Who Is Antispiral, Which Anime Is He from? (& 12 Other Questions Answered)

Gurren Lagann is an anime that not many people know about, but this mecha comedy has its cult following and a devoted fandom. The original 27-episode anime series aired from April 1, 2007  to September 30, 2007, with an anime movie being released in 2009. A manga based on the anime series was subsequently published, ending its run in 2013. In this article, we are going to dig into the world of Gurren Lagann as we tell you who Antispiral, one of the show’s most iconic, characters is.

Antispiral is both the leader of and the physical manifestation of the Anti-Spiral consciousness, after they had sealed themselves to purge their race of Spiral Power. Their advanced technology gave them godlike powers. With these abilities, they are able to manipulate the laws of physics and quantum mechanics.

This article is going to be the most informative guide on Antispiral you need. We’re going to give you a full introduction to the character, as well as the concept behind it. You’re going to get a lot of answers related to Antispiral, as we plan on answering a total of 14 questions about the character. This is going to be your ultimate guide to the Antispiral character and its role in the Gurren Lagann anime.

Who is Antispiral?

Antispiral is at the same time the leader and the physical manifestation of the Anti-Spiral Consciousness, having sealed themselves off to free their race from Spiral power. Their advanced technology gives them god-like powers that appear as red energy when used.

With these abilities, they are able to manipulate the laws of physics and quantum mechanics (to the point of altering probability), which they regularly use both offensively and to intimidate. Antispiral is the arch-enemy of Lordgenome, who is responsible for Lordgenome’s madness after explaining to him the nature of the Spiral Nemesis). He is the main antagonist of the Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann series.

What anime is Antispiral from?

Antispirall is the main antagonist of the Gurren Lagann anime series. Gurren Lagann, or Tengen Toppa Guren Ragan, is a Japanese animated television series from Studio Gainax co-produced by Aniplex and Konami. The twenty-seven episodes aired on Japan’s TV Tokyo channel from April 1 to September 30, 2007.

Directed by Hiroyuki Imaishi and written by Kazuki Nakashima, production was halted when Imaishi took part in some episodes of the Abenobashi mahou☆shotengai produced by the same studio. Two animated films were then released. A manga adaptation drawn by Kazuki Nakashima was published between April 2007 and June 2013 and compiled into ten volumes by ASCII Media Works. A video game was also released for the Nintendo DS on October 25, 2007.

As for the plot, Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann is set in the distant future where humanity has been forced to live underground, creating isolated subterranean civilizations. These cities have no contact with the surface or with the other underground villages. Earthquakes are frequent and cause damage to villages.

Individuals, called “diggers”, are designated to dig further underground in order to enlarge the territories. The story features Simon, a 14-year-old orphan driller, and Kamina, who refers to himself as Simon’s older brother despite not being related to him. Kamina is the troublemaker of the village, he cannot bear the existence imposed on them and dreams of going to the surface to live free.

He claims to have been there in the past with his father, who has since disappeared, but few people believe him. One day, Simon discovers, while digging, a pendant in the shape of a spiral, as well as a kind of big face buried underground, while a mechanical monster suddenly attacks the locality, proof that there is an Outer World and that Kamina was right. Kamina and Simon, joined by Yoko, a girl from another village who was in pursuit of the monster, then protect the village by fighting this monster, which is actually called a “Ganmen”.

Thanks to the spiral pendant, which is actually a key to activate the face that Simon found (in fact, another Ganmen), Simon and Kamina manage to save the inhabitants but also to reach the surface and discover the sky. It is there that Yoko explains to them the terrible reality of the World in which they live: the surface is traversed by Ganmen, led by “Beastmen” (“men-beasts”), whose sole mission is to kill humans.

The inhabitants who have chosen to live on the surface are thus constantly attacked by these Ganmen against whom they barely manage to resist. However, Kamina refuses this fate. He names Simon Lagann’s Ganmen and while fighting Beastmen, he manages to steal another Ganmen which he names Gurren (“scarlet”).

While humans were supposedly unable to pilot Ganmen, Kamina’s force of will managed to defeat this logic, and by combining Gurren and Lagann, along with the entire “Gurren Dan” (Gurren Brigade in French), he begins a fight against the empire of Lord Genome, the Spiral King, who rules this world and seeks to confine humans to their subterranean existence.

Is Antispiral a god?

Antispiral is so advanced that it is practically godlike (although it is not actually a deity, just a being similar to one). The only reason it does not annihilate its enemies with ease is its philosophy of “absolute despair.” The remarkable powers of the Antispiral include:

• Unarmed Combat: Although not shown in the anime, the Antispiral embodiment displays some hand-to-hand combat skills in the compilation film. It can also project tendrils from its body to impale enemies.
• Probability Change: Antispiral is able to change the probability of something happening. This means that Antispiral and its constructs are able to perform attacks that cannot be blocked, as the probability of them being blocked is simply wiped out.
• Dimensional Maze: Antispiral is able to trap sentient beings in a maze of parallel universes to incapacitate them.
• Field of Death Spiral: An Anti-Spiral defense mechanism that projects a water-like field of Anti-Spiral energy that drains Spiral energy from all nearby life forms extremely quickly, converting them to more Anti-Spiral energy.

How strong is Antispiral?

Along with the above-mentioned powers and abilities, Antispiral is also capable of summoning certain constructs, which make it even more powerful. They are:

• Granzeboma: When the Dai Gurren crew summons Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann by sheer force of will, Antispiral manifests an equivalent mecha of its own, the Granzeboma. This mecha is larger than a galaxy and can easily match and even surpass its counterpart.
• Ashtanga: A fearsome anti-spiral warship that looks like a collection of stone faces. Armed with probability-altering missiles, defended by probability-negation shields, able to grab and throw small planetoids, and equipped with a swarm of smaller ships in the shape of hands or feet, these huge ships are more than a match for any Spiral force.
• Mugann: Digital-looking ships manifested by the Anti-Spiral Messenger from nowhere. Mugann are usually armed with powerful lasers and robust energy shields that repel most attacks. When destroyed, they turn into a cloud of explosive pixel-like cubes. There are many types of mugann. Simple Mugann usually attack in swarms, while the largest Mugann can reach the size of a large warship.

What can Antispiral do?

It is not known what the Anti-Spiral is capable of outside of its dimension, but within it, it is almost omnipotent. He is able to change the laws of physics, control space and create matter from nothing, all without the use of spiral energy. However, he seems to be able to move freely between the Antispiral and our dimensions, and even create illusions in our dimension.

How tall is Antispiral?

Antispiral looks like a black silhouette with white empty eyes. The image on the body changes quite often: it may be in plain black, may look like part of dark gray brickwork, etc. Before dying, the Antispiral changes its color scheme, becoming either yellow, then blue, then green. As you can see, Antispiral can change its appearance, including its size, so it’s exact height is not known, as it can change with relative ease.

How old is Antispiral?

Antispiral was, at one point, created when the Anti-Spiral race decided to stop their evolution and transfer their collective consciousness into one sentient being. The Anti-Spiral race is very old, as is Antispiral, but their exact ages remain unknown as they have never been revealed in the anime.

Is Nia an Anti-Spiral?

Throughout most of the third story arc, Nia serves as the anti-spiral ambassador for the humans during the activation of the system to destroy the humans on Earth. After the anti-spiral data awakens in her and she transforms into an anti-spiral life form, she becomes an emotionless and serious person, the exact opposite of what Nia was before. As a messenger, she wears a dark, skin-tight suit covered with red line patterns reminiscent of a circuit board, and the previously pink iris of her eyes has turned black.

As you can see, Nia is an artificial being created by the Anti-Spirals, but despite that, for most of the time, she was just an artificial creation and not an Anti-Spiral. It was only later that Antispiral manipulated her body and turned her into an actual Anti-Spiral, which means that Nia both is and is not an Anti-Spiral.

Who can defeat Antispiral?

From what we could gather, it doesn’t take anything special to actually defeat Antispiral. You have to be there, you have to fight it but if you manage to overpower it, like Simon and the company, it will die and even be destroyed along with its universe. Anyone who would be able to surpass Antispiral’s power would be able to defeat it so there’s really no special condition that has to be met.

How many universes did Antispiral destroy?

Since it would not do, to stop the end of the universe, to stop their own evolution, Antispiral decided to suppress the evolution of every other sentient race in the universe, by force if necessary. In most cases, the Anti-Spirals are content to suppress sentient species and prevent them from evolving further.

However, should a world prove too determined to resist, they would completely wipe out that world’s sentient population. To this end, the Anti-Spirals implant sleepers among sentient species whose genetic code is set to become “Anti-Spiral Messengers” when certain conditions are met (e.g., when a planet’s population exceeds a certain number).

It is not known exactly how many universes have been destroyed by these means, but knowing how expansive and large the universe is, we assume that the number of universes destroyed in such a manner is not insignificant but, in the end, we can only speculate.

Is Antispiral immortal?

When Simon and the others use their spiral power to create Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann, Antispiral creates a mecha equal to him, the Grand Zamboa. The mechas clash in an epic battle in which the Antispiral reveals its motives, claiming that the Spiral Force will lead to the Spiral Nemesis. Nevertheless, Team Dai-Gurren destroys the collective embodiment of the Anti-Spirals, along with its universe, and Nia, its Messenger.

This fact actually shows us that Antispiral is not immortal and that it can be killed and destroyed, as it was in the anime series where it first appeared.

Is Antispiral omnipotent?

This question, as we have established, doesn’t have one single answer. Namely, in its own dimension, Antispiral is practically omnipotent; it is capable of doing anything it wants and it can freely manipulate the space and time within that dimension. On the other hand, we don’t know if its powers and abilities are limited (and if so, how much) in other dimensions. We know that it has some powers in other dimensions as well, but we’ve never really been introduced to their full extent.

Is Antispiral the strongest anime character?

Antispiral is quite strong, but from what we gather, it is not the strongest anime character. And while it might have substantial powers and abilities, especially in its home dimension, it doesn’t seem to be near the power level of some other major players in the world of manga and anime, which is why our answer is as it is.

The thing with anime is that Antispiral is by no means a unique character. There are a lot of similar characters out there and these characters are far more powerful than Antispiral (think, for example, Zeno or Beerus from Dragon Ball), which doesn’t really make Antispiral special on a larger scale, although it is extremely powerful in its own universe.

Is Antispiral evil?

Antispiral cannot actually be called a villain, as its actions are aimed at preserving the universe. However, to achieve its goal, it uses any means, ranging from simple attacks to the genocide of an entire race. Antispiral usually acts reserved, even aloof, but is capable of experiencing emotions such as curiosity or surprise.

It also has some sadistic tendencies. It feels contempt for the Spiral races, including humans, believing that they use such power only for their own desires. But to some, like Lorgen or Simon, it expresses respect, and even tries to win them over to its side. It even asks the latter, before his death, to protect the universe at any cost, which even more speaks of the Antispiral’s respect for strong rivals.

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