The Black Siblings

Four teenage orphans sharing the family name Bachika travel the wasteland as self-styled hunters of Beastmen, calling themselves the Black Siblings. Kittan is the oldest, with Kiyoh next, then Kinon, and Kiyal as the youngest. Through the show's first half, the quartet's identical black outfits explain the group's title. By the Anti-Spiral War arc the look splits: Kiyoh and Kiyal have switched to ordinary civilian wear, while Kittan and Kinon, now serving in the government, appear in official uniforms.

Before the story opens, the destruction of their home village drives the siblings out on their own. They resolve to purge the surface of Beastmen, striking with oil bombs they have scavenged or built themselves. Their first brush with the future Team Dai-Gurren comes during a training session in which Kamina hurls boulders at Simon; mistaking the scene for a Gunman assault, the siblings intervene, disabling the Gurren with their bombs and meeting the pair face to face.

A hunting trip soon goes wrong for the three sisters. A furry creature they bring back for food turns out to be sixteen tiny Beastmen, whose Gunman counterattack buries the girls under rubble and leaves them presumed dead. They survive, and the four head off on a path separate from Kamina and Simon. The sisters resurface later at a bathhouse, having lost track of Kittan on the road. When the building reveals itself as a Gunman, Yoko frees them, Kittan turns up for the escape, and Viral's attack on both parties at least allows everyone time to get dressed. While Kamina duels Viral, enemy Gunmen swarm the others until Kittan's King Kittan drives them off, and the siblings watch Gurren Lagann topple Dai-Gunzan.

The siblings hold down the fort whenever the main force deploys. News of Kamina's death crushes them, though Kiyoh channels her grief into becoming a pilot; after working the lower command room of the Dai-Gurren until a Beastman Gunman destroys it, she takes out the Dayakkaiser to back up the team. During the assault on Teppelin she fights the main army alongside Kittan's King Kittan and Kiyal's Kiyalunga while Simon faces Lordgenome, and all four celebrate with the others once the Spiral King falls.

In the interval before the Anti-Spiral War, Kiyoh weds Dayakka and conceives the child destined to be counted as the one millionth human on the surface, while Kittan and Kinon receive posts in the government Team Dai-Gurren establishes. The manga alters their introduction: the siblings show up earlier, during Team Gurren's stay in Littner Village, and Simon learns there that Viral was the one who destroyed their home village of Bachika.

Kittan, the eldest, pilots the King Kittan and later holds a government position; he also briefly leads Team Dai-Gurren. Kiyoh, second oldest, moves from command-room work to piloting the Dayakkaiser, and after the war marries Dayakka. Kinon, the third sibling, handles control-tower and radar duties and joins the new government beside her brother. Kiyal, the youngest, pilots the Kiyalunga in the campaign against Teppelin. All four fight as part of Team Dai-Gurren after their solo hunting days end.