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Promare Director Hiroyuki Imaishi Discusses Galo's Resemblance to Gurren Lagann's Kamina

Gurren Lagann and Promare director Hiroyuki Imaishi addressed the uncanny resemblance between Promare's Galo and Gurren Lagann's Kamina in an interview posted on Anime! Anime! on February 17. He described Galo as having an "accidental resemblance" to Kamina.

"When I draw protagonists for the pitch, they just always seem to end up with that kind of hair. Gurren Lagann was the same. I give the drawings to the character designer, who workshops it on their end so that the design fits the anime."

Gurren Lagann and Promare screenwriter Kazuki Nakashima also offered his own input. Promare is about firefighting, which means that there's often a wind that blows upward. When there's an upward draft, one's hair naturally stands up as well. "That's why Galo is different from Kamina," Nakashima concluded. "He's got job hair."

Imaishi responded that this was the first time he had ever heard the phrase "job hair," to which Nakashima responded, "I was lying. I only thought that up just now."

In the interview, Imaishi and Nakashima also revealed that the original plot for Promare underwent multiple changes before reaching their eventual form. The earliest idea was to do a "musical with zombies" interpretation of the classic Victor Hugo novel Les Misérables, but after that idea was canned, Nakashima suggested the theme of "fire." There was also internal debate about whether the protagonist should belong to the firefighting squad, the Burnish, or just a normal civilian.

The interview also reiterated several key points that Imaishi shared at AnimeJapan: Pre-production work on Promare first began in 2014, almost immediately after Trigger's previous work Kill la Kill finished airing. Imaishi described the early stages of the production as exceedingly difficult because he and Nakashima wanted to create something that is above and beyond anything they had previously created together. It took three years for their ideas to take shape into the film's current form. Imaishi described the pre-production as “the most time and trouble I've ever had to deal with.”

The film opened in Japan on May 24 in 200 theaters, and ranked at #8 in its opening weekend. The staff previously stated at Anime Expo 2018 that the anime will be similar in tone to Kill la Kill and Gurren Lagann — Imaishi and Nakashima's previous two collaborations. The project was first announced at Anime Expo 2017.

Source: Anime! Anime! (Minako Nakamura)