Animate variant

Single volume cover variant exclusive to Animate stores, released to celebrate the series’ debut in Japan in tankobon format.

Not incredibly rare in itself, since it was produced for the entire first print run of the volume, but we’re still talking about the phenomenal success that is Gurren Lagann, an anime that makes any fan lose all sense of reason. So it’s no surprise that today it’s not exactly easy to find.

Yoko and Kamina have never looked better, but the fascinating detail is the “meta” element: on the cover, the characters – dressed as store clerks – are fiddling with manga whose cover happens to be… the regular edition of the same volume.

A clever little mirror trick, a neat metatextual touch.