For those who don't know, Birth Of A Nation was the first film to explore the power of film. It employed innovative and revolutionary new camera and story telling techniques that would forever change cinema as we know it.

It was also the most racist movie ever made in the history of North American film.

This brings us to Gurren Lagann as it is know in the west. It's a great series, and likely to be remembered as such for decades to come. It way of manging to tell an epic tail in a very short amount of time is unparallelled. As is it's ability to balance both bitter realities of war and genocide with the comedic goofiness of bugs bunny cartoon.

All that however does not excuse the glaring chauvinism throughout the series. It's marred by blatant patriarchal sexism and homophobic caricatures and threats.

The series emphasizes "manly strength" and is filled with phallic imagery. Per se, those things aren't necessarily bad, but the series keeps driving through the importance of manliness, and constantly exemplifies the apex of that being bravado and protecting women. Trust me when I say I'm not inferring too much, they drive home this point at least once an episode. If all that weren't bad enough, the women of this show blindly accept and embrace men's chauvinistic attitudes. The men of the show are constantly swearing to protect "their" women, and the women never assert that they can protect themselves. Not that they can mind you, as after the first few episodes any woman resembling an action girl ends up as serving no greater role than as a damsel in distress.

I could go on, but I've limited word count, so to homophobia. The show has one gay character, and he's effeminate sexual predator. He'll hit on anything with a penis, including children. In addition to this whenever he makes a sight pass at male they react with both fear and violence. In the episode he first appears in, Kamina threatens to kill him for it; twice. Bad enough as that is, it gets worse as Kamina is cast as the embodiment of manliness, effectively teaching young males everywhere that homosexual men are a threat to masculinity itself, and should be treated as such.

It is a shame, like BOAN, it's brilliance is defiled by the writer's own social ignorance and bigotry, causing this potentially revolutionary series becomes nothing more than regressive.

"Who the hell do you think I am?!"

A now famous quote that is Kamina's battle cry, Simon's battle cry, and arguably the show's battle cry. Gurren Lagann is a show that screams this in every way, shattering all limitations placed upon the constraints of its world. In doing so, it becomes what is arguably the most epic anime on the map today, in every sense of the word.

Gurren Lagann is an epic story, because the narrative actually is the layout of classic epic poetry. A vast limitless setting to journey across, passionate speeches, and heroes that embody the hopes and dreams of entire civilizations. It is a tried-and-true formula that Lagann follows to the letter but takes it beyond imagination.

Lagann is animated expertly by the infamous veteran studio Gainax. A studio known for inventive directing, and this series is no exception. Animation is jerky and sketchy, but given the sheer energy of the material and it's unbridled force, it works and it works perfectly. You may not like the look of it, but that doesn't mean it's not appropriate. Only one episode of the bunch really stands out in quality, but it is a one-time slip... still it is a massive slip so points need to be taken off for it. Everything else is Grade-A material.

The journey of Gurren Lagann is accompanied by an epic soundtrack. The use of rap doesn't always work, but the majority of the music is not rap, and does well to highlight the epic nature of the series with swelling brass, snare drums, and even opera. The sum of it sounds like a grand call to war, which fits the series perfectly.

To be frank, very frank, when I finished Gurren Lagann I felt like my soul had had an enlightenment. The passionate dialogue and grandiose animation are rhetorically dynamic. You feel what Simon feels, you want what Simon wants, and you go through it all with a deep sense of satisfaction. Gurren Lagann is a genius anime, but it is also a respectable triumph in general entertainment, anime or otherwise.

Well, it's springtime and the first movie of the remake duology is probably hitting a torrent near you. Does it stack up to the original series? Does it manage to capture that same intense rush of emotion and fieriness of the TV series? Let's find out, shall we?

The first three-fourths of the film cover the events of the Kamina arc and the beginning of the Nia arc. The term "remake" is stretching it a bit, as while a few scenes do have slightly more polished animation, we are watching footage ripped straight from the TV series, right down to the infamous art style from episode 4 that sent viewers into a childish tizzy. Pacing is an issue here, as while there is some compression, there's not enough of it and the movie starts to drag a bit. It's not until forty-five minutes into the film that the group even sets out with the Gurren Lagann. Consequently, major events such as the meeting of Kittan and Rossiu are done in a Time Compression Montage, resulting in one only knowing the characters' names and not much else about them, or why they're tagging along.

The climatic battle of the movie is where we finally get a completely original sequence, with full-borne movie quality animation. The three remaining Generals, including Viral with his own version of the Dai-Gunzan attack the Dai-Gurren in an all-out assault, with the intent of showing the humans around the world their defeat, much like Guame tried to do in the original series. I liked this battle because it let all of the members of the group, like Kidd and Zoshi, do something, even if it's just holding off grunt Gunmans. Yoko even gets to show off her Action Girl credentials by taking on a horde of Beastmen and Adiane by herself. Simon's "rebirth", as it's called, is just as much fun to watch this time around as it was the last. The whole thing ends with the Generals' motherships combining to form a humongous craft which is sadly taken down before it does much of anything. In fact, apart from Adiane's fight with Yoko, the Generals really don't do all that much in the battle. Heck, all Cytomander really gets to do is menace Nia a bit and scream like a girl.

If you're looking for an entirely new product, you're out of luck, and better off skipping to the last half-hour. If you want a reminder of what the series originally had to offer, go right ahead and enjoy.