Spoilers unmarked, view with this in mind.
- Alternative Character Interpretation
- Kray is a greedy man who insists on being the guiding hand of humanity but given that under his cruelty, manipulations, and callousness he does intend for at least some of humanity to live on and repopulate. Is he really just a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist megalomaniac like the film seems to pitch him or was there some sliver of good intent in his deeds?
- How much of Kray's mental state has been chipped away from his Burnish desires?
- Awesome Art: It's all the things one can expect from a Trigger anime (flashy action scenes, crazy-expressive characters, and awesome machine designs) combined with a funky splash of color.
- Awesome Music:
- Captain Obvious Reveal: Most people watching the trailers immediately pegged Kray as an antagonist if not the Big Bad due to the way he was framed in shots as well as Eyes Always Shut characters typically being deceptive in anime. Possibly as a result of this, later promotional material barely even hide it. The English dub goes one further, casting Crispin Freeman as his voice actor.
- Complete Monster:
- Governor Kray Foresight poses as a beloved inventor and politician while harboring a sinister scheme. Capturing and imprisoning the flame-powered Burnish, Kray has them painfully drained of life to power a warp drive for his spaceship to migrate 10,000 humans of his choosing to another planet, intending to leave the rest of humanity to perish on the dying Earth while countless Burnish die thanks to his cruelty. Revealed to have murdered his former partner to take credit for his inventions, Kray cares nothing at learning that his torture of the Burnish is expediting the Earth's destruction as long as he gets to play the role of mankind's hero. Despite his façade of good intentions, the fact that Kray—in truth a Burnish himself—is willing to commit genocide against his own kind, while refusing to seek out a more benevolent route, cements him as a hollow egomaniac driven only by glory and prestige.
- Colonel Vulcan Haestus is the brutal leader of Freeze Force, using the guise of law and order to carry out Governor Kray Foresight's terrible schemes against the Burnish. Having hunted down and captured innocent and criminal Burnish alike over the years, Vulcan violently mistreats his prisoners and laughs off one's death due to his own negligence. The real horror of Vulcan's crimes comes with the reveal that the hundreds of Burnish he captures are handed off to be tortured, experimented on, and turned into living batteries for Kray's technology, a fact that Vulcan is cheerfully aware of and happy to be a part of so long as he gets to satisfy his sadistic, racist superiority complex towards the Burnish. When Heris turns on Kray and teams with the Burning Rescue Squad to save the Burnish, Vulcan attempts to kill them all and ensure every last Burnish meets an agonizing death.
- Ensemble Dark Horse: Thyma has a pretty decent following despite (or maybe as a result of) being a Sacrificial Lamb, with fans gravitating towards her unique design and sympathetic circumstances as the Burnish's resident Audience Surrogate. There is even a Fandom-Specific Plot in which she joins the Mad Burnish.
- Estrogen Brigade: The movie ended up being a huge hit among women, especially Yaoi Fangirls. Galo, Lio, and Kray are the main sources of this phenomenon.
- Epileptic Trees:
- Given how Galo resembles Kamina, many fans expect the former to similarly die like him in the movie. Thankfully this is Jossed. Not only does Galo survive the entire film, but with the exception of Deus Prometh (who was killed by Kray long before the movie began anyway) and Thyma, who Lio tries and fails to revive, none of the main characters die.
- Stemming from the film proper, one can theorize that Promare is set either in the distant past or the future of the Gurren Lagann universe. Of note is a series of shout-outs to its spiritual predecessor, including the Gurren Lagann universe's alphabet and Lagann's Spiral Power Meter for eagle-eyed viewers, the warp engine on Kray's ship is powered by spinning the Burnish in circles, purified Burnish Energy is green just like Spiral Power and even works in a similar way, Lio De Galon looks a lot like something you'd find in Gurren Lagann, and Galo De Lion is a cosmic-sized mecha made out of pure energy just like Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, although only planet-sized as opposed to the size of a significant percentage of the universe.
- There's a number of fans who think that Lucia is a pre-transformation version of Spring, one of TRIGGER's three Trigger Girls much like Luluco/Miss Trigger. They usually cite their similar physiques, Lucia's blonde and pink-streaked hair matching up with Spring's own, and their gas masks as clues.
- Evil Is Cool: Kray Foresight is an utter bastard and also a very popular character judging by an anime popularity poll posted after the movie's release in which he came second to Galo and managed to beat out Lio, a fairly popular character in his own right.
- Fandom Rivalry: With Fire Force, due to the similar premise (heroic firefighters against a race of people who spontaneously gain the ability to create damaging fires) and having a theme song titled Inferno. Some Fire Force fans have accused Promare of ripping it off, although others would argue that whatever similarities are skin-deep.
- Fanfic Fuel:
- With Lio's past hardly being touched upon in canon or in extra material, it has led many to speculate on how he got his Burnish powers, as well as how he became so powerful by the time he appears in the film.
- The aftermath of the Promare returning to their home dimensions and leaving their Burnish hosts. It has led to many fan works exploring how this would not only affect the public image of the Burnish after the world has been saved, but also how the Burnish will now live their lives without their Promare's inside of them as well as how they cope with that loss.
- Harsher in Hindsight:
- The scene in Galo-hen where Kray tells Ignis to consider Galo for Burning Rescue becomes a lot harsher after it's revealed that putting him there in the first place was just one big Uriah Gambit.
- The opening montage of the main film shows a pregnant woman getting beaten by her husband in France before awakening as a Burnish in a rage. During the COVID-19 pandemic, France is one of the places where cases of domestic violence
have risen the most among states where lockdowns have been enforced. - The scene during the climax when Kray calls Galo a cancer on him became a lot harsher after Galo's English voice actor, Billy Kametz, died of cancer in 2022.
- Ho Yay:
- There's the Kiss of Life Galo gives Lio in the movie itself but for out of the movie, official art and merchandise doesn't hold back on giving the shippers more material to work with.
- Galo refers to Kray as "danna", which can mean "master" or "boss" but also doubles as a colloquial term that wives use for their husbands.
- It's the Same, Now It Sucks!: The film has received some criticism for recycling plot elements from prior Trigger and Gainax works, particularly Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, with Galo being dismissed by some as a discount Expy of Kamina, and the plot twist of the Mad Burnish actually fighting a greater evil being considered too predictable by those familiar with the Beastmen fighting the Anti-Spiral. The climax even features a similar escalation of mech sizes. However, there's opposite opinion going around that also vouches that these same elements are what make the film so incredible.
- Just Here for Godzilla: If there's one thing fans of the movie can't stop talking about, it's Lio. His plotline, interactions with Galo, and sheer manliness despite his petite frame made him popular with a wide crowd of people, to the point where newcomers have him as the first thing they know about Promare in general.
- LGBT Fanbase: Unsurprisingly, the movie has a lot of queer male fans aside from the Yaoi fangirls due to the Ho Yay between Lio and Galo that features a kiss. Just like how Trigger's other shows that feature notable female leads have their Les Yay played up in marketing regardless of who they ended up with, Trigger does the same for the movie's two male leads.
- Memetic Mutation:
- In the west, "Twink vs Twunk" between Lio Fotia and Galo due to their contrasting appearances.
- Referring to Galo as a "himbo" is also popular in the west, likely in part due to his good looks and Hot-Blooded Idiot Hero personality.
- Drawing Galo in a Hooters uniform is popular among fan artists.
- Ships That Pass in the Night: Aina is often paired with Thyma even though they only share a single scene in the Galo-hen prequel short.
- OT3:
- Lio/Galo/Kray for the boy shipping crowd, Aina/Galo/Lio for the bisexual crowd.
- There's also Guiera/Lio/Meis, though usually seen as a platonic variant of this.
- Unintentionally Unsympathetic: Heris is meant to be the Foresight Foundation's Token Good Teammate going along with Kray's plan for the sake of her sister Aina, eventually turning on Kray to help save the day. The problem is that she is shown to be aware of what she is doing to the Burnish, and her turning point involves finding out about information (Kray's murder of Prometh and that the Promare will destroy the Earth) completely independent of the suffering of the Burnish. The act meant to redeem her, destroying the Promatech engine, involves overfueling it when the engine was already established to harm the Burnish. Overall, the excuse that she wanted to save Aina is pretty flimsy when she never gets over her callousness towards the Burnish.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character:
- Burning Rescue and Lio's teammates don't really have much in the way of significant screen presence, with the focus almost exclusively on Galo and Lio. Some have said that the movie would've worked better as an anime series to flesh the rest of the characters out. At the very least, we do see a softer side to Gueira and Meis in Side Lio when they interact with Thyma.
- On a much more minor note, many fans have voiced their disappointment that the Mad Burnish don't wear their cool-looking Power Armor for much of the movie following their introduction.
- Values Dissonance: From the Japanese crowd, surprisingly. The English dub's version of Galo reviving Lio (particularly the part in the sequence where he's telling the dying Lio to keep clinging onto life) is pretty infamous among fans. One particular line, where Galo tells Lio to "stay with [him]"note , drew eyebrows since its use as a line in rescue or medical settings is uncommon in Japan. It is however known in the romantic "be by my side" context—as such, many fans saw it as a bit of Ship Tease akin to an Anguished Declaration of Love.
- Viewer Gender Confusion: Lio Fotia initially, despite his male voice actor being revealed alongside him. It doesn't help that his voice actor has a career in Onnagata, leading western fans to speculate that he was a rare female character voiced by a male voice actor. Also not helped by the fact that ANN didn't use gendered pronouns for his initial translated description, leading to speculation that the character's gender was meant to be ambiguous. note This died down when an official translated version of his profile came out, using male pronouns for the character. Unlike his appearance, his voice is also strongly masculine.
- Visual Effects of Awesome: The first PV is beautiful. And that's not to go without mentioning the rest of the film, which makes great use of its vibrant colors and animation, and the action scenes which manage to mesh together CGI and 2D animation in a borderline perfect manner, especially during the Lio De Galo Vs Krazor X fight. And of course, the final sequence of the Galo De Lion burning out the planet, which is ALL done in beautiful 2D animation.
