacecraft, constructed by Nimrod, who was already noted in The Bible to be pretty badass, and I'm almost positive that some commentary stated that Nimrod had a throne shaped like a spiral. Furthermore, some current historians identify Nimrod as being the same person as Gilgamesh, who was friends with Enkidu, a wild beast-man. And if that's not enough, even the Biblical verse concerning the destruction of the Tower has God speaking in a first-person plural! This would also nicely explain why there is no language barrier in Gurren Lagann...

• While the fact that Enkidu was a beastman does give credit to this, don't forget the name of Viral's second Gunman...the Enkidu.

The entire first half of the series is a highly-risky yet ultimately wildly successful Gambit Roulette by Lord Genome to forge a new hero who would be able to pick up where he left off and defeat the Anti-Spirals once and for all

If you think about it, this pretty much happens anyway, either this way or by accident. And why else would Lord Genome bury a Lagann-type mecha so close to an underground human colony, with a spiral core nearby? He sent all of humanity underground knowing that, eventually, a hero will arise to drill straight through to the heavens! He needed to create a Beastman Army to test the hero; after all, if such a hero couldn't defeat them, there'd be no hope for him against the Anti-Spirals. And the Arc-Gurren and Cathedral Terra were cleverly yet conveniently hidden for the sake of such a future hero.

• This makes a lot of sense. Lord Genome would understand the evolutionary nature of Spiral Power better than anyone. He knew humanity couldn't survive without hiding from the Anti-Spirals; but when he drove the human race underground, he had to know that not everyone would be content with such a fate forever. He created an environment that would produce new spiral warriors. Eventually, someone would rise to challenge him. Simon may not even have been the first - only the first to succeed. A champion that could defeat the greatest spiral warrior of old might just have a chance against the Anti-Spirals.
• The fact that the Core Drill was buried so close to Lagann also supports the notion that someone was meant to start it up. Not to mention the fact that the Gunmen look like headless people, encouraging someone to make a full humanoid robot (to better channel the Spiral Power) by putting Lagann on top of it.
• Additionally, he seems to have left behind an immortal warrior with more Spiral Energy than he had - that is, the ideal support for Gurren Lagann. Watch the English dub, at least, and listen to how he reacts when he says "I didn't make you immortal to defeat the HUMANS." (not exact quote).
  • The emphasis was more on the word DEFEAT in the subtitled version. Still, that has its own double meaning. Viral could have been intended to tell the story of Lord Genome's victory, as he claimed, while at the same time being ready as a backup plan in the event that Simon managed to win.

Viral's wife an Anti-Spiral's illusion

Viral's wife exists in the proper TTGL universe beyond a figment of a wishful dream and in the Parallel Works: she's seen onboard the Cathedral Terra/Chouginga Gurren Lagann with her husband as the ship sets off for its diplomatic mission. See and decide for yourself◊.

• Note that while he did say Beastmen were infertile, so there's no way he had the kids, there's nothing keeping him from knowing or finding a woman that looks like the one from the dream.
  • This particular guess is completely, completely just plain wrong. While it is entirely possible that He could find a woman who looks like her, a higher-quality image shows that not only are those horns and not ears, but appears to be male and has a beard.◊
• Now that is a very interesting use of spoiler tags. Don't you agree?

The three kids piloting the Ganmen that make up Gurren Lagann in Parallel Works 6 are:

• Gimmy and Darry's son in Lagann, Rossiu and Kinon's daughter in Gurren, and Yoko and Kittan's daughter in the flying Ganmen.
• Alternatively, Yoko and Kamina's son in Lagann, and Viral's daughter in the flying Ganmen.
• Or, if you like the idea that these kids should exist in the TTGL universe, and so half their parents are not dead before conception, Gimmy and Darry's son in Lagann and Viral's daughter in the flying Ganmen. (Beastmen reproducing is impossible? Spiral power!) All of these theories are courtesy MyAnimeList.net's Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann discussion board, where it's a universal agreement that Gurren is being piloted by Rossiu and Kinon's daughter, and that Simon and Nia's kid is just standing around.
  • Reproducing by using pure energy would put Viral in the same league as GOD.
  • Considering the peace the universe seems to have been left with during the Distant Finale and the fact that there don't seem to be many (if any) Beastmen around anymore, it doesn't make sense that the potential children of the characters are fighting the Beastmen again. I think it would make more sense that Paralell Works 6 would be part of the past, possibly when the humans were first being forced underground.
    • To be fair, we saw a very limited take on the distant future. It stuck very close to the surviving characters, and didn't expand to show us much else. There are at the very least Beastmen among Viral's crew, and we can deduce from what we'd seen of the Brigade earlier that they in particular didn't put themselves in such company very much. The population could be quite strong and we just weren't shown it. Besides, if the Generals were anything to go by (with Cytomander being referred to as a child, possibly meaning he's the youngest of the four, when he's 200), the life expectancies could be substantial enough that only 20 additional years didn't put much of a difference in those who'd been around before.
  • You do realize that Gimmy and Darry aren't lovers, right? They're twins.
  • Alternate Universe Shinji, Asuka and Rei, everyone?
• Many of the Parallel Works show the characters in entirely separate - but similar - worlds. Parallel Works 6 does this not for the characters but for the mecha. That's why there are no obvious character equivalents, whereas the mecha are pretty much the same.
• The setting is set during the present day, or shortly before Lord Genome's time. Check the backgroud: it doesn't look all that advanced.

The Spiral Nemesis that the Anti-Spirals feared was the inevitable result of all the Epileptic Trees being planted from the show Lost achieving critical mass and causing the collapse of the universe

Says so on the Poison Oak Epileptic Trees page!

The Spiral Nemesis is a Lensman Arms Race taken to an extreme

Since Spiral Beings have a drive to expand, unless they are held back, they will ultimately come into conflict with each other. Since Spiral Energy has no real limit and seems to increase the more a Spiral Being is put under stress, a war between two Spiral Races would escalate to potentially infinite levels. Remember, although the Anti-Spiral increased its energy to match Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann's size and power, it never expanded enough to surpass it (The Anti-Spirals suck at confronting Spiral races head-on, instead they mostly rely on psychological warfare, hence their Despair speeches and Lotus-Eater Machine). Now imagine if two Giga Drill Breakers produced by two Super Tengen Toppa mechs collided and each one continued to expand in an effort to overwhelm the other... this would explain why the discussion of peace at the end of the series was so important - even a minor war between Spiral Energy users would ultimately result in Mutually Assured Destruction. Thus, the use of Spiral Energy is kept in check by old-fashioned Cold War politics.

• That said, Spiral Energy is a metaphor for nuclear weapons.

The Anti-Spiral allowed himself to be defeated

The Anti-Spiral clearly was capable of mustering up Spiral Energy, and was probably capable of increasing it more-or-less indefinitely (note that when Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann was formed, Grand Zamboa expanded to match its larger opponent with no visible effort). However, in order to overcome Dai-Gurren for good, the energy required would most likely destroy the universe in the process. Since the Anti-Spiral realized the danger and understood that Simon would sooner cause the Spiral Nemesis rather than back down, he decided to be the bigger man (so to speak) and allow himself to be overcome rather than destroy the universe by continuing to fight.

• Almost certainly the truth. While they may not be using Spiral Energy, Lordegnome's sacrifice very nearly caused the Spiral Nemesis right there when the gauge went off the scale. If the Anti-Spiral rose to match AGAIN, and Simon didn't give up, that would have been it right there. Giving up at that point was the only way to save the universe. Fortunately for the universe, Simon now has a good handle on how much is safe to use (which the Anti-Spiral did not, and was erring on the side of caution), and sets up peace talks and safe but useful limits. FTL travel turns out to be just fine, because it only relocates mass, and doesn't increase it.
• It is also possible that he backed out early once he realized that this would be the result, in order to avoid further collateral damage to nearby galaxies.
• another possibility why he could not beat them is that he could not beat them because spiral power runs on your self determination, and the anti-spiral lost heart when he saw just how powerful the gurren brigade got. notice how every line he says after Lordgenomes CMOA sounds a little more scared and panicked?

The entirety of the series is being told by Simon years after it happened.

The narrator has the same voice actor in both Japanese and English. He's either just reminiscing or telling it to someone. This leads to a series of subtheories:

1. He is an Unreliable Narrator a la 300, meaning this is all greatly exaggerated.
2. The series is a reenactment. Agains, it's quite possibly dramatized/exaggerated. For additional evidence, we see a clip of Simon and Kamina recycled from the first episode being played in-series in episode 17 even though humanity didn't have video cameras then, and they couldn't have filmed from that angle (right in front of a charging molepig) if they had.
3. It's completely made up: the narrator is telling a story that is fictional in-universe, either something a senile old man tells people or basically the same idea as in our world.

Kinon got pregnant

That whole dialogue between her and Rissou about her being "heavy" at the end of episode 24 sure was a lot of odd innuendo, wasn't it? Also, this.

Badgers will become the spiral nemesis.

Since hotbloodedness and determination are associated with spiral power, it is clear that badgers have more spiral power than any other species - so much that the pussiest of badgers puts Boota and Simon to shame. Badgers, being stupid, don't realize this yet; but eventually, as they evolve, they will become smarter and more humanoid. (Humanoid forms better channel spiral energy, making them evolutionarily advantageous.) This causes their massive quantities of spiral power to run wild, destroying the universe.

• The Badger Mushroom Snake animation is a direct allegory of this threat.

The "uncut" version of Episode 6 is not the original, but a Hotter and Sexier revamp.

Take a look at Yoko's outfit throughout both versions.

• Does that mean 6 was intended to be a Recap Episode from the beginning?

Tony the Tiger is a reincarnation of Kamina.

See this picture◊ for details.

There is a Good Reason Simon and Nia didn't get married and have a kid.

If you remember, the Anti-Spiral was part of her DNA. There was a high chance that their kids, if they had had any, would also be part anti-spiral, and would dissolve with Nia at the end of the battle. This way, the writers were able to keep down the Angst when the end of the series came along.

• Perhaps Nia was early in pregnancy, as well. Heck, it might be pretty much canon, as far as we know... It's a Gainax work, after all.
  • I cannot recall the source of it, but a member of GAINAX was asked what Nia and Simon did between getting home and the wedding. To which he replied "Well, they weren't doing nothing." With heavy innuendo implied.
    • Prior to that, GAINAX stated that Simon and Nia weren't virgins after the Timeskip. Draw your own conclusions here, folks.
    • If that were true, one should wonder why Nia would still be confused about the "two people becoming one" concept when Simon proposed. If she didn't understand it before that, maybe I don't want to start drawing my own conclusions here.
    • Nia can handle sex. Just don't ask the poor girl to deal with a metaphor.

Kamina is the grown up version of Laharl.

Apart from the blue hair, and surely blue hairdye isn't unheard of. He has practically the same mode of dress, he carries around a sword bigger than himself, he uses the same style of speech (for the most part), and at times he uses "demon" as a term to describe himself. Long after the events of the Disgaea games, he settled down in some backwater world instead of staying a king. It would explain a lot of Kamina's feats if he was an Overlord.

• His dying was a Thanatos Gambit to get sent to the local Celestia (heroic sacrifice means automatic passage, no prinny time), from which he would be able to indirectly aid the Dai-Gurren dan with heavenly intervention behind the scenes. There was an invisible angel on Simon's shoulder telling him what awesome things to say, and its name is Kamina Laharl.
  • No it doesn't. Kurtis did one, and he sure the hell spends time as a prinny.
• Laharl has said "Who the hell do you think I am?!" a couple of times.

Similarly, Yoko is Etna

Elaborating on the above theory, the TTGL universe takes place after the Disgaea bad ending where Laharl leaves the throne to Etna to Walk the Earth. Complications lead her and some survivors to flee to earth — which she covers up with the whole "weapons cache" story to avoid admitting to Kamina/Laharl that she totally screwed the pooch on running the Netherworld in his place. As for why she and Kami/Harl didn't recognize each other upon meeting again, either she didn't immediately recognize him due to age (can you imagine Laharl at a height above five feet? Neither could she), or she did and just kept it to herself for some reason.//How did she overcome her...er, upper-body deficiencies? Implants.

• That, or maybe succubi take awhile to develop- about fifteen hundred years, give or take a decade. Yoko's given age of 16 is how long she's been in the human world- she's actually 1489 and finally hitting demon puberty.
• Supported by the fact that they're voiced by the same person, at least in the English translation of both.

Kamina is Laharl's long-lost-son.

Parental Abandonment among demons is nothing new in the Disgaea series. It's possible that Demons were one of the "Spiral Races" that Lord Genome fought with. Somewhere along the way, Laharl trusted someone (Etna? Flonne? Mid-Boss? Who knows?) with Kamina, his only son, right before making a heroic sacrifice to try and stall the Anti-Spirals (which happened during the enigmatic first scene).
Anyway, though a series of contrived coincidences, that someone ended up underground in the village and raised him as her own. The fact that Demons don't age nearly as fast as humans can be hand-waved by Brainwashing on the part of his appointed guardian. Then again, it's demonstrated by Rozalin and Adell that demon aging is all over the place. And if you want to take this theory further, you could say that he reincarnated into Nia, who was sent back in time as part of Lord Genome's Gambit Roulette. But that's a theory for another time.

• Alternatively, Nia is a reincarnation of Flonne, presumably dying alongside Laharl in the above-mentioned scenario or during one of the "bad" endings of Disgaea.
• Laharl probably trusted Midboss with Kamina, seeing that Kamina has fond memories of his so-called "Father". Kamina's father died unspectacularly a while ago, and Midboss is... well... Midboss.
  • Or Captain Gordon, Defender of Earth!, who saw it as his duty to tutor Kamina in the Ways of Ham.

Kamina killed Kittan from beyond the grave

.Makes sense. How would you feel if you saw some guy suddenly start making out and copping a feel with your girlfriend? He purposely made his missiles fail just for revenge, but kind of underestimated that he would make up for the badassness 10X afterwards. Also notice how the TV turns off right before Kittan and Yoko kiss during the alternate universe segment, and they're both transported to the area where Kamina and Yoko had their kiss. Obviously he was trying to say something.

• Actually, the one who turned off the TV was Yoko herself.
  • Which I took as an indication that she was still in love with Kamina.
    • And which I took as a reluctant admittance that Kittan was dead and gone, not that she still loved Kamina.

Spiral Power is related to the spirals in Junji Ito's Uzumaki.

• Maybe the Anti-Spirals are right, and those drills will kill everyone eventually? Uh oh.
• I was also instantly reminded of TTGL when I heard about Uzumaki. If the Spiral Nemesis is really Uzumaki except the whole universe... Oh, Crap!...
• I had a similar theory, but with a different Uzumaki altogether.
• Alternatively, Uzumaki is a cautionary tale for anti-spirals.

The entire universe of TTGL is a giant mech.

Its power is to create an area of effect inside itself that allows the laws of physics to be broken, and it grows when spiral energy is used in this area.

• Spiral Nemesis is what happens when too much energy is expended too quickly-the mech collapses on itself.

The multiverse of TTGL is a giant mech.

To be precise, it's essentially like the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, but on a multi-dimensional level. Each version of TTGL is also a giant mech, absorbing the Spiral Energy around it. Of course, this means that the entire TTGL multiverse could suffer a version of Spiral Nemesis. The Multi-Dimensional Labyrinth is tuned in to the inner network of this mech. So basically, you have a man-sized mech combined with a Humongous Mecha that's in the head of a skyscraper sized mecha inside a moon sized mecha inside a galaxy sized mecha inside a billion-light year tall firey Kamina inside a universe mecha inside a nigh-infinite multiverse mecha.

Despite all of the exponential technological growth in the Gurren Lagann-verse, the wheel was never invented.

• Notice how all of the cars and extraneous land based vehicles have legs.
  • But without wheels, how do you get drills?
    • The third troper is right. Without wheels, you can't construct basic things; and they are the basis for parts which make machines run (such as cogs). What's a more likely possibility is that the wheel was used before the first war, but the technology was down-graded and forgotten as a use of transport in the 1,000 years where humans were trapped underground (not really needing to use transportation in such a small area) and the Beastmen relied upon their Ganmen for probably everything involving travel and carting. It's not too far of a stretch to believe that they would translate keeping the wheel for things like constructing other parts and Ganmen technology for transport; as that's what everything had come to be after so many generations.
    • Or they had the wheel, but didn't know how to use it properly. I read somewhere about an Indian tribe that knew of the wheel, but only used it on toys, never for, say, agricultural purposes. So maybe in this universe, they knew of the wheel enough to make drills and machine parts, but it never occured to them to use them for transportation.

The Anti-Spirals were responsible for the failure of the Dreamcast.

• Not my own theory, but I saw it on DeviantArt (in the comments, a little way down) and couldn't resist.

The Anti-Spirals are running a large part of the video game industry

• Continuing from the above, the Anti-Spirals were responsible for the death of the Dreamcast. But during Sega's decline in the mid-to-late 1990s, and especially after they were out of the market, gaming took on a decidedly Darker and Edgier slant. First with Grand Theft Auto-style sandbox games set in crime-ridden cities, then with realistic First Person Shooters where the player is not an individual hero but a single soldier who may or may not have any real effect on the outcome of the war, games are going down to the cynical end of the scale, very much fitting with the Anti-Spiral motive of creating cynicism and despair. Nintendo and Sega, makers of decidedly more idealistic games that gave gaming actual "faces" like Mario and Sonic (remember the faceless Anti-Spiral robots? And the "faceless" corporations they're using to take over gaming?), pissed off the Anti-Spirals to no end, so they directed their hate at those companies. Sega went down with their Dreamcast, leaving the console market. Their niche was filled by Microsoft, a company even further divorced from "idealism" than Sony. It seemed like Nintendo, too would fall: the Gamecube was the bottom of its generation, and Anti-Spiral puppet corporation Sony was poised to enter the handheld market. It would supposedly destroy Nintendo there. All seemed dark, like the Spirals would fade from gaming altogether, until... ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH! You want even more proof? Go ahead, Ctrl+ F and search "Spiral". Nintendo's "User Satisfaction as King" business strategy is called a Spiral! The "hardcore" FPS gamers, who by now are de facto Anti-Spirals, are pissed at Nintendo's strategy of expanding the market to all for fear that it will cause the gaming Spiral Nemesis, destroying video gaming's special niche in the culture. Oh, and Shigeru Miyamoto is Simon.
  • Shigeru Miyamoto is Simon? BADASS!!! I subscribe to this theory!
  • Before taking over gaming, the Anti-Spirals took over the American comic book industry. The result was much the same: see Dark Age.

Gurren Lagann's core story arc is based on a 1979 Gundam Novel

In 1979 Yoshiyuki Tomino published a trilogy of novels based adapting the Mobile Suit Gundam series. Written before the franchise achieved its meteoric success, the novels were highly divergent from either the broadcast or theatrical version, and feature a unique "closed ending" in that the main character is accidentally killed partway into the 3rd novel— dropping his unfinished mission squarely in the laps of his friends and enemies.

The Mecha genre has been conspicuously without a fresh angle for some time. To find a new, unexplored angle, Gainax literally went back to the source, taking the most notable aspect (hero buys it too soon) of the still well-regarded novel trilogy and spinning a series around that premise— "What if the hero starts the revolution, but his friends have to finish it?" by pushing the death even earlier.

This is why the series is always about Kamina (even after he's dead, he's the elephant in the room for every major character) because Simon isn't the main character, Kamina is. When the guy who starts the revolution falls on the battlefield, someone else has to pick up the banner. And Gundam did it first, they just never animated it. (Assuming the writers are mecha fans themselves, their chance of not having read the Tomino trilogy are so low they can only be measured in Klevins.)

The Spiral Nemesis is gathering energy and materials for the Spiral Warriors a few galaxies over.

Seriously, even if they transmuted any available matter in a universe the size of our own into steel, or even fibreglass, it would only be a fraction of the necessary iron and carbon needed for the final Lagann. The original Spiral Warriors found their powers and had no idea that Spiral Energy was reaping the resources of the next universe over, so that universe's Spiral Warriors had to fight it by summoning a giant-er mecha, which used up even more energy and matter... I think you get the picture.

The Parallel Works 6 screaming team will activate Spiral Nemesis.

The overuse of their power destroys everything in sight. Is this not the essence of Spiral Nemesis?

The Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a resurrected Kamina.

If Episode 26 is any indication of this, it's that Kamina rescues the key pilots of the galaxy-sized mech. While it doesn't show him explicitly freeing anyone other than Simon and Yoko, one could guess that he had a hand in getting the other people. That said, the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is only formed when Gurren Lagann merges with the Spiral Power of each of the individual pilots, who wouldn't have broken out had it not been for the spirit of Kamina. The members of the remaining Team Gurren say that they're fighting for a higher cause, and Yoko herself states that 'There was once a man who was ten times greater than us. For his sake alone, we'll keep fighting.'

Kamina's spirit was the catalyst for releasing everyone from the multi-dimensional labyrinth, his memories are carried on within the members of Team Gurren, and the Super Spiral space is a special dimension 'where thought is given form.' If Kamina's lingering spirit had any sentience left (hinted that it does in 26) then he would probably want to fight alongside his comrades for the final battle. Since he has nothing to manifest a body with (Lordgenome was still a head, so he could pull this off) he decided to convert his mass into pure Spiral energy in the form of the Tengen Toppa. That, and it's only suiting that such a Large Ham would require an equally large mech.

• Also, Mecha-Kamina-Jesus would be the epitome of Awesome. Including bolded text, capital letter, and everything.
• And the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann in the finale of the second movie bears a noticeable resemblance to Kamina, which fits very nicely indeed with this theory.
• And don't forget that Kamina didn't just free everyone from the Lotus-Eater Machine - he was pretty much the catalyst for everything that happened in the entire series. It only makes sense that he would want to finish what he started...
• another possibility: it is stated that in the super spiral universe "thought is given form. and Kamina is still on (or in, if that is really his spirit and not a strong memory) their minds. so when they combine, and must make the greatest weapon ever, what are they thinking of? exactly.
• And Simon stated that Kamina lives on in his back and heart.
• Kamina already resurrected himself once to fight someone, why not do it again?

At the center of every black hole is a Death Spiral Machine.

Hell, I don't know. The thought just popped into my head. Maybe someone else will make sense of it.

• Which is the eventual plan used by the universe to reduce the amount of spiral energy in the universe thus allowing spiral beings to live their lives without ending the universe!

Lordgenome knew Nia was an Anti-spiral

She is apparently the "first princess". This means that she is the first daughter he had. He adopted her and conditioned her to be a nice person. When she asked where she came from, he panicked and locked her away. This is why afterward he tried to have her killed, he was trying to make sure she was either linked to the humans or dead. It was the fact that she was Simon's fiance that kept her connected to the spirals. This was all too perfect to be true. Since spiral energy affects probability (to put it lightly), he was using his spiral power to turn her benevolent. He was finally proud of her at the end; he was proud that she chose humanity.

• I don't buy it. If that's true, then everything that Guame had said is a lie. Lordgenome has children because he knows about the Anti-Spiral's plans to encode a messenger in Spiral DNA. He then kills them before they grow old enough to actually be a powerful enemy to him. That's why there are so many coffins in the valley where Simon found Nia.
  • Furthermore, if Nia had been the first daughter he ever had, and he'd been ruling for 1,000 years, she'd be incredibly old (probably at least 900). That wouldn't make sense with her aging along with Simon.
• Better theory: He planted Nia on purpose to give the metaphorical finger to Simon.

Spiral Nemesis is caused by using Spiral Energy to revive the dead.

Let's say Simon actually does revive Nia. Then, of course, he's obviously going to revive Kamina. And Kittan. And everyone else from Dai-Gurren Dan who died. And then Rossiu asks him to revive everybody who died in the Mugann attacks... Kamina and Kittan at the very least, and probably most of the Dai-Gurren Dan and who knows how many others, have the potential to reach Simon's level, so pretty soon you have tons of people all over the world reviving everyone who dies. And there isn't enough food to go around, so they start reviving the animals and plants killed for food as well. But all these people are breeding as well, so the population shoots up exponentially. Pretty soon the Earth isn't big enough to hold all this, so they start teleporting huge chunks of the population to other planets. But the other Spiral Races get in on the action, and before long the entire universe is full, and the Spiral Knights of the future have to constantly create entire new planets, stars, even whole galaxies to hold them all. All of this new matter they create just builds up and up, and eventually there's so much matter the universe collapses into a black hole.

TL;DR: It's going to be one big cosmic cancer.

So if you want an answer to why they didn't revive Nia or Kamina, Simon already gave it in the last episode: because the human race isn't that stupid.

• Yep, that's pretty much how it would go down. Or at the very least, this description makes the most sense given what we know about the Spiral Nemesis.
  • It's increasing the mass of the universe too much that causes everything to collapse. Spiral Energy comes from nowhere, and energy has mass (e=mc^2). Teleportation and temporary repairs that are undone later are fine, and do not. Without interstellar travel and terraforming, population growth is self limiting. But using Spiral Energy to bypass those natural checks will spell just as much doom as using too much power at once. In the end, in large part due to Simon's actions, Spiral Energy is limited to small scale skirmishes and perceptual teleportation, which is fine because it simply relocates mass. And it's still awesome even within those limits.

Everything in the Gurren Lagann universe only works because the characters are too stupid to realize that it shouldn't work.

When Kamina, Simon, Yoko, Nia, and Kittan try things with a ridiculously high chance of failure, it always works, because they refuse to aknowledge that it might not work ("If it's more than 0%, it might as well be 100%!"). However, when Rossiu, who does realize how risky a plan is, tries to pull off something, he walks right into into a trap laid by the Anti-Spirals. Either the Idiot Ball has reality-warping capabilities, or Gainax wanted to be Anvilicious about the power of optimism.

• Its basic mechanics of spiral energy. If you think its impossible, your negativism will prevent you from generating sufficient spiral energy to force reality to bend to your will. Believe you can hard enough^note while making constipated faces, and you'll generate the spiral power to do it. If its an aesop, its a Fantastic Aesop, as Spiral Energy isn't real.
  • That's not exactly true. It's more that you know how impossible it is, but you power through anyway. Anybody in the series who just attacks with utmost confident without understanding their enemies get crushed. It's the reason Simon is a better Spiral Warrior than Kamina, and why Lord Genome is a Genius Bruiser; they both keep a cool head, but knows when to be Hot-Blooded where it counts.
  • As far as we know.
  • So basically, does that mean Spiral Power is actually the "Law of attraction" in disguise?
    • The Law of Attraction is restricted by physics. Spiral energy takes the laws of physics, ties them up, whips them, and makes call it "daddy".
    • Also, Spiral Energy tends to manifest as ginormous Humongous Mecha, flames, drills, and awesomely Cool Shades, none of which have yet to be seen on Oprah's person.
    • Yet.

The prologue to episode 1 is a bad ending where Team Dai-Gurren decides to join the Anti-Spirals.

Everyone is noticeably disturbed when the Anti-Spiral is explaining the fate of Spiral Power and what the Spiral Nemesis means, and it seems to be implied that the Anti-Spiral thinks Simon will be the catalyst for the Spiral Nemesis. So, the prologue is a bad ending where either the Anti-Spirals brainwash Team Dai-Gurren, or they decide of their own free will that halting evolution is the best way to ensure that the universe doesn't end. The Anti-Spiral then instructs them to attack the Spiral home worlds with Super Galaxy Gurren Lagann, because the Spiral races probably would not be expecting an attack from another Spiral race. It's not a very pleasant idea, but at the very least, it makes the "So it seems all the lights in the heavens are our enemies" line make sense.

• Also, the "Energy readings are off the charts" line, too- it's not opposing energy levels off the charts, it's their own. The Anti-Spiral king let Team Dai-Gurren tap into massive reserves of Spiral Power so they'd have enough to wipe out all spiral life forms in one shot. Also explains why Boota is in human form.

Simon isn't exactly a hobo post-series

His name and face are in the history books, after all. Every human on the planet knows about him and what he looks like. No matter how far he wanders, he no doubt received a hero's welcome; it is likely that he wandered regularly more to prevent access to him from becoming easy and to avoid receiving too much from any one town's gratitude than out of necessity. Note that the only person he interacts with that we see is not only too young to remember him, but too young to have taken the relevant history classes at school, and too hungry to look up at his face anyway. Chances are, if the kid looked up (or been old enough to have gone to enough school to recognize the Legendary Hero more easily) he'd have acted roughly like the average American would upon meeting George Washington (reaction multiplied by a factor of ten or so).

• It's implied that he chose to stroll around the world instead of staying in only one place. Remember he's not the planet's hero, but the Universe's. If he continued in Kamina City, people from other planets would have visited their Earth earlier, and would have overcrowded the place. Not counting the amount of marriage proposals he'd have to turn down because his heart was Nia's, even after her death.
  • My point is, it doesn't matter where on Earth he wanders, he's too well known not to be recognized.
  • Plus he has a friggin' drill on the end of his walking staff. In between that, Boota, and the spiral-pattern eye, that kinda shouts "SIMON THE DIGGER!" at whoever sees him.

Team Dai-Gurren never escaped the Anti-Spirals Hallucinations.

Nia isn't really dead.

Her death was staged in front of a large group so that certain people who may or may not still consider her a traitor and try to kill her would think she was dead. Hence why Simon was so damned happy in the end after his wife just ceased to exist at the alter.

• Alternatively, she really did dissapear due to the ASK being killed, but Simon was lying about not resurrecting her. After he left the wedding he did it in secret. This was to avoid the public outcry and having to bring back everyone who died, which would cause the Spiral Nemesis.

Watching Gurren Lagann back-to-back with End of Evangelion is one of the funniest things ever.

If it wasn't already self-evident, I have confirmed it.

Rossiu has superdense hair that he ties together with steel cables.

Just look at that swarm of hair flying around when he gets punched, no other explanation is possible.

Kamina wasn't really a badass. He just had a severe superiority complex.

Think about it. In the second episode, after Kamina finds out that his father died, he cries and grieves... and then within hours is back to joking and laughing. Yoko notices and Simon just says that he's always like that.
Wait- He's always getting back up quickly? Sounds fishy to me.

Then, in episode 10, Simon tells the story of when Kamina rallied the people of the village when they were in the collapsed tunnel and that that's how they all survived. However, in episode 11, Yoko says that Kamina was just panicking and pretending to be confident, and it was Simon's determination that saved them all.
Hold on a second- Just pretending to be confident? You mean, he does that when he's scared? Hm. I wonder, might he have done that every time he was scared? As in, every time he faced a Ganman, every time things went sour...

Aha!
Basically, Kamina tries to hide his feelings of inferiority with fake confidence and badass. His speeches are long, winding, and fairly cheesy- that's because he doesn't even believe in what he's saying. All of the spiral energy when they're in the Gurren Lagann together is coming from Simon and Boota.
Kamina feels weak, compared to Simon, and wishes he could have accompanied his father on the surface so that he'd be tougher today... One of his most quoted sayings, "Don't believe in yourself, believe in me who believes in you."... that's not for Simon's sake that he's saying that. Kamina needs someone to believe in him, and who better than the person he admires most?

What Kamina didn't realize is that he had stinted Simon's confidence, at least not until it was almost too late. That's why Kamina uttered the words, "Don't believe in me, who believes in you, believe in you who believes in yourself." What he's really saying: "I screwed up."
And that's why Kamina had to die. To make way for the real badass, the man who's back would never break.
Simon. "You have grown to be a taller man than I." indeed.

• It's not like Kamina is never afraid or sad, he has these emotions just like any other person. However, after the tunnel collapse incident he decided he shouldn't back down in the face of fear or despair and keep on going towards a new future.
  • I never said that he isn't, I was just saying that he hides it, hence the pothole to Stepford Smiler. And I realize that that's likely the case, but hey, this is Wild Mass Guessing. And I do believe that he doesn't actually say that. Or if he does, he could be lying...
    • He hides his fear, he conquers it, is there any real difference? Whatever the case is, he doesn't let that part of him that fears death have any say in his actions. And that's what counts.
• Word of God has actually confirmed this, more or less - of all the main characters, Kamina a.k.a. what we consider to be "the most badass badass ever" is said to have the least ability to use Spiral Energy. He probably knows it, though - he realizes that his job is to make other people confident. In a sense, Kamina takes the brunt of the hopelessness and despair in order to protect his teammates from it.
  • And by "word of god" you must be referring to the secretive book that the author of the "Satire" claims to own, am I right? If he's the only person who has ever seen it, and he refuses to show it to 'anybody' then there's 'no' reason to believe it. The reasons he gives for getting that book are equally as ridiculous. Self proclaimed third party speaker right there. Yes, I am calling him out on his bullshit.

Gurren Lagann takes place inside a computer.

Spiral beings are viruses, destroying whatever might be a threat to them, and Lagann is a rootkit, hijacking other files. Lordgenome and the Gunmen are freeware antiviruses, which are constantly running and able to quarantine the spirals/viruses, but not get rid of them completely. Beastmen are the core files that allow the Gunman programs to run. Grappals are programs created by the spirals/viruses to resemble the Gunmen/antiviruses. The anti-spirals are all files for a single commercial antivirus, which is inactive until it detects a certain number of spirals/viruses. However, the user set this number too high, and so the program doesn't act until it's too late and the spirals/viruses are capable of completely overwhelming it. Eventually, when the spiral beings/viruses run free for long enough, the computer's user will have no choice but to reformat, bringing an end to the universe within the computer and creating it anew.

The Anti-Spirals are the Spiral Nemesis!

Due to the fear of the overuse of Spiral Energy, certain peoples became one collective consciousness. Their lack of evolution, the destruction of their individuality... if they were to win, the world would just become one stagnant blah of consciousness, and nothing would ever happen. And That's Terrible!

• I had a theory where they were the Spiral Nemesis just because they were slowly extinguishing life in the Universe, and it was, somehow or another, a way to destroy everything. Not to count when they threw galaxies at TTGL, without an ounce of consideration.
  • Not to mention that the Anti-Spiral himself is very... Void-like, in appearance, perhaps he's the black hole in the vision, he doesn't seem to get it.

Spiral Power has its limits.

While Spiral Power can allow someone to leave Physics weeping in a corner, it isn't omnipotent. Whenever Gurren Lagann split apart, all damage received in battle suddenly re-appears. This means that it already has one huge limitation: it's matter only exists for as long as it's generator continues to focus on it. This automatically means that one of the biggest complaints about this series holds no water: Nia couldn't have been restored by it. She could only exist for as long as she herself focused intently on doing so. She faded after marriage because one week of constant focus was all she could manage.
The Anti-Spirals knew of Spiral Power's limits alongside it's immense power. That leads us to our next bullet....

Spiral Nemesis wasn't about a Big Crunch directly.

People have proven to be very bad when it comes to managing anything powerful. If humanity learned how to fully harness Spiral Energy without any immediate goal, they'd very soon become corrupted by it. Considering how an aggressive, defiant attitude is the best mood for channeling spiral power alongside natural wariness about alien life after ASK, war would almost inevitably break out once humanity took to the stars.

To stand up to human aggression, other spiral races would start abusing spiral power to the same level, leading to a very dangerous arms race constantly churning out spiral power and trillions of tons of matter. None of the sides would bother checking themselves, thinking that Spiral Power would allow them to fix any damage. This mindless warfare, would lead directly to the races destroying each other, but eventually, the universe itself. This is the scenario shown in the opening.

The Spiral Nemesis will be triggered when someone does something too awesome for the universe to handle.

While Spiral Energy can create matter, it mostly allows for the Rule of Cool to override physics. And we saw through out the series just how much people will try to top each other. If left unchecked with spiral energy people will continually trumping each other until they do something so amazing or so against the rules the universe that it'll just break.

• Jossed by the eponymous mecha and its super variant from the movies. If anything besides the stated "people explode into galaxies" was going to break reality, either by sheer coolness or sheer mass, it was the 130+ million light-year high mecha.
  • Maybe there's something even more awesome than that.
    • What the shit is more awesome that using galaxies as throwing stars??!
    • Cutting off the mecha's arm and using a multiverse as a chainsaw, Evil Dead style, while using the other multiverses as swords.
    • Do you seriously think one would actually put whatever it is here on WMG and destroy the universe in the process? Okay, so the world doesn't work on Spiral Energy, but you catch my drift. Also, what if such an event is beyond human understanding?
  • You know, I'm pretty sure the "makes galaxies look like moths" mecha was awesome enough to end the universe. In the movie, it and the Grand Zamboza were triggering the collapse of the Anti-Spiral universe.
• Does letting Mr.T and Chuck Norris fight each other in Gurren Lagann-like Mecha count?
  • Or does letting the 300 Spartans fight in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann -like Mecha and having them proceed to kill an army of Eldritch Abominations in bullet time while accompanied by every Memetic Badass count?
    • How about the TTGL turn into a pocket universe shaped like a merger of Kamina and the goddamn Batman, with the voice of Mr T, holding a big f***ing sword composed of a thousand burning quasars, and whose skin cells are supernova continously going off. All while shouting "THIS!IS!SPIRAL NEMESIS!"
    • Nah, I'm thinking something else. I'm afraid it'll cause Spiral Nemesis just by describing it, but here goes. What about a massive flaming hole being torn through the universe straight through to the afterlife, through which Kamina, wearing a flaming crown and a flaming version of his cape and shades, sprouting Go Nagai Sideburns, and Dual Wielding Flaming Chainswords, rides out on top of the head of his own Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, piloted by Kittan, Lord Genome, his generals, and everyone else on the non-Anti-Spiral side, which proceeds to gattai with the one used by Simon and the rest of the team, which is joined by Chuck Norris, Mr. T, Axe Cop, Dr. McNinja, Batman, Colonel Quaritch, Leonidas and the Spartans, Kratos, Bruce Ironstaunch, reallyjoel's Dad, Boba Fett, Darth Vader, Domon, Master Asia, his horse, BRIAN BLESSED, Theodore Roosevelt, River Tam, Problem Sleuth, Bro, Equius, Mr. Egbert, Grandpa Harley, Goku, Gohan, Vegeta, Future Trunks, Saxton Hale, Morul, Captain Ironblood, Kouji, Charles Barkley, Hass the Rock, Captain Falcon, The Man Your Man Could Smell Like, Guy, Segata Sanshiro, Tommy Oliver, John Matrix, everyone else listed on the Memetic Badass page, and anyone not already listed who has appeared in Manly Guys Doing Manly Things to form a new mecha, which is the size of the entire Multiverse, made of Spiral Energy, is shaped like Kamina in his aforementioned equipment, plus Lord Genome's beard and Simon's visor, both made of fire, with a Powerthirst-spewing fountain in its chest, flaming wings made out of lightsabers, and is riding an appropriately scaled-up Wexter in his rocket-winged dragon form while wielding Fuckslayer and a flaming groinsaw, then proceeding to perform a Super Tengen Toppa Giga Drill Breaker with each limb, plus the head, and t
    • Throw Lieutenant Colonel John Malcolm Thorpe Fleming "Jack" Churchill somewhere in there.
    • Describing it in the actual universe will destroy it. Preforming it will trigger a Class Z, probably even beyond. Perhaps that's the reason the TARDIS exploded-this event occurred, and space-time commited suicide because it could not handle the awesomeness. If creation has a God, He committed suicide as well. The Season 5 finale of Doctor Who is an attempt to prevent this suicide. Whoever's truly behind it wants all existence to have a Dying Moment of Awesome.

The Spiral Nemesis is actually Doomsday, 2012.

Just think about it.

• What?

Kamina is Jesus. Literally

• So, God does not only send his son into our universe, but in any universe possible. He appears without clear parentage (Okay, there is some guy he calls father but that might or might not be true), he starts the whole movement against the existing society, and he is the one encouraging Simon to fight constantly. HE DIES FOR OUR SINS. (Or to help humanity step forward and then give Simon the chance to save the world with his own strength.)
  And in the end when it seems like everything is lost he materializes in yet another dimension to get them out of it and back into the fight so all can have a happy ending.

There's no Spiral Nemesis

Either Anti Spirals got it wrong or they were fooled by some being from other universe afraid, that one day Spirals will cross barrier between realities and knock at their doors.

• The show seems to tell the viewer as clearly as possible that this isn't the case - when the Anti-Spiral is giving his Hannibal Lecture to Simon, Viral tells Simon not to fall for it. Then Lordgenome jumps in and corrects Viral, saying that Spiral Power users intuitively know for a fact that the Anti-Spiral speaks the truth. Considering the nature of Spiral Power, it would make sense for intuition, especially Simon's intuition, to be a reliable source of knowledge about it.
  • And yet, Lordgenome was the only one who believed the Spiral Nemesis story back then. Maybe it requires a kiloton of Spiral Energy to comprehend?

Creators hate Yoko ships

C'mon, they sank three of them, twice by making it canon and then killing both Kamina and Kittan in the same episode, and because they couldn't kill Simmon they just shipped him with Nia.

• If that's true, why are both Simon and Yoko [[Spoiler: both single in the last episode, with their respective love interests dead?]]
  • Word of God confirmed that Yoko have never seen Simon as anything other than her friend. But if the authors hated Yoko shipping, most of the cast would be dead, or married. And there are a good number of characters that end up apparently single.
    • It doesn't really look like she had any romantic interest in Kittan either, at lest not to the same degree. It was a goodbye kiss from a friend and later in her memory book she refers to it as such.
• Not really hates, rather is using her as a tool to induce drama. Simon x Nia was meant to be from the beginning and is favoured and cherished among the staff. The Kamina and Yoko ship on the other hand actually gets some attention in other media or merchandise and in all the parallel works they've appeared together. There was even a Gurren Radio corner titled "What is Love- Kamina's and Yoko's indirect love confessions, the more obscure the better! Ie: {I want to watch the moles on your skin my whole life!}" . Or sth. along those lines... it was very lulzy! However (and please take this with a grain of salt as it's taken from 2chan) the director of the Boinvs Boin PW (the samurai- era one), Hirokazu Kojima's concept for Kamina x Yoko was "two people who always chase themselves through dimentions but can never come happily". And like the others said- at least she never got a cold shoulder, she was always loved.

Rossiu doesn't marry Kinon in the Distant Finale.

He's seen together with Leeron. Another proof is that he's the only one to not be afraid of Leeron's advances, which could mean that he rather liked them. If Word of God ever confirms this, I'll laugh and gloat so much that my brain will stop working. Or something.

• I think all three of them can live happy ever after together.

Yoko's bikini top actually is usually glued to her nipples

Further proof.◊

• The Movie would seem to suggest this isn't the case though (see: Adiane vs Yoko fight).
• Perhaps it was just cold that night?^note  You know, cold air = hard nipples, hard nipples could hold up the bikini top. Yeah, I know, don't explain the joke.

Kamina used to be just like Simon

Kamina grew out of his fears, and since he identified so strongly with Simon, he wanted Simon to grow out of his fears as well.

Most matter in the universe was created by spiral energy

In the last battle the anti-spirals mash two galaxies together to create a new big bang, as to destroy TTGL. The anti-spirals don't use spiral energy however, so how did did they get the energy to cause a big bang from a 'mere' two galaxies? The answer is simple, the original big bang only created mass equal to those two galaxies, all other mass in the universe was created by spiral energy. Which brings up the question of how close the universe already is to the spiral nemesis.

• Don't we see a lot of galaxies flying out of the Infinity Big Bang Storm's beam when they're blasting Tengen Toppa, though?
• a few can be seen being created yes, but only two were the cause of the creation of the IBBS. If anything it just shows that the creation of a large number of galaxies is possible
• Well yes, that's the point. Obviously more mass can be produced from said attack than what went into it. At the least there's five that pop out of that energy beam.

Lordgenome's home planet is not Earth

Rather, all Spiral Warriors from Earth died in the previous battle against the Anti-Spirals, so he went to Earth instead. Hence why he and Nia look so different, as well as Nia's Two Tone Hair and Technicolor Eyes - it's part of the other planet's gene pool. After all, the only thing Spiral Races physically have in common is general body shape. It also explains why Nia looks so different from Lordgenome, and why Lordgenome looks so different from young!Lordgenome from the eighth parallel works video - Bizarre Alien Biology.

There is no Spiral Nemesis.

Surely, a mech the size of a Galaxy doesn't actually expend so much Spiral Power, that it doesn't rip a new one into their world? Why?

Because, the Spiral Nemesis was only a farce, a theory that can't be proven true, in fact, the answer to the Spiral Nemesis? Maybe it's in that book that Rossiu carried.

• Doubtful, it's pointed out that all users of Spiral Power inherently know that Spiral Nemesis can happen. Plus Spiral Nemesis seems to involve so much matter being produced via Spiral Energy that the universe simply collapses in on itself. It'd probably take a lot more Tengen-Toppa sized mechs than we ever see to have that sort of effect.
  • It depends: the Anti-Spiral universe means that thought can be given form, something like that, when Lordgenome explained how he gained his temporary body, and then the Anti-Spiral made them believe that there is Spiral Nemesis, and then Your Mind Makes It Real.

The Spiral Nemesis isn't a Black Hole, but an Eldritch Abomination.

Besides the fact that it sounds cool, why would Spiral Nemesis be the name for a Black Hole? Answer: It isn't, the Spiral Nemesis is actually an Incomprehensible Omnipotent Horror that feeds on Spiral Energy, until it gets enough to finally revive itself and consume existence. The Spiral Nemesis was only shown as a Black Hole, because the real Spiral Nemesis can possibly never be destroyed and may be a fate worse than a Black Hole.

• So the Spiral Nemesis is Azathoth?
  • Correction: It will wake up Azathoth. It will be so awesome that Azathoth decides to see what's going on, ending everything.
  • The Spiral Nemesis is God Is Evil.

Spiral Energy is Real

And it is the reason why the tropes Memetic Badass and Memetic Mutation exist.

• What about Memetic Molester?

TTGL takes place in Real Life..

Where an accident from the Large Hadron Collider created an interdimensional warp and released what would be Spiral Energy, forcing humanity to move underground.

• That explains the ROW ROW FIGHT THE POWAH combined with Large Hadron Collider memes.....

The TTGL universe is connected to Real Life.

To be more specific, it's made to hold the excess awesomeness and lack of physics from our universe. The reason why Rule of Cool has no affect in real life is because they filtered it into the Gurren Lagann universe, and for similar reasons that's why the laws of physics are so rigid. There is still traces of Spiral Energy (virtual particles/negative energy), but it can only affect things on a quantum level.

In Parallel Works 4, Viral will create an even worse villain.

Parallel Works 4 takes place in a Mirror Universe, where the heroes are the Beastmen, and the villains are the humans, now, Simon was shown to practically being a slave (albeit, a willing one) to Kamina in the video, but, as we recall in the series, Kamina dies, thus, while Kamina is practically just an Evil Overlord, Simon, in this world, may become worse than Kamina, and possibly even more powerful... Or, Simon will just give up, but considering that Kamina dies, and Simon becomes more powerful in the series, the former is likely.

Kamina's soul was absorbed by Gurren Lagann

This case is similar to Neon Genesis Evangelion, where Eva-01 assimilated the soul of Yui Ikari into its core. This also boosted the amounts of Spiral Power stored up inside the mech. Ever notice where Kamina is sitting? The center of the mecha. In other words, the core.

The Hyper Galactic Dai-Gurren Dan outfits were a joke that got taken seriously

When they needed a uniform, the Dai-Gurren Dan turned to Leeron, figuring that since he was gay, he'd have a great sense of fashion, offended by this, Leeron set out to create the dumbest and most ridiculous outfits possible, especially Yoko's.To his shock, they rest of the team figured that this was the cutting edge of fashion and congratulated Leeron on keeping the Dai-Gurren Dan relevant to the modern aesthetics of their rapidly evolving culture.

The Movies are what really happened, other people were telling their own versions of the series events in the Anime.

Kamina told the story up until the point where he dies, Nia told it up to the point she spoke to Adianne, Rossiu told it up to the point where he nearly killed himself (Thus giving himself a lot more time to be hated by his detractors), and Yoko told the final parts along with Balinbow and Jougan, who contradict the battle by saying they died for a few laughs.

So, who told the real story? Simon. The movies are the real versions of the events, specifically, the giant energy Kamina, was all something he did experience, most of the others water down the story, mostly because they think that, while people can go Beyond the Impossible, they would probably never believe that you could make a energy reincarnation of Kamina, let alone one bigger than most galaxies.

• Or the reverse.

Real Life is under control of the Anti-Spirals

Hence why we live in a world of mindscrewery and misery.

• Then why does the population keep increasing so much?
  • Because we've been engineered to be complete slaves of the laws of physics.

The aftermath of TTGL will not directly lead to Spiral Nemesis, but it will turn out to be what Friedrich Nietzsche just said

After Simon killed the Anti-Spiral the Spiral Races were left with the oncoming fact that is Spiral Nemesis. As a result, because the Spiral (fighting spirit itself ) will actually lead to the destruction of the universe, it led to mass depression and nihilism, just like what happened to the Anti-Spirals before their descent into madness. Amidst this angst, a Kamina-esque Large Ham will rise to power: the Ubermensch. The Ubermensch will snap the people out of their wangst and remind them of the time where they went Beyond the Impossible and fought the POWAH.

• Alternatively, TTGL is actually what Nietzsche said. Spiral Energy is another name for Will to Power. Existential themes run during the series (WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK I AM?!) and of course, the Übermensch is no other than Kamina, who is a Messianic Large Ham who lives by his own moral code and believes in individual willpower (again, the previous quote) over faith (such as bursting into anger after seeing people worshipping a Ganmen). On the other hand, the Anti-Spirals are Nietzsche Wannabes. They promoted mass nihilism by forcing themselves into a Hive Mind, killing Spiral Races, and putting the survivors into angst and meaningless existence.
  • If TTGL is Nietzschean philosophy and Kamina is the Ubermensch, then....

TTGL was secretly created by Nietzsche as a response to Evangelion, which was then secretly co-created by Schopenhauer and Freud

• I don't know, quite a few scenes, (not to mention the idea of MAN fully piercing the heavens with a pointy object and the Bigger Is Better present in the Final Battle) looked like Freud was involved...
  • Then, Gainax is run by Freud himself, and Nietzsche and Schopenhauer battling each other secretly in Gainax is all a Gambit Roulette by Freud.
• Well Nietzsche praises manliness and was inspired by Schopenhauer, while TTGL praises manliness and was inspired by Evangelion.....

All of Lordgenome's daughters were tainted as Anti-Spiral Messengers as he tried to preserve/cure them and was forced to euthanize them when it became apparent there was nothing he could do about it

While he's portrayed as a Blood Knight/Well-Intentioned Extremist, the whole 'ditching his supposed daughters when he gets bored of them for no reason other than to be extremely evil' seems very out of character for someone who, while occasionally questionable, is more or less a good guy. Assuming that each one of his 'daughters' were something akin to Anti-Spiral assigned messengers just like Nia, it makes perfect sense for him to experiment with them and try to 'turn them against their Anti-Spiral nature'. He got rid of Nia because she began to question her own existence which, based on his own experience with the previous daughters, may have meant that it was already to late for her. Then, well...Simon happened. The Anti-Spirals wouldn't have lost against Humans, without Nia's conflicting allegiance, so perhaps this is what Lordgenome has been aiming for all along with all his previous young ones?

There are other Anti-Spiral homeworlds out in the galaxy.

I know it's an offshoot, but it's possible that even if there was only one homeworld, there would be at least one or two other races that know the troubles of Spiral Energy and try to suppress it, only to eventually hold off their evolution, in other words, there may not be only one Anti-Spiral homeworld, but two more, hopefully, one will leave other races alone, whereas the other will... Well...

Kamina is the Anti-Spiral King.

The ASK knew that Simon's life in the underground would suck, so he took the form that would appeal most to Simon and set the events in motion.Like, for instance, HE gave Simon that ring, knowing that they would be able to locate them so that he could defeat them on equal terms. That also explains why he had the notion to make Gurren Lagann in the first place, so that they could become TTGL and the ASK could beat them on equal terms. The ASK saw that he had done enough, so he died. The Kamina in the Locust-Eater Machine (The one who snapped them all out of it, not the one that was a pussy) was a representation of the Kamina That Simon Knew, the one he looked up to. That's why the form of the STTGL was the form that simon thought would be the most powerful, Kamina.

TV Troppa Gurren Lagann!!!

Think about it. Epileptic Trees run on Spiral Power. TV Tropes itself is a cyberspace version of Lagann, and tropes drill throughout fiction. As these tropes drill through fiction, it assimilates everything unto itself, informalizes them, and through the inspiring informality that is so unlike The Other Wiki, creates more Epileptic Trees in the process. In short, TV Tropes promotes Fanon-I mean turns normal fiction into Epileptic Tree generators. Eventually these Epileptic Trees will reach critical mass, pierce the heavens, get in Real Life, and cause The End of the World as We Know It. Or just turn the universe into Lost.

• No, because tropers around the world, having heroically sacrificed their spare time and social life in the never-ending search of the ultimate Trope, are fully equipped to deal with tropes running wild. We shall show up at the last second, shout "WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK WE ARE!?" as one, and fire off a drill-shaped galaxy-wide Kamehamehadoken made of friendship and our combined knowledge of tropery, banishing them back to the Internet until they arise once more.
• Also, Fast Eddie and the Admin are getting aware of the Spiral Nemesis that This Very Wiki will induce. Hence why they are getting more rules-observant.

Kamina and Simon are actual brothers

• Look at them◊. Nearly the same hair, facial expression, Walking Shirtless Scene... Whether either Simon or Kamina knows this or not makes no difference.
  • The resemblance isn't more than two unrelated people who took clothing and stance habits from each other. However, Adult Simon and Old Simon do look suspiciously like Kamina's father... Which is not to say that Simon is Kamina's father's only son, just that there is other evidence that they are (at least half-)siblings.
  • At the very least, could they be very distant cousins?

Lagann is Alive.

Either Simon talking to Lagann in his Heroic BSoD was symbolic, or Lagann is alive. There may be other points of proof as well, it might not count, but in the movie, Lagann grabs Simon and throws him at the Anti-Spiral, that would probably account as proof that Lagann is alive, had it not been for the fact it didn't happen in the show.

Kamina is the astral projection of Lagann

..and it performs it in a way similar to how the Anti-Spirals projected their collective representation (Anti-Spiral King). Lagann is really alive, but immobilized, since it needs to feed off Spiral Power. It used its remaining backup Spiral stored inside the core drill to project what would be an inspiring badass, which is Kamina. Spiral Power is fueled by badassery which in turn is fueled by inspiration, so you have to invest in a little Badassery to inspire more people and acquire more Badassery, hence Profit.

After Simon, the perfect host, learned about Lagann, it was time for Kamina to go back to his true form (Lagann) and complete the cycle in order to defeat the Anti-Spirals once and for all (plus to get to more Spiral Power). This is also why Kamina already knew about many of Lagann's techniques, such as the famous Giga Drill Breaker, before even learning about it as a normal human.

• Not just Giga Drill Breaker. Kamina thought that shoving Lagann on top of Gurren was a good idea. No one knew that Lagann could assimilate other mecha at that point. But Lagann would.
• Kamina's "father" was really Lagann's previous host, during the time of the Anti-Spiral war.

In the movies, the Spiral Nemesis actually happened

Remember that bit near the end of the second movie where the two colliding Giga Drill Breakers briefly suck in all the galaxies in the Anti-Spiral dimension? That was it. Both sides were too busy being Hot-Blooded to even notice it happen. Luckily their combined will to protect the universe made the Spiral Energy set off a Big Bang and recreate the universe exactly as it was.

Bigfoot is a prototype beastman.

Half man, half beast, you know it. The Government is simply covering up so they can prepare for an Anti-Spiral invasion, after finding an Anti-Spiral messenger at Roswell.

Guame's Gunmen Gember has a Lagann installed in it.

That's what Gember's face is. That's what allowed Gember to produce those needles from its arms, and to turn its pincers into deadly tentacles.

• Actually, the Lagann had nothing to do with the drills used by Gurren Lagann, that was due to Simon's spiral energy. Guame, being a spiral, he can use similar powers.

Kamina is a future version of Simon, who encourages his younger self to become a badass to create a Stable Time Loop.

The talk about Kamina's father? Complete red herring to disguise the truth. For whatever reason, Simon eventually realizes he has to send himself back in time to become Kamina or the entire story will never take place.

The prologue to Episode 1 takes place after the epilogue to Episode 27, during a conflict between Earth and other Spiral races.

The entire raison d'etre of Spiral Energy is defiant, almost belligerent force-of-will. That, in of itself, is rarely a trait that makes for comfortable relations between neighbors. And while it is probably A Good Thing that the Anti-Spiral embargo has been eradicated, that makes it all the likelier that tensions will flare up between the surviving races.

This WMG posits that the pan-Spiral Peace Conference that Viral and company were off to was, at least, a partial failure. Earth's status as the vanquisher of the Anti-Spiral will probably gain it prestige and allies, but is also likely to attract jealousy and resentment. And no one is likely to see a proposal for regulated use of Spiral Energy, no matter how well-intentioned, as something to embrace wholeheartedly. Not after spending heaven only knows how many generations with that power suppressed.

Simon's presence is easily answered. Earth's greatest living hero, lacking any real family.... It's to be expected that he'd take up the mantle of general again. As for the absence of Team Dai-Gurren's other survivors on Dai-Ginga's bridge, they would have their hands full running essential government functions or leading Earth's forces on other fronts.

Supposing this is true, the real question is "how stacked ARE the odds against our heroes?" Boota's statement "So all the heavens are against us" could be literal, with many or all of the other Spiral races allied against Earth; conversely, it could be mere hyperbole.... a doomsday like any other.

The Anti-Spirals were right.

The series makes is quite clear that the Hot-Blooded are most suitable to wielding Spiral Energy. It is a very thin line between Hot-Blooded and Sociopathic Hero, and an even thinner one between Sociopathic Hero and Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and an even more thinner one between Jumping Off the Slippery Slope and With Great Power Comes Great Insanity/A God Am I/Moral Event Horizon/Omnicidal Maniac. If they left the hot blooded humans alone to do as they pleased with their nearly god like power they would have become the Spiral Nemesis.

Yoko's kisses don't just guarantee death

True that Kamina and Kittan died after getting kissed by her, but they did succeed in whatever they did.

• People who believe Yoko's kisses guarantee death, seem to forget that THE reason why she kissed Kittan was because everyone already knew he's going to sacrifice himself. She kissed him BECAUSE he was going to die, and not the other way around.
• And he initiated the kiss anyway, so it's not like anybody can really blame her.

Earth powered up Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann

In episode 27 the Dai Gurren brigade was getting no where until they saw Earth, the entire planet gave them enough spiral power (notice how everyone grits their teeth and straightens up to go bravely into the light) to survive the big bang storm until Genome intervened.

Simon DOESN'T become a hobo.

Assuming Simon is a hobo solely based on the ending scene doesn't really make sense. Why would a hobo carry a drill on a stick? And why would he want to be a hobo in the first place? My theory is that he was Walking the Earth, continuing to explore and helping people, but in a less violent manner now that the Anti-Spirals are defeated.

The Anti-Spirals suffer from Pygmalion syndrome.

Since Nia is a construct of the Anti-Spirals, and the Anti-Spiral King is the collective unconscious of the Anti-Spiral race... That would explain this scene. (NSFW!) They all basically had PSL for their own construct.

Entire series, excluding prologue where Simon fights "all the lights in the heaven", is the result of Maelstorm cannon's attack from prologue.

It changed the past and other Spiral races never became hostile and therefore never sent those ships.

The reason Kamina died in Episode 8 is because if he and Yoko had progressed in their relationship and eventually had a child, it would have contained a level of genetic badass so high that it might have shattered the space-time continuum, or something equally devastating.

Think about it. The TTGL universe was simply preventing a future meltdown of the few tenuous laws that exist in it. After all, can you imagine the sheer Hot-Blooded Spiral power of a child concieved by a Jesus-figure, Cool Shades-wearing, katana-wielding, godly Memetic Badass and a Cool Big Sis, Fiery Redhead, BFG-wielding Ms. Fanservice? I mean, come on. Kamina himself was already pushing it...not even the TTGL universe is ready for that level of awesome.

• They would have had twins. One even hotter and wearing even less than Yoko and one even more manly and more hotblooded than Kamina, both having over 9000 times the badass of their parents. They would have been the Spiral Nemesis, but would be so badass it wouldn't happen.

Similar to the above, this is the reason why Nia had to die.

Seeing how unequivocally Badass Simon already is, just imagine adding such a ridiculous high dosage of Moe.

The hypothetical events mentioned in the previous theory actually happened.

And when the space-time continuum shattered, a blast of Spiral Energy was pushed back in time to Episode 8, powering up the beastmen Gunmen temporarily and thus giving them the ability to kill Kamina.

The Spiral Nemesis ended up happening, and it was defeated by...

... punching it really hard so it tore a hole through space-time.

Kamina is a distant descendant of Lordgenome

Both are shirtless, muscular, contain shitloads of Spiral Power and are badasss beyond compare. Plus, in Lordgenome's DVD flashback, he is shown wearing a cape that is suspiciously similar to Kamina's (it's even the same colour!) with the addition of two skulls on the side, but those could easily come off. Also, in Parallel Works 8, pay attention to what he's wearing when he finds Lazengann - a cape, just like Kamina's. We all know LG's a player, so is it that hard to believe he may have started the Kamina family tree shortly before or during the Anti-Spiral war and left his cape behind with the mother-to-be, for whatever reason, which was then passed down father to son until it reached Kamina? He takes it from his father's grave after all. Further evidence is Lordgenome performing a Giga Drill Break, a move Kamina supposedly invented, both of them stirring up resistance movements, their manly deaths, their love of doing the Gunbuster pose... it's all genetic.

• It makes so much sense! Except for one little nitpicky thing. Word of God confirmed that Kamina actually has the lowest Spiral Energy potential in Team Dai-Gurren. Also, if Spiral Power potential is determined by genetics, then who the hell fathered Simon?!?!
  • The only one badass enough to produce someone like Simon- Simon Himself, thrust back in time by a Spiral Energy accident.

Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is a miniature universe

Lets look at the facts. It was created by absorbing the Infinity Big Bang Storm, which Leeron states is capable of creating universe. It doesn't even remotely resemble any gunmen, let alone the Gurren Lagann series. It appears to be a silhouette which contains celestial objects. The "cockpit" in it appears to be a void of green light. The only thing that appears to be pure matter is the drills and shades. Presumably, STTGL is a universe formed by spiral energy into a humanoid figure.

• I would like to posit that the STTGL did not disappear. It became the universe in which all other mecha anime take place.

Viral(Vee-rahl)'s name isn't "viral" (vai-ruhl), a reference to his genetics...

It's a reference to the word "virile", further showing how connected he is to the story of Kamina, Simon, and Spiral Power! It's also an Ironic Name.

• Look up what the word Viral means would you.
  • Why? "ヴィラル, Viraru" ("Vee-rahl") is a character in TTGL. Viral ("vai-ruhl") is, according to the tenth edition of "Merriam Webster's Collegiate Dictionary", "of, relating to, or caused by a virus". What's your point?
• Actually, Viral's page on the Gurren Lagann wiki suggests that he may have been named after Enki Bilal - "Bilal" and "Viral" are pronounced the same in Japanese, "Enki" is his Gunman, and Bilal wrote a series of graphic novels called the Nikopol Trilogy, while Viral's theme song is called...Nikopol.

The Anti-Spirals aren't so well-intentioned after all.

Think about it. If the Anti-Spirals are really out to protect the universe from the Spiral Nemesis, why are they so bent on the ultimate extermination of all Spirals? Why are they so bent on torturing others to despair and death? Why have they become Those Who Fight Monsters? If they kill off all the Spirals, they'll be the only ones left. Also, Notice how they have absolutely no proof about Spiral Nemesis or that Spiral Power is dangerous, and if they're really cosmic entities then they should realize that in scientific measurements the universe is infinite and expanding (Dark Energy), the universe will always have room for more Spiral Power and if that's not enough, they can spread it onto the black seas of infinity outside the universe. They're using the Spiral Nemesis as an excuse; they simply want to kill them all because they're Fantastic Racists. They're deranged hypocrites who latched on to an unproven theory, not to protect the universe, but solely because they have no desire beyond killing every last "inferior" Spiral species. They're sociopaths who are merely trying to rationalize their cruelty and selfishness, merely because they view every other lifeform as a disgusting disease.

TL;DR: Anti-Spirals are Space Nazis.

• No, they're Kaleds that Davros didn't get to mess with.
• Alternatively, they are this and trying to save the universe. Much like Dr Finitevus, they are absolutely evil, yet so demented they think they're helping out the universe. Which, in an utterly twisted way, they are doing.
  • That's... PERFECT!

After the final battle, Viral become capable to create

I don't know in the series, but in the movie, Viral obtain his own Tengen toppa! Plus, at the end, we don't see him, as in the series. That's because he's old, married, and with his own family.

Kamina is Simon's Father

Search your feelings, you know it to be awesome

• Not for the Yaoi Fangirls that pair them. Major squick due to incest possibility.
  • The two already consider each other as siblings. So it's still squick. And Yoko has a strange imagination.
• At the beginning of the series, Simon is supposed to be 14 and Kamina is 17 or 18...that's one fertile 3-4 year old. Although Kamina may well have been born that way, being Kamina.
  • Perhaps Kamina went back in time once he became Spiral Jesus. He died a virgin, came back as the god of Spiral Energy, and used his powers to impregnate Simon's mom in the past. And maybe his own, since how else would you get such awesomeness.

Leeron is the most manly character in the TTGL world.

However, he consciously knew that if he kept it up humanity would die out from the supermassive Black Hole of highly-compressed GAR (the only Designer Babies are Beastmen, remember?), and subconsciously knew that it would cause the universe's supply of Hot Bloodedness to run out Or rather, overload the universe if he got within a hundred miles of a lagann. When he decided to start acting camp for the future of all humanity, he found he quite liked it.

• He's so manly he doesn't need women at all!
  • He's so manly it loops back to Camp Gay, ala digit overflow

Variation on the above: Leeron's Camp Gay is the source of a type of energy that is opposite to Spiral Power

...Yeah, I got nothing else.

• And this energy was the only thing preventing Team Dai-Gurren from wrecking the universe from the get-go.

Gurren Lagann was actually an RPG campaign.

You've heard of "DM of the Rings" and "Darths and Droids", right? Well, this show was actually an RPG with an exasperated GM that allowed for ridiculous twinking. For example:

• Kitan's player: "Okay, I'm gonna grab one of the drills from a past battle, and — GM: "What drills?" Kitan's player: "We kept generating them, right?" Leeron's player: "It's conservation of mass!" GM: "Since when do you care about conservation of mass?!"
• Kamina's player: "Do I make it into the mech? Okay, I start piloting it." GM: "You can't. It has a security system." KP: "I hack it!" GM: "You don't have the hacking skill." KP: "I get a default roll, right? And I burn some Willpower points." GM: *Sigh* "Okay, roll... Huh. Natural 20. Fine. You hack the mech through sheer manliness."
• "So... You want to play as a big-chested resistance fighter from the surface, with a huge gun, even though the campaign starts in an isolated cave village? Okay, hold off till the first adventure. [game starts] Suddenly a giant robot falls from the ceiling and you see this girl chasing it!"
• "So then I grab the little mech Simon's piloting and I try jamming it on top of mine to make them combine into an even more powerful robot like that bad guy's got!" GM: "...Okay, I did not expect that. Roll for it. Huh."

• ...That is strangely sane sounding. I think we found the actual start of Gurren Lagann...
• There was a loophole in the game rules that allowed for endless multiplication of Willpower points.
  • The GM saw that there were so many Crowning Moments of Awesome happening he just let things spiral just to see what the players would come up with next. He kept having to come up with more powerful enemies for them to fight. "Let's see them defeat a city-sized mech!"
  • Dyaka's player: "I've-got-the-best-wife-in-the-Universe Swing!" Wife: *blushes* GM: "Awesome!"
• Someone needs to make a webcomic of this.
  • Yes... Yes they do.
• After Kamina dies, they go on to play Nia, Viral when Nia's not playable.
  • Nia was actually created by Kamina's player's little sister. He planned to make a Suspiciously Similar Substitute, but then his sister insisted on going to a game with him and forced him to make his new character a frilly, girly princess. She lost interest after the Time Skip, so the GM had to write her out by making her an Anti-Spiral. She came back right as they were doing the final battle, and assuming the game follows the movie canon, she brought her Axe Cop-esque childhood enthusiasm with her.
    • "She has a cool giant robot now!" GM: "I don't think your character ever had a Gunman." "She does now! Oh, and it's as big as a galaxy! And I give everyone else robots just like it!" Kamina's player: "Hell yes!"
• Simon's player was the Only Sane Man, although by the time skip he had gone just as crazy as the rest of them.

The Spiral nemesis is actually something else

The spiral nemesis is an ingrained belief that spiral power can destroy the universe, a safety measure if you will.

If Kamina survived TTGL would have wings

Simons Giga Drill Breaker would of been different if Kamina didn't do it first

The many thin drills was Simons drill, if he accentually achieved it sooner it would of been many thin drills forming as big a drill as the giga drill.

• So basically, this?
• Alternatively, could it be like Lordgenome's Giga Drill (weaving together all the drill tentacles)?

Kamina dying a virgin prevented the Spiral Nemesis.

He's a Memetic Badass and the posterboy for Perverse Sexual Lust. If he ever had sex, it would've triggered a Big Bang, in both terms of the word. This would've created a new universe that would expand until the normal one is destroyed. Because Kamina is that good.

Nia lived, because she didn't explode

Whenever a Mugen, or indeed any Anti-Spiral-created thing is destroyed in TTGL, it explodes, and its component square-y bits explode. Violently. Nia did not explode, and nor did her component square-y bits, so she didn't die.

Dark energy is Spiral Power

It makes the galaxies accelerate and (one of the views) says that the universe will end in a Big Crunch, or, if you prefer, the Spiral Nemesis.

• Wait, isn't Dark Energy what makes the universe expand, while the stuff that will cause the Real Life Spiral Nemesis is called dark matter?
• Update: I was thing about this and I realized that Gurren Lagann doesn't violate the Law of Equivalent Exchange because it actually transforms dark energy (which makes the universe expand) into spiral energy (which makes the universe contract through converting energy into mass), so what causes the awsomeness in TTGL is perfectly compatible with physics (and transforming too much dark energy into spiral energy must mess up everything in the universe).

Spiral Nemesis actually occurred in the final battle, as a result of an unstoppable force meeting an immovable object.

The Anti-Spirals were only half right in their assumptions that a spiral nemesis would occur if Spiral races kept making progress. For the apocalyptic scenario to actually occur, they needed to face a resistance strong enough to absorb all (or the majority) of its power. They inadvertently caused it to happen when fighting against Simon and the Earth forces. This is much clearer in the movie during the final sequence when the Super Tengen Toppa GDB and Anti-Spiral GDB collide. The sequence shows all the galaxies in the dimension around them collapsing in upon itself, resulting in a whole lot of empty space. Depending on the victorious side, Spiral Nemesis occurs. Resistance would result in a crunch and the destruction of all energy, leading to oblivion. Since the offensive force won out, the result was a rebirth of the built-up energy.

The Anti-Spirals are insane and/or clincally depressed.

Think about it: they've repressed their own biological instincts, become the Instrumentality and been in self-imposed isolation for millenia. The reason they want to drive us to "absolute despair" isn't to stop Spiral Power-rather they've become so miserable they feel the need to project their depression onto the rest of the universe. They can't even be Driven to Suicide because their desire to protect the universe is the only thing keeping them going.

Real Life and Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann are related.

Imagine if our universe ran on the Rule of Cool. Considering all the fiction we have, if we did run on Rule of Cool we'd have the knowledge and power to dominate the whole of creation. We will become The Omnipotent. The reason we live in such a boring world is because our awesomeness is being diverted to prevent something like this from happening, lest we abuse our power (like how Haruhi Suzumiya needs to be kept ignorant of her Omnipotent powers considering her behaviour). The Gurren Lagann universe and all its variants were designed to handle our awesomeness. The Anti-Spirals are secretly being led by the individuals who did this, because if the Spiral Nemesis occurs all the Rule of Cool would flow back to us and we'd gain the power to take over existence

Nia was meant to be a living Deconstruction of the Plot Device.

Think a bit about it, a lot of the time, she's captured and mentally tortured, not to mention the fact that she's used (willingly or not) to basically just move the plot forward, first by Lordgenome, who threw her out, the Gurren-Dan have used her by basically saving her all the time, and Simon could have been using her to replace Kamina, and Nia turned out to have been an Anti-Spiral puppet. When the show ended, she dies, representing the fact that, now that the story is over, what's the point in having a Plot Device anymore?

The Anti-Spirals are still out there.

Not the Anti-Spiral race our heroes fought. No. Unknown to our heroes,the Anti-Spirals had allied with the only race they could trust - a race of machines. When the Anti-Spirals were beaten, said robots decided, after watching the Ax-Crazy Large Ham of the Anti-Spiral leader, that all living things could lead to Spiral Nemesis, and as non-living things, they must wipe out life so it cannot advance.

• Necrons and/or Reapers?
• However, not all of these Mechanical Lifeforms seek the destruction of life. Some - some will come to protect the Spirals, and refused to ally with the Anti-Spirals. Most will come to destroy them. They were the dream - Mechanical Lifeforms able to transform their bodies into vehicles; a last line of defense against the all who oppose Spiral life! They are at war, heroic Autobot pitted against evil Decepticon, both on their homeworld of Cybertron and throughout the universe! They are the universe's last hope, they are - Transformers!
• This is what causes the creation of Star Dream, which was a robot designed to wipe out all sentient life forms. Kirby is a descendent of Simon, hence why he controls the Robobot like how Simon controls Lagann and the amount of TTGL references in the final battle of Kirby: Planet Robobot.

Jorgun and Balinbow went out in a blaze of Spiral Energy in their last moments during Episode 24.

• Consider what happened to the other Team Dai-Gurren pilots, and what we see of them. Zorthy's cockpit slowly caves in on him as it's crushed. Iraak and Kidd charge their outgunned Space Ganmen at the Anti-Spiral fleet before they fade to white. Makken cuts to an external view of his Moshogun before it impacts the Anti-Spiral missile. All of these are animated in the series' normal style. Only Jorgun and Balinbow have a stylistically unique death scene in that episode. It's rendered in black and white, with their features drawn in a harsh, sketchy style that eventually gives way to a growing white. Notably, this is visually similar to those who died due to a Spiral Energy based attack for one reason or another. It's probably a safe assumption that the twins manifested some kind of Spiral Energy as their Ganmen exploded—unlike the rest of their fallen comrades, their Twin Bokun was the only one that exploded so dramatically that it visibly wiped out a considerable number of Anti-Spiral 'fighters.' It's possible that they somehow channeled the impending destruction of their own Ganmen into an explosive release of Spiral Energy, destroying themselves and everything around them to save Darry and Gimmy from further Anti-Spiral pursuit.

We are currently in a Multi-Dimensional Labyrinth.

• We're currently experiencing one lifetime out of many. This not only explains dreams—subconscious slips into other possible dimensions—but also the belief in reincarnation. It's not reincarnating in the traditional definition, it's just experiencing another labyrinth illusion. Humans are a Spiral race, and our ability to perceive such things is already known. We can't escape as readily as Team Dai-Gurren did, because we've inadvertently ended up regarding the very things that would save us as foolish and unlikely, and relegated them to the land of fiction.

Abe is Kamina's father.

They both are gainax characters,they both have blue hair and similiar face structure.To continue his studies,he transported to the gurren lagann universe and fell in love with Kamina's mother.

The Parallel Works (excluding 8) and AU mangas are all universes created by the Multiversal Labyrinth.

How has nobody else thought of this yet?

The series takes place in (and under) the Middle East.

First of all, the terrain of the surface, pre-Time Skip, is mostly desert wasteland. Even accepting the fact it's After the End, the Middle East is mostly desert, and it doesn't seem that whatever caused the apocalypse would have destroyed the terrain. As I mentioned on the character page, Lord Genome looks like he could be a Turk or an Arab, and he's old enough to have lived on the surface. And is it just me, or does Teppelin look like it could be a repurposed Burj Khalifa? The reason everyone lives underground could have grown out of the Beastmen using them as slave labour to excavate oil (remember, the Beastmen have Gunmen that run on more conventional power sources) before their purpose was eventually forgotten. Or because living underground was better than living in the sand. Also, the song "My XXX is the Best in the Universe" contains one section that sounds remarkably like that Standard Snippet you always hear in Arabian Nights movies.

• With all the "Kamina is Jesus" parallels, obviously Kamina City is Jerusalem.
• With the conflict in Libya, this would make Row Row Fight The Power either Harsher in Hindsight or Hilarious in Hindsight.
  • The lyrics itself is socialist enough.

Everything past the Multidimensional Labyrinth never happened in the real timeline.

This is a bit of Fridge Logic that I brought up on the Headscratchers page that, after being answered, led me to this: In Boota's portion of the Multidimensional Labyrinth (ML from now on) he transforms into a human so he can help Simon better. Then the Anti-Spiral King (ASK) reveals that by doing so he has meet the criteria to also be trapped in the Multidimensional Labyrinth. While that is going on, everyone is in the exact same state as they were on the actual ship and when Boota turns into a humanoid he enters a similar state. Given that the ML is basically everyone's ultimate wish fulfillment, ala Instrumentality, wouldn't it make sense for Boota to instead beat back the ASK (since it would make sense to assume that Boota thinks that the ASK is controlling it) and freeing everyone from the ML before joining with Simon to kick the ASK's ass? Alternatively, wouldn't it make more sense for Boota to appear in another portion of Simon's life (real or not) and transform there for whatever reason?

Also, the fact that the ASK is there at all lends a bit a credence to my theory. If I recall correctly, the Dai-Gurren Dan barely even knew of his existence, let alone what he looked like or the finer details of his personality. There's also the fact that the ASK was acting like everything that was happening there was real and not a part of the ML (which I assume he can tell the difference between the real world and the ML).

Not only that, but when Simon and co are supposedly escaping from the ML, it shows Human!Boota standing up instead of lying down like the last shot of him was. How Simon knew this is somewhat simple to explain: He was partially aware of Boota's transformation in the real world but, given the circumstances, thought it was just a part of the ML so Simon's ML added that bit in (alternatively, it was the entire Dai-Gurren Dan's ML so Boota, for one reason or another, ended up thinking that his transformation was a part of the ML as well and thus "reverted" to normal).

In conclusion: The true ending to the series is Nia getting deleted; the Dai-Gurren Dan dying from starvation, dehydration, or something to that effect; and the population of the Earth getting whipped out. The Anti-Spirals won. The universe is still under there control. ^note I'm not saying that what happened in Simon's ML isn't possible, mind you. After all, the ML is just possibilities. Everything that happens in there could have happened.

^Lagann-henOf course, the movie takes care of the Plot Hole that led to my theory by doing away with Human!Boota all together. It does, however, beg the question why Boota's ML was with two random Dai-Gurren Dan members instead of Simon.

The reason Boota never became a full-grown mole-pig

• It's because being around people like Kamina and Simon, and Lord Genome who have huge spiral energy reserves permanently changed his DNA. This is also why he ended up becoming so super-spiral-energy-filled near the end of the series - with his altered DNA, he absorbed and held (and possibly created his own) a lot of the spiral energy around him.

Kamina isn't gone...

• When he died, he became reincarnated as the show's physics/laws of the universe. Rule of Cool? More like RULE OF KAMINA. If you want to take it farther, it can explain the Stripperiffic nature of some of the outfits.
  • Yes, he was reincarnated, but not within the same world. You see, Kamina was a reality-warping hero who learned from childhood to laugh in the face of danger, dare to do the impossible, and cheer on the people around him even if everyone else thought him crazy. His first act as an adventurer was to break through the wall (well, ceiling) thought to be the edge of reality. And as he lay dying, his last thoughts were about how cute Yoko was, about his great friends, and about how someone ought to throw a victory party. And so he got a new chance at life where he'd do pretty much the same thing, under the name... Pinkamena. Aka. "Pinkie Pie".
    • No. NO NO NO NO NO. Wow, no. As if the Mighty Kamina would be anywhere near something as girly as "My Little Ponies!" Ha ha ha... besides, he'd totally be Rainbow Dash. HIS ARE THE RAINBOOMS THAT PIERCE THE HEAVENS!
  • So he didn't die so much as he became Spiral Energy itself? In other words, he became one with the Spiral. The same thing happened to Lord Genome, seeing as it was his death that provided Team Dai-Gurren with the energy to create the [Super] Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

Every light in the sky IS an enemy!

Not the planets or lifeforms, but the stars themselves. They're alive and burning with Spiral Energy, and as Nemesis grows closer they'll begin to absorb everything around them, attempting to become Black Holes, leading to humanity having to fight the stars themselves. This could also mean...

When the characters get spiral symbols in their eyes, it's to show that they've reached their maximum amount of Spiral Energy

Allow me to quote this from the main page, under Magical Eye: "Characters with large Spiral power signify this with spirals in their eyes. Strangely, Simon, the one who produces the vast majority of said power, doesn't get this until the Distant Finale, and then only on one side." This made me think that maybe the reason it only shows on one side is because he hasn't maxed out his Spiral Energy. And then I realized that the Anti-Spiral had good reason to fear the Spiral Nemesis if that's the case.

• Furthermore, it's also Fridge Brilliance that he never reaches his maximum potential - it's to show he's restraining himself and not causing the Spiral Nemesis.

The Giga Drill Breaker is an ability programmed into all Laganns.

It may sound silly, yes. But take a look at Parallel Works 8, and you'll see, that when he powers up the Cathedral Lazengann Lordgenome uses the exact same Giga Drill Breaker-style technique as Simon and Viral did when they combined with Ark-Gurren. Moments later, he used the Super Galaxy Giga Drill Breaker, that Simon later used, in order to destroy his enemies. Knowing Gainax, this is more than a coincidence. It is simply a feature that is programmed into all Laganns, so it can be used should it be necessary.

Everything the Anti-Spiral said was a lie.

Spiral Nemesis? Doesn't exist, Spiral Power isn't remotely dangerous. Why did the Anti-Spiral lie? Simple: They were obsessed with the universe and wanted it all to themselves, and they didn't want any pesky evolving Spiral races to get in the way of their forbidden love (Notice how they have absolutely no proof about Spiral Nemesis or that Spiral Power is dangerous, on the contrary, see also: Dark energy, Second Law of Thermodynamics, etc).

Nia? Human, not an Anti-Spiral lifeform at all. The Anti-Spiral simply chose to brainwash her because she was the person closest to Simon, and since Simon was the biggest threat to the Anti-Spiral, it wanted to cause him ABSOLUTE DESPAIR. Nia fading away? That wasn't her dying. The Anti-Spiral was Not Quite Dead and brought her back to him so he could hold her hostage. Why? Because he knows Simon will try and save her, and when he does the Anti-Spiral can get Revenge. But since Simon was making love to the Idiot Ball that day, he decided "NOPE NIA'S DEAD LALALALA I CAN'T HEAR YOU". And so he never goes and saves her, or does he?

Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is basically the philosophy of Existentialism in anime form

Think about it. Kamina is as close as a hero can come to Friedrich Nietzsche's Übermensch, and actually changes the morality of the world and refusal to obey higher powers (Lordgenome and the Anti-Spiral). In the finale, the Spirals accept the anti-spirals' despairing nihilistic criticisms (up to the point they referenced the Eternal Recurrence), reconstructing them and becoming more of an encouragement. The emphasis on personal growth? Existentialism to the bone. "Go down a path that you choose and do it all by yourself. That's the way team Dai-Gurren rolls!" sums it up best.

Viral became mortal and able to reproduce after gaining the ability to use Spiral Energy.

• The Beastmen, dormant periods aside, never seem to age, but Spiral lifeforms do. Spiral energy is stated in-universe to be related to reproduction and evolution. Death is the engine that drives evolution forward in Real Life; an immortal organism is essentially an evolutionary dead end. In addition, senescence also allows populations to stay in equilibrium with the environment. If Viral is indeed now a Spiral creature at the end of the series, then he is likely subject to aging just like humans are, and, theoretically, capable of reproduction as well. However, Viral is the only Beastman who produces Spiral Energy, and there's no telling if reproduction between Viral and a human woman would work.

The Spiral Nemesis is not only real, but it actually happened.

As long as there is No Fourth Wall, the "Spiral Nemesis" could reference The Chris Carter Effect. As in, Spiral Energy is nothing more than the the audience's will to have an entertaining story. Once the inertia of having most of the threads being resolved occurred, the audience is finally ready to have the plot wither and die. If the story continued at that point, the Spiral Energy would be tapped out, and the heroes would barely make it against an upcoming threat. So, in a sense, the universe pulled a Negative Space Wedgie in order to spare the protagonists from trauma-induced pain, lest they lapse back on the Big Brother Series...

And THAT'S why Gurren Lagann's 2nd season is in Development Hell.

Real Life is the distant future of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.

In Lagann-Hen, it's implied that the fighting between the Grand Zamboza and Mecha-Kamina Spiral Jesus caused the Anti-Spiral pocket universe to collapse, ala Spiral Nemesis. Unknown to either side, the universe didn't just collapse: it became a new Big Bang. And thus, we were born in a Moment of Awesome. The reason why our universe has zero Rule of Cool or Rule of Funny behind it, not to mention completely unbreakable laws of physics, is because we were once the Anti-Spiral pocket universe. Still, Rule of Cool from Mecha-Kamina Spiral Jesus remain: that's why black holes, quantum physics and over crazy stuff. This has the added benefit of giving us the greatest deity/deities existence could offer us.

There is something better at harnessing Spiral Energy.

That is, the nautilus.

Gurren Lagann is the distant future of Godannar.

The Mimetic Beasts and the Insania Virus could have been sent by the Anti-Spirals. When THAT didn't work, they decided to take a direct hand.Further, Shizuru Fujiwara and Kouji Testuya could have the ancestors of Kamina, while Goh and Anna could have been the ancestors of Yoko.

Spiral Energy is Orgone Energy.

Makes sense, doesn't it?

The Opening Sequence of Episode 1 is what would happen if the Anti-Spirals lost the war/never existed.

Think about it: the Anti-Spirals were the ones who discovered Spiral Nemesis, and Lord Genome had his Heel–Face Turn after they mindraped this information into them. This Opening Sequence is what would've happenned if the Anti-Spirals lost/there were no Anti-Spirals: humanity would've become reckless, and ultimately "all the lights in the sky are our enemies." The captain is Simon, Kamina or one of their ancestors. If there was an Anti-Spiral war, it's likely Simon/Kamina.

The series doesn't take place on Earth.

For starters, the Milky Way galaxy doesn't look like that.

• We're dealing with planet/galaxy sized mechs having the power to defy the laws of physics. The Milky Way galaxy was probably altered in the Spiral Wars

The whole series is based off sex.

Think about it:

• The main weapon is a "drill." Which pierces the heavens.
• Mechs combine with said drill.
• Episode 6.
• Spiral Power is a metaphor for Evolution, and Evolution works through Reproduction.
• Beastmen cannot harness Spiral Power, because they're infertile.
• Their shouting when using Spiral Power sounded like something else.
• The Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann had everybody combining. Naked.

Lord Genome's home era is the near future/21st century.

In Parallel Works 8(before the Anti-Spirals attack), look at the buildings. They don't look that advanced, and more like apartments. There are also cars.

Some of the Parallel Works are alternate universes the characters were stuck in due to the Multidimensional Labyrinth.

• Parallel Works 1 is the dimension Nia would've been trapped in, had she not been taken by the Anti-Spiral.
• Parallel Works 4 is the dimension Viral was stuck in. After all, he's the hero there and that Viral has a picture of his wife.
• Parallel Works 6 is the dimension Genome was stuck in. It just didn't show Genome, because him being a teacher isn't that important.

Spiral Power doesn't violate Equivalent Exchange

What we witness as "creating matter and energy out of nothing" is just tapping the powers of Another Dimension (or dimensions) whose immense energies then spiral out into our universe and then transformed into matter by manipulating Einstein's Mass-energy equation (E=MC^2), said matter is assimilated into Lagann's drills. "Spirals" are just psychic humans with a lot of testosterone and Id, and when they "produce" spiral power, they are just subconsciously "calling" this dimension, and the energy can then spiral out through the transmission point (in other words, Summon Magic). Of course, if the transmission comes from a lone Spiral it would be too weak and too subtle, so spiral technology amplifies this transmission (think of the drills as antennae). Spiral Nemesis will come from an excess overflow of this inter-dimensional energy causing the real universe and the high-energy dimension to merge, transforming the universe into an Eldritch Location, ala Eye of Terror.

Lordgenome once had a daughter, who died at the age of fourteen.

That's one of the many reasons why he kept tossing out of his daughters; after the Mind Rape he was subjected to at the Anti-Spiral's hands and lost the war, he was driven crazy, so he just wanted to relieve the memory of his daughter over and over and over...

• Aww...
  • "He kept trying... he kept trying to get her right..."

Rossiu's book (which he thought was a bible/practical joke) is actually a Tome of Eldritch Lore

Actually comprehending what is in it will bring the REAL Spiral Nemesis. Or something even worse than Spiral Nemesis. Thankfully the village was just a senseless Cargo Cult.

Ep 6 didn't have a Skin Ship Grope.

Yoko, knowing Kamina is, well, Kamina, figured he'd probably try to spy on them. So, for laughs, she and the other girls made it seem that they were comparing boob size. I know it's not much, but imagine Kamina leering in only to find them just resting there.

Simon

is the Spiral KingLordgenome just claimed he was. Anti-Spiral King is the most powerful Anti-Spiral, in a manner of speaking, while Simon is the most powerful Spiral.

The Spiral Nemesis was Kamina.

Had he lived, Kamina's sheer recklessness would have triggered the Spiral Nemesis prematurely from an overproduction of Spiral Energy by the time Team Dai-Gurren had gone into space using Cathedral Terra. Due to the Anti-Spirals's lack of awareness to where the Spiral Nemesis would eventually emerge from, they could not have known if the Spiral Nemesis was even alive anymore at that point in the series.

Rossiu is the Anti Spiral from the Episode One clip

Ok, so hear me out on this one. It’s already been fairly established the beginning of the first episode was basically an alternate future where Simons spiral power went out of control and caused the Spiral Nemesis. Well let’s take that a step further with the fact the Anti Spiral planet was basically sitting in its own little pocket dimension and looks suspiciously like Earth. Rossiu, being the Well-Intentioned Extremist that he is, would certainly have gone the Anti-Spirals route to protect the Earth and also be willing to breach other Space/Time domains to prevent it from happening again. Additionally, consider the fact the Anti-Spirals treated the Spiral Nemesis as a known rather than just a logical theory. It would also make Nias “You don’t understand…” to which the Anti Spiral responds “Understanding is not required…” an Ironic echo to Rossius’ comment that Simon “Did not understand”. Also there almost seemed to be a personal touch to the way the Anti-Spiral targeted Simon, more than just the tactics of despair he seemed to need to prove to Simon Spiral energy would be the doom of everything. Which given his lack of Spiral Energy and distrust in it, ordering the Gunmen to be scrapped in favor of much more science driven Grapearls.

Spore is set in the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann universe.

Humans were just driven underground by the time your species has reached the space stage, Teppelin has yet to be built.Interstellar travel is DRIVEN by spiral energy, so does all your weapons(excluding missiles and bombs). Oh yeah. The Grox are the anti-spirals.

• Alternatively, the Spore galaxy is in an After the End state because it was one of the galaxies used as a weapon...
• The Grox are the Anti-Spirals prior to becoming a Hive Mind.

Spiral Energy siphons off from the Universe, and causes the Spiral Nemesis.

This is really just something that I've been toying with after watching the entire series, but if Spiral Energy is said to be harnessing the power of the universe, then the drills that the Gurren Lagann forms are created by converting the energy of the universe into mass and or breaking down inert matter within the universe to assimilate into a drill. We know that use of Spiral Energy can teleport people and objects so why can't it teleport matter and particles from deep space and recombine them in the form of a drill. This then means that the Spiral Beings' continuous reproduction at an exponential rate will result in the more assimilation of the universe's matter, causing a Malthusian overpopulation catastrophe, i.e. the Spiral Nemesis (If they don't rely on siphoning each other instead). Originally I came up with this theory in order to explain how TTGL does still follow the most important law of physics (i.e. Equivalent Exchange), but I do realise it doesn't explain all of the Screw-the-Laws-of-Physics instances of the show.

Purging yourself of spiral energy (like the Anti-Spirals) will drive you to insanity.

Nia is colour-blind.

Hence why her cooking is so bad. It's likely those eye-petals.

Perceptual teleportation:

Could it be used to go to the afterlife and back? This should be a reasonably safe use of Spiral Power, as (unless the afterlife is physically present within the TTGL universe) this would, albeit temporarily, reduce the mass present in the universe. Even supposing that it would only be a one-way deal, surely at least one character would be willing to try.

The Spiral Nemesis is a self fulfilling prophecy of the Anti-Spirals.

This is very simple, but if the Anti-Spirals never actively caused the suffering and despair for the Spirals then the Spirals would have nothing to overcome and would not have risen to the occasion and gained so much spiral energy. The same thing happened in Kamina and Simon's village, and with the Helix King Lord Genome's plans to drive people under the surface. Which leads me to this theory...

The story of TTGL is a patterned after a logarithmic spiral

A logarithmic spiral is a fractal shaped like a spiral that increases exponentially each time. Compare the Chief of Kamina and Simon's village with the Helix King to the Anti-Spirals. Three of them tried to oppress their village, world and entire universe respectively but ended up causing them to rise exponentially in power. Kamina and Simon broke through the ceiling of Underground, Simon broke through the ceiling of the falling moon, and then they broke through the universe itself. Rossiu was in a village responsible for killing people when they reached the popular of 50 and then he became responsible This is the also reason why TTGL has a theme of mecha piloting mecha. This is also the reason for the helix symbolism through out the show. It exists in our DNA, our tools our planet and our galaxy.

The Anti-Spirals are us in the future

TTGL either takes place on a parallel universe, which are able to be traveled through by the Anti Spirals who hid the moon in the alternate universe. Either that TTGL's universe becomes the Anti-Spirals and they are fighting themselves in the future.

The Anti-Spiral's desire for absolute despair comes from their own.

One wonders why, despite their claims of Well-Intentioned Extremist, they a)have no compunction against using the Despair Event Horizon to stop the apocalypse(which would probably make said apocalypse preferable) and b)seem to enjoy it. It's possible, however, that the Anti-Spiral's actions caused them to suffer absolute despair-they halted their own evolution by locking up their own bodies and forming a Hive Mind, which already sounds like a living hell. Add to forcing themselves to feel as little as possible and everyone else in the universe hating them, and no wonder they snapped. They want to inflict despair on everyone not just because its the best way to stop the Spiral Nemesis, but because they hate their own Despair Event Horizon and want to project it on the rest of the universe. The fight with TTGL was enough to awaken them from this despair, and eventually realise that Team Lagann can protect the universe their way.

Us Humans of Real Life are under an Anti-Spiral experiment to breed a genetic disease that renders Spirals complete slaves to the laws of physics.

Hence why, despite our large population, we cannot ever defy the laws of physics...

• ...YET

The Anti-Spirals are "good guys".

..in that they protect the sentient Spiral races of the Milky Way from Fate Worse than Death. This is why the Anti-spiral was so concerned about suppressing the rest of the Spiral races. Judging by their ability to generate extra dimensional labyrinths, they have probably traveled to other dimensions, and met something there that is even worse than themselves (e.g. some kind of immaterial Eldritch Abomination that lives off spiral energies by devouring sentient spirits over billions of years of torment, or a version of God Is Evil). So, to protect their home galaxy's organics, they regularly "euthanize" the unruly ones out to avoid drawing attention of that other something, while they are looking for a way to destroy it.

• Extension: God Is Evil, and will be awakened by Spiral Energy. The Anti-Spirals are trying to delay the Last Judgement and euthanize organic life before they can be sent to Hell forever and ever. And the Spiral Energy itself will fuel the Eternal Lake of Fire.

In an alternate timeline, the Anti-Spirals won and eliminated Spiral Energy's influence... and realized their mistake.

The current model of the universe suggests that the Big Crunch Spiral Nemesis is not what will ultimately do us in, because of Dark Energy, the force which powers the exponential accelerating expansion of the very fabric of space itself. Gravity, Higgs Bosons, Dark Matter and Spiral Energy hold everything together, in direct competition with Dark Energy which is growing to be more abundant in the universe, seems to come out of nothing and has the characteristic of tearing everything apart. The universe's expansion isn't slowing down as the Anti-Spirals predicted, it's speeding up. Fast.

If Dark Energy won't disintegrate all matter and rip apart spacetime first, there's always the slow but climbing Heat Death of the Universe. In real life, what is the Second Law of Thermodynamics? The entropy, or disorder, of an isolated system will increase and never decrease. More and more of the energy in the universe is being consumed by waste chaos, aka heat. Spontaneous processes left by themselves are more likely to have entropy than perfect order; a blob of ink dissipates as a cloud into water; milk spills but doesn't unspill; eggs splatter but do not unsplatter; waves break but do not unbreak; we always grow older, never younger. Everything rots, and dies. These processes all move in one direction in time - they are called "time-irreversible" and define the arrow of time. Think of it as the universe decaying more and more (Black holes are no exception due to Hawking Radiation). This entropy can also be accelerated by runaway Dark Energy's ability to rip everything apart.

Fast forward in time, and almost all of the Spirals are extinct. The Anti-Spirals have succeeded in suppressing their emotions almost completely. Equivalent Exchange and dark energy rule the universe. Spiral Nemesis is out of the equation. However, eventually their triumph will end, when they will be forced to face the slow alternative, death by Entropy. If Dark Energy does not tear spacetime apart first, everything will rot and die in a whimper. The Anti-Spirals realized their mistake, and tried to revive some of their remaining emotional Spiral Energy to sustain the universe, but a long time has passed and it went completely vestigial, completely non-functional. Nice Job Breaking It, Anti-Spirals.

They rescued a surviving colony of depressed humans nearing extinction, and tried to breed them in an Earth-like environment to help them generate Spiral Energy, even giving them technology and civilization... only to find out that they have been tormented in despair for so long that their Spiral Energy degenerated severely and irreversibly (ala Uzumaki), and can only be obtained from the angst of highly-emotional females. The Anti-Spirals, using their technology, aid them in doing a one-time reality warp while ripping their souls out to maximize energy generation, with the consequences of tragedy, absolute despair and mutation into an Eldritch Abomination.

With their new purpose of harvesting energy instead of suppressing it, the Anti-Spirals renamed themselves... The Incubators.

The Anti-Spirals represent the idea that God Is Evil.

Compare the Anti-Spirals to common tropes and storylines where God is a tyrant, or criticisms of Him:

• The Anti-Spirals plan of inflicting absolute despair would effectively remove our ability to choose through Sadistic Choice. One of the main criticisms of religion and God is that He seems to favour obedience and being strict instead of freedom.
• Chaos Is Evil is a common theme in faiths, and desire is often considered the root cause of suffering. In God Is Evil settings, God is a dullard figure trying to inflict absolute order while those who Rage Against the Heavens are fond of passions and desire. The same rule applies to the Anti-Spirals and Team Dai-Gurren.
• The majority of God Is Evil themes have God as a Knight Templar who thinks that whatever He does is right-rarely is the Almighty a Card-Carrying Villain. The Anti-Spiral is a Well-Intentioned Extremist at best and an extreme Knight Templar at worst, trying to prevent the universe from being destroyed by the Spiral Nemesis.
• God generally brings a harbinger of His will, whether it be a prophet or Crystal Dragon Jesus. For the Anti-Spiral, this is done in the form of Nia.
• God is meant to be an all-powerful Eldritch Abomination, and the God Is Evil trope turns His eons-lasting scheme into a Cosmic Horror Story. The Anti-Spiral's goal is definitely a horrifying plan, it can warp reality to effectively be all-powerful and is an Eldritch Abomination.
• In almost all examples, when God Is Evil people can Rage Against the Heavens and defeat Him, even if that doesn't make sense considering you can't beat something that is, by definition, all-powerful. There are exceptions, but for the most part it should be impossible. They manage to do it anyway, and Team Dai-Gurren codified achieving the impossible while drilling right through the Anti-Spiral

The reason Yoko wears a bikini into a combat zone...

Is to throw off the focus of her enemies. She'll have a much easier time sniping them because they'll be too busy drooling over her body. And it works. Really works.

How the pit villages work:

The villages generate electricity with nuclear reactors. The uranium to power the reactors is extracted from the surrounding rocks and enriched using electricity generated by the reactors. The reactors power lights that function as an artificial sun in order to grow crops and provide vitamin D for the people. Water and oxygen are extracted from the rocks, again using nuclear power. Digging tunnels is needed both to build earthquake shelters and to extract fresh rock that still has useful materials in it and also to bury radioactive waste.

Gurren Lagann operates on a Rule of Cool version of the oscillating universe model.

Before we discovered how fast the universe expanded, we used to think that eventually gravity would cause the universe to slow down and collapse on itself(the Big Crunch). Albert Einstein posited that this singularity would rebound on itself and expand again, and that this may be how the universe came to be in the first place. And its' been repeating this, over and over. Gurren Lagann exists in a version of this with Rule of Cool being the main source of gravity: ordinarily the universe would just expand forever and get dark. Spiral Energy exists as a method of the universe rebooting itself, in a rather ingenious way; when the universe is getting cold, the power to create Spiral Energy out of awesomeness would help prevent it getting colder by initiating the Big Crunch...and then a new universe. The Anti-Spiral discovered the origin of the universe(the Spiral Nemesis), and wanted to stop it at any cost, unaware at why it was made.

Kamina's dad was Giha Village's chief before finding the surface.

Kamina's dad was shown to be exactly the sort of inspiring person Kamina was, so it's no major leap to suggest that a village population would have turned to him. He and Kamina are also the only people in Giha Village ever shown to wear jewelry or accessories, like the golden skull bracelet or the sunglasses. In the beginning of the series, the resentment shown by the chief towards Kamina and his father could point to frustration, that his predecessor left the village and most likely died, but Kamina was still banding people together to follow him.

The Clarke event was related to Gurren Lagann

In April 2008 an explosion in space was seen from Earth. It happened seven and a half billion years ago, while our solar system was beginning to take shape. The light of the explosion was bright enough to see with the naked eye after traveling more than halfway across the universe. Was it the birth of the anti-spirals? Or maybe their warning to us?

Nia died not because of her link to the Anti-Spiral, but because she kissed Yoko

Simon was there when it happened and thus saw her death coming, hence why he wasn't so alarmed by her fading away.

Spiral Power works on a system of equivalent exchange, as opposed to the actual creation of energy and matter.

The mechanics of Spiral Power, beyond the system of [[Determinator wishing to violate the laws of physics]], seem to be powered by the presence of material that is able to be used, or the energy of the user. Simon and Kamina, for instance, are both unable to generate drills and properly utilize Gurren Lagann on an empty stomach, and after Simon first utilizes spiral-based teleportation and subsequently punches Rossiu in the face, he is noticeably exhausted. And, of course, "creation" of material, such as Simon's instant repair of Gurren Lagann's leg (or the actual Gurren Lagann itself, once Lagann is removed), almost immediately is reversed, as if the metal just sort of dispersed.

Spiral Potential is simply the extent of the user's ability to control the structure of matter, and how long they can maintain this new form. A single person, like Kamina, can only perform simple actions, like inexplicably gaining his trademark sunglasses out of nowhere, or drawing a sword longer than it's sheath, but many people together, like the entire Dai-Gurren team, can maintain the form of a dreadnought the size of a moon.

• Actually, pretty sure it does create matter and energy from nothing. If it didn't, there would be no worry of destroying the Universe.

The unknown source of Spiral Power the Anti-Spiral detected wasn't really Boota.

It was Kamina's spirit, being carried along in the hearts of Team Dai Gurren. Boota was just a Red Herring that threw the Anti-Spiral off the scent and gave Kamina the time he needed to break through to Simon.

Simon knows he'll see Nia again, in the heaven he created.

His is the drill that creates the heavens! Simon had a whole infinite pocket universe provided by the Anti Spirals with which to do as he pleased. The Anti Spiral's lotus eater was essentially a dystopian heaven, so it's not like the creation would be unprecedented. So at that point in the story, he could easily have rewritten the rules of the universe to literally create heaven, make people have souls, and send them there at their death. Frankly, there's no reason not to keep making new parallel universes with spiral energy, to fill with the souls of spiral life so that it can keep evolving into greater and larger universes.

An Alternate Calendar for TTGL

The first 15 episodes take place in Year One of the Kamina Age (1 K.A.)

Episode 17 takes place in 7 K.A.

The Epilogue takes place in 27 K.A.

Following the final battle, all the main characters, or at least the ones who were in Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann itself, are immortal.

Due to being inside this giant mech thing that combined all of their abilities (see it using Simon's drills, Yoko's rifle, etc.), they all absorb some aspect of Viral's longevity. As seen 20 years later, Leeron doesn't appear to have aged (and doesn't care enough to hide it).

Meanwhile, due to not wanting arouse suspicion for whatever reason, characters like Simon and Yoko disguise their age either through makeup or just using their remaining Spiral Power to create the illusion of them being older (one of Simon's eyes still has a spiral in it, whilst we don't see Yoko's, so there's nothing saying she doesn't have the same).

Viral is the spiral nemesis

spiral power tends to mostly progress in individuals progress, not societys, societal progress results in things like gunman that can more easily use that power but the actual raw power comes from individuals, and thus limited by there lifespan, its implied in the ending that viral gained access to spiral power, and he is immortal, his power will continually grow with no limits

The Anti-Spiral's hate for Spirals inability to realize its mistakes is a coping mechanism that caused it to go off the deep end

Judging by its final words, the Anti-Spiral did truely desire to protect the universe. But the Anti-Spiral race could never carry out acts of intergalactic genocide if they held even the slighest capacity to consider that what they did was wrong, so their collective will was only formed from their hate for Spiral races and their undying believe that what they were doing was in the right.

This left the Anti-Spiral incapable of considering that its mission to preserve the universe would lead to the destruction of life outside of itself, in effect defeating its own purpose for preserving the universe. This also factors into its actions when facing enemies, it cannot ever admit that its less than practical methods are wrong, because it would mean the risk of admitting it was wrong about everything else. Which is part of why it died peacefully, seeing it was wrong how to defeat the Spirals, could also mean having to admit it was wrong about all the death it wrought before. For it to truely come to grips with having killed so many innocent beings would be a Fate Worse than Death.

Sometime during the epilogue, Simon hooked up with the reincarnation of Nia

.It happened in a dream I had last night.

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