Gainax in Germany
Studio Gainax is a reocurring guest at the german anime convention Connichi. This year the whole Gurren Lagann team attended, and they also screened the Gurren-hen movie on a big screen! They were also holding a Q&A panel as well as autograph sessions (which actually became drawing sessions).

The list of guests:
Hiroyuki Yamaga (Gainax founding member and director of some GL episodes)
Takami Akai (GL producer)
Yasuhiro Takeda (GL producer)
Hiroyuki Imaishi (GL director)
Masahiko Otsuka (director of some GL episodes)
You Yoshinari (GL mecha designer)
Atsushi Nishigori (GL character designer

My thoughts on the movie:
(Sorry if any of these things are old news)

- the Lord Genome intro is FUCKING AWESOME. It's basically the new parallel works movie with a different BGM and Anti Spiral talking.
- after the Lord Genome intro it starts out basically like the TV series, with some really minor differences
- the following ~100 minutes are just a recap of episode 1 to 10 or 11.
- it's really fast paced, I think Kamina's death just doesn't have the same impact on the viewer as it did in the series since he doesn't get introduced that well
- the finale is really different,the remaining 3 generals and viral attack together and put pressure on the Gurren-dan. The "revival" of Simon is done much more impressively, it rivals the scenes in the final episodes of the series visually and emotionally, maybe even outdoes them. It was so overdone it was almost ridiculous.
- the fight of the Gurren-dan is completely redone as well
- the catfight between Yoko and Adiane is FLCL-batshit insane, yet kinda short
- the gattai version of the general's mecha isn't too stunning since it doesn't do too much, but the "Giga Drill Breaker Gurren Dan Special" is again so overdone I wonder how they want to top that in the second movie

tl;dr: the new footage is awesome but 80% of the movie is just a plain (boring) recap.

The Panel:
- They don't yet know what to do exactly in the second movie, but if I understood them right it should hit theatres in april 2009.
- Some dork asked whether they're planning to release a new OST with LESS "Row Row Fight the Powah" during the songs, which was followed by loud catcalls from the audience. Takeda just answered "no".
- Gainax themselves asked the audience what they want to see in the second movie, the same dork as before asked for "more Getter beams". They just shrugged that idea of by saying GL is fighting with drills, not with beams.
- No plans about working together with Jam Project.
- A girl was pointing out that you could see Jeeg and Getter heads in the intro movie and was asking in how far that was intentional. Yoshinari sounded like he felt caught, pointed out that the girl has good eyes but there was no deep intention behind that, they just look alike.
- I think Yoshinari said he wasn't looking forward to designing mecha, but Imaishi plead with him and so he did it.
- Usually Imaishi gives a really rough sketch of a character for the character designer who then refines it. That wasn't the case with Attenborough though, he is just like the sketch.
- They asked the audience for their favorite scene, but the reactions were very mixed and they said it's just like the japanese audience.
- The term Giga Drill Breaker came from the writer, but the final product was a teamwork of the writer, Imaishi and Yoshinari.
- Someone asked what they felt was the main difference between working on the TV series and the movie. The Character designer said "drawing bigger tits for Yoko".
- Someone compared the beginning of the series to a work of Plato (no joke). Something about them being in the cave and shut off from the outer world being alike to people shutting themselves off from the outside or something. Gainax just answered that they just wanted to show the path of a character from "the bottom to the top".
- About fansubs: Yamaga said he really can't blame fansubbing or the internet, because japanese animation wouldn't be as successfull as it is now without those. Additionally he compared fansubs to watching the stuff for free on TV. However he said that most people who like the series will buy the DVDs and it would be sad if they didn't.

The stuff I got:


My girl got:


Imaishi with bunny ears: