Several Gunmen
Gunmen or also known as Ganmen are the main type of mecha used in the anime series Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. The name itself means "face/facade"(顔面 ガンメン Face Surface), and can be broken down into "gun" and "man" — unsurprisingly, the mecha themselves are centered around faces and as such are very varied with few in the series being the same model. Gunmen sport a variety of weaponry: primitive models only use large clubs or bare hands, while advanced ones use solid or beam weaponry. Gunmen are powered by their human pilots' Spiral Power (fighting spirit), or by electricity when piloted by a Beastman.
Description[]
The code name "gunmen" was applied to the system originally known as "system that shares the mutually-expanded awareness through the joint-developed man-machine interface." The face area of gunmen is laid out like a series of cranial cortices, mimicking the brain functions. Information is directly shared with the pilot's brain, displayed from a central monitor via highly-specialized symbols. The pilot controls the Gunmen through the use of control sticks that directly send neural signals to the mecha itself. In this way, the pilot can receive advanced sensory information regarding the battlefield and control the Gunmen's movements as easily as they would control their own bodies. Gunmen were also designed for space combat, so no further modifications were necessary when Team Dai-Gurren was launched with their Gunmen into the Earth's satellite orbit to fight the Anti-Spirals.
History[]
First Anti-Spiral War[]
The original purpose of the Gunmen was in lunar resource exploration, but were repurposed to battle the Anti-Spirals, the main antagonistic force of the series. Lordgenome developed them about 1,000 years before the events in the series on a very large scale, with enormous Gunmen called Dai-Guns, like the Dai-Gunzan and Arc-Gurren, being much more commonplace than the smaller models seen through most of the series. However, after Lordgenome succumbed to the Antispirals and returned to Earth, the Gunmen were given to the Beastmen to eliminate any humans on the surface.
Beastmen War Arc[]
Beginning with Team Dai-Gurren, a revolution spread, and many began seizing Gunmen from Beastmen to revolt against Lordgenome at Tepplin.
Anti-Spiral War Arc[]
After Lordgenome's defeat and the fall of Tepplin, a new government rose and banned the use of Gunmen, sending them to be scrapped and produced replacements called Grapearls, developed through research of Gurren Lagann. However, they were ineffective against Mugann as they lacked Spiral Power.
Epilogue[]
After the events of the series, there are very few Gunmen left in existence aside from Gurren Lagann and the Super Galaxy Dai-Gurren, with the large bulk of Earth's military being made up of Grapearls.
