Enki

Enki is the Gunmen that carries Viral through the series, fashioned to look like an armored samurai. It represents a real jump forward in Gunmen engineering, outperforming lesser units and standing as the first machine shown to use solid ammunition. Over the story it is reworked several times, becoming the Enkidu, then the Enkidudu, and at last the galaxy-scale Tengen Toppa Enki Durga.

Where bulkier machines like the Gurren can only manage wide swings, Enki's segmented, multi-jointed frame lets it throw, kick, and run through martial-arts techniques. Its arm and thigh plates hide rows of turrets that spit large steel kunai, shoulder compartments pop open for a single rocket volley, and the entire chest plate can split apart to release a spread of missiles. A concave blast-shield rides on one wrist, and the black ring crowning its helmet is really the focusing element for a mid-range particle beam, dubbed the Enki Sun Attack. It also carries paired swords at the hips, which Viral claims to draw only for a fight he treats as a genuine challenge. When Simon and Kamina first merge into Gurren-Lagann, they tear that helmet free and keep it as a fixed part of their machine.

Rebuilt without the helmet, the Enkidu gains a sickle-like crest fixed to its head that works as a melee blade or a thrown projectile and can also fire munitions from the same spot once removed; a flight engine added during Cytomander's air raid even lets it take to the sky. The later Enkidudu trades the crest for a second pair of arms, arming it with four blades at once. In the film's final battle Viral receives the Tengen Toppa Enki Durga, a galactic-scale form with seven pairs of hands, each able to hold a weapon, wielding twelve blackened blades and a single kanabo.

Viral pilots every version of the machine. The original Enki fights the newly formed Gurren-Lagann and loses its helmet in the clash. As the Enkidu it duels Gurren-Lagann again and again through the Beastmen war, and as the Enkidudu it guards Lordgenome during the invasion of Teppelin before being swiftly beaten despite the upgrade. After the timeskip the worn Enkidudu shields a group of humans still living underground but cannot match the advanced Grapearls and finally shuts down, with Viral thanking it for carrying his grudge so far. The Tengen Toppa Enki Durga later protects Nia from the Granzeboma and joins the other machines of Team Dai-Gurren to build the Super Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Every form draws its name from Sumerian myth, after the wisdom god Enki and the wild man Enkidu who befriended Gilgamesh.