By As the Team Gurren rests in a canyon, Chitori–a young cat-like beastgirl–sneaks up on a sleeping Kamina and uses a permanent marker to black out his sunglasses. When Kamina wakes up, he immediately assumes himself to be blind and makes a huge fuss until an annoyed Yoko pulls off his sunglasses. Chitori then impresses Kamina by polishing his shades to a mirror-shine with a quick spray of her special cleaning solution. She then volunteers to clean the rather grimy Gurren. Jealous of Lagann’s shine (which is thanks to Simon’s tireless work), Kamina grants her permission. But just as Chitori engulfs Gurren in lather, an enemy Gunmen comes flying into the canyon. Kamina and Yoko join Simon in Lagann in order to chase the Gunmen down, but rather than fighting the Gunmen begins running in the opposite direction. Lagann gives chase, but the trio soon become concerned that they might be running right into a trap. Just as they decide to turn back, Lagann is attacked from behind by a surprisingly clean Gurren. It seems that Chitori set them up in order to allow her father, Jigitalis to steal Gurren. Simon attempts to unite Lagann with Gurren in order to take it back, but Jigitalis produces a Gunmen-sized nail bat and knocks Lagann away. Angered by the theft of his robot, Kamina jumps out of Lagann intending to take Gurren back with his own two hands, but promptly falls of a cliff instead. Before Simon and Yoko can rescue him, Jigitalis’ counterattack forces them to back off. Fortunately, Kamina saves himself by embedding his sword in the cliff wall, and when he climbs back up, he discovers an abandoned rabbit-like Gunmen. Meanwhile, Simon finds himself outclassed by Gurren and the other Gunmen, but is suddenly rescued by Kamina and his new Gunmen, which he names Usaggon (to Jigitalis’ (Usaggon’s former owner) annoyance). Kamina knocks Gurren away and tells Simon to unite with Usaggon–and idea Simon isn’t horribly fond of. None the less, Kamina has his way, and Usaggon-Lagann is born. Despite its lack of arms, Usaggon-Lagann is able to deliver a stunning blow to Gurren, giving Simon the chance he needed to abandon Usaggon and re-unite with Gurren. Having lost control of Gurren, Jigitalis abandons the mech and runs for Usaggon, while Kamina jumps back to Gurren. Unfortunately, Jigitalis is saved when Chitori enters the scene with a Gunmen of her own and combines with Usaggon, allowing the father and daughter to escape unharmed.
This half-episode came as a bonus with the Japan-only Gurren-Lagann Nintendo DS game and seems to have been meant to fill in a gap in the game’s original story (thus explaining why Chitori came out of nowhere). It’s about ten minutes long and takes place between episode five and six of the original series. Sadly, it’s production values were obviously quite a bit lower than that of the series and thus we’re left with a rather bland gag episode that doesn’t really add anything of note to the established characters or world. Despite that, though, it was nice to see them taking advantage of Lagann’s abilities, even if it didn’t turn out so horribly well (I still wish we could have seen a Dai Gurren-Lagann or Enkidu-Lagann). And who could really turn down the opportunity to see the original Team Gurren back in action?
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