Two new anime import series debut on Sci-Fi Channel's "Ani-Monday" import block this Monday: Gurren Lagann and Now and Then, Here and There. I was recently given a sneak peek of the two premieres, and while the 27-episode Lagann perhaps arrives with the greater advanced fan buzz, to my eyes, the 13-ep Now looks like it'll be the more evocative series.

Both shows deliver the goods, especially if you like your s-f anime with big honking machines. While each one centers on young male heroes, Lagann comes across as the more boyish creation: filled with characters spouting bravado and Kirby-esque robots. Set in an underground village and narrated by Simon, a young boy who is part of the isolated village's brutalized child work force, the series opens on Simon and his rambunctious friend Kamina's desire to escape the oppressive community by climbing to the surface world. Kamina tries to rally his friends by creating Team Gurren - all the while shouting a series of inspirational slogans to the skeptical villagers. But it isn't until the digging Simon comes upon a glowing green "treasure" while drilling that the boys are able to find their way to the top.

The glowing treasure proves to be the key to a robot creature called a "Gunman," and when another Gunman shows up to plow its way through the village, guess who gets to commandeer the first one? Even better, it turns out that Simon's found machine has drills on its hands and the top of its head: "That's your kinda weapon!" Kamina unnecessarily tells our narrator, after christening the machine the Mighty Lagann.

Also showing up: an ultra-curvy redheaded warrior babe named Yoko, who hails from a nearby underground village. Though Kamina is scornful of Yoko's origins ("Jeez, you're a pit chick!" he moans. "Get moving, thunder thighs!"), you know this is just the start of some serious sexual tension. At one point during the Gunman attack, Simon lands with his face right between her breasts, eliciting happy shouts from the most of the 'tween-age boys in the audience.

The presence of the Gunmen and the existence of the underground villages is somehow connected to an aboveground intergalactic conflict, though we're only given an unexplained glimpse of this in the pilot's opening. Future episodes, presumably, will provide more background, but for now, just getting our trio to the surface in the Mighty Lagann suffices.

If the first episode of Gurren Lagann is loudly boisterous, Now and Then, Here and There is more comfortable with slices of scene-setting quiet. The story of a young city boy named Shu who is accidentally transported to a war-torn dimension, it's filled with small, well-chosen images, whether of a bright sunset over the city river or of our hero picking his nose as he talks. Shu gets into his predicament after climbing to the top of a factory smokestack to get away from it all. When he sees a lavender-haired girl sitting on a neighboring smokestack, watching the evening sky, his curiosity is piqued. But before he can find out anything more than her name - Lala-ru - a third party appears with a squad of giant snaky robots.