When pondering over the latest post over on another blog I was struck by the recurrence of one of those good old Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann ideas: “GAR, as a part of identity, is about becoming, not being.”. I immediately garbled out a comment, and now I have had time to think about it.

One might argue for adopting anime for the sake of unique narrative devices; and lo it is good to accept the world of anime fans for their faith in concepts we don’t always find at home. Like this Gar business – as laid out in the definitive multi-part text – the adoration reaction in the face of power, the love of the big man.

But there’s love, and then there’s emulation.

Idolisation is an exercise in fixity. Character x is Gar, their identity is fixed to that value. If it’s a sheepdog persona, then that’s because this is a person of a different breed/species from the rest. Like how the foolish Gintoki retains his fundamental (soul) power. Fixity is part of the glory.

Gar is, after all, a reaction. And as such it’s based in the fundamental situation of observing someone else, which places you are outside of their head. You label them something because you don’t share their mind. In the case of Gar, you label them with greatness and your own admiration. It doesn’t matteer how much data you gather about the idol or how much you attempt to humanise them with familiarity. In the end the relationship is still spectatorial.

[I'd note that IKnight's  pinpointing of Gar as the opposite of moe is helpful here. Someone is not moe because they fell over or blushed. Moe is who they are. Which is why we might want to proceed with a proggram of genetic collaboration.]

This feeling may bring us to aim to be like the source of Gar – to follow what they do. This also fixes them into a framework. Which is where the becoming argument comes in:

“Yes, but that finality is not GAR, and also, the journey is eternal: there is no real end.”

Which is the essential point of the post I referenced above. Gar seen as a  process of perpetually re-affirming one’s own best identity.

So what digiboy offers is an idea of Gar which is all about emulation.

“I’d like to think I’ve reached Kamina’s level, but I still find him inspirational. It’s less a goal and more a journey. Like, I’m not trying to reach Kamina, I’m trying to reach where he’s trying to reach”.

This is a Gar dynamic based on empathy – where emulation becomes about understanding the mind behind the person and so making admiration into something practical.

But I don’t think this empathetic idea of Gar maximises the spectators’ sentiment. In fact the denial of fixity undermines the appeal of Gar. Perfect Gar denies empathy, because it swamps our reaction in a single overwhelming feeling. Because of this I turn for empathetic relationships to characters who are pre-Gar.

The pre-Gar person I’m interested in is defined by unused potential. The character may have an idol figure of their own. If so, at the moment of crisis the idol is gone/dead/beaten. Our hero acts, and wins. Heroically.

But they are still not Gar.

Our sense of admiration is undermined, or simply not allowed to reach overwhelming levels. They cannot become an idol – their journey is still one of aspiration, not replication. Gar definitely exists and there is a clear association between the hero and the potential to be amazing, but the ultimate state remains not just elusive, but tantalising. In other words, Gar is not the automatic possession of whoever is stronger than us. It requires collusion on the part of the author. It is an issue of presentation.

This is what I love. Checking out Soul Eater’s Maka, it’s clear that this is her condition. She has the power – but she’s still the weakest of our central meister trio, which pre-empts any idolisation. When she uses the Demon Hunter, it is a borderline Gar moment because it is cool and the explosion is massive. But the goal of the team is unfulfilled and any sense of triumph is weakened. I may admire Maka, but the relationship isn’t remotely Gar.

We can see the pre-Gar in most characters who later become Gar. It comes from hinting at something fantastic about that person. There’s TTGLs Simon – whose power was always infinite. Or any number of protagonists who are as yet unfulfilled and operating in a show prepared to put its heroes on a pedestal.

Let’s take Ichigo from Bleach:

When he smacked the Menos Grande back in Karakura town, that was a hint of Gar – but he didn’t kill it. When he beat Ikkaku or Renji it was still just hinting, because they weren’t all that strong or serious. When he beat Kenpachi it was all but Gar. It was so close to true Gar it hurt. But in the end our hero was also unconscious and bleeding. And there was insufficient emotional weight behind that victory – we weren’t likely to be overcome with feeling. No, what it took was the massively built up Byakuya: with lives on the line, a central stage, and a Bankai! for good measure. That was Gar; that was the end of the journey from absence to presence. Conclude Bleach there (just stop watching), and Ichigo is a pre-Gar character – we’d never see him live on in Gar form.

Such an set-up is arguably less helpful than a recurrent Gar-ness, but so much easier for me to think myself into. It is an alternative to the classical hero. It includes all that magnificent absolute power, but in the form of a moment to come. It is one of my favourite anime tropes.

The sought for identity which comes from emulating Gar is, after all, based in the external – it is wanting to be like people who are not you. It is wanting to be like a person on the grounds of how you have reacted to them emotionally. It is impossible – but that’s why it’s special.

The best Gar is impossible to emulate. It can only be expressed empathetically when the character in question is not Gar yet. Instead of adjusting the nature of Gar to make it humanised, we simply construct a story about a human character relating to this impossible absolute version of Gar. And we show them obtaining it; impossibly becoming the other at the climactic moment. Maybe there’s a postscript (e.g. FLCL) – but it tends to depict the morning after, and they are no longer Gar.

This is in a sense self-defeating. Gar in that form can’t be right – it doesn’t chime with how people actually work. It charts a movement from a character we feel for to a character who is absolutely defined by a single emotional reaction we have to them. This is wonderful nonsense.

Gurren-Lagann surely has to be right that any actual Gar is in the form of a repeated becoming. That to be Gar is to deny personal fixity. Or to die at the xenith and never fall from grace.

But there’s no joy for me in this idea of repetition, no triumph. It’s a guide to practical emulation, but one which doesn’t inspire me to actually try. Real Gar, a Gar which is human, is unloveable.

I can only care about pre-Gar, the consumation of which is massively satisfying, but impossible to emulate permanently. It’s wish fulfillment of the most hopeless and mesmerising variety.

Of course, it’s not a total let-down. It can still make us strive to improve, and we can empathise for the duration of the journey. And maybe in our best moments we can hit our own peaks, and look back on them like spectators. It’s just that we’ll never reach the ultimate identity-shifting goal ourselves. The most we can hope for is a substitute state.