More and more, the long forgotten past from 40 years ago
continues to push its way into the present.
A mysterious faction from outside Paradigm City arrives to challenge
Alex Rosewater’s vision of the future.
In the middle of this secret war, Roger Smith finds himself facing his
own reality, both as an amnesiac citizen of Paradigm City and as the Dominus of
The Big O. When the fight begins to
threaten and harm those closest to him, Roger steels his resolve for the epic
battle to come, especially after Alex unveils his own Megadeus, the Big O’s
long lost third Big sibling: The Big Faux.
I don’t envy the task set before The Big O II.
It has to follow up a great First Season that
worked in spite of a lack of proper resolution.
But damn if it isn’t try and damn if it hasn’t been surprisingly fun to
watch.
Personally, I think a more
central story focus is taking away from the series accessibility compared to
the more isolated stories of Season One.
And yet The Big O II is continuing to expand on the characters that make
this show work, even making marked improvements to weaker ones from Season
One.
I have no clue where the overall
finale is heading on Friday, heck a lot of what went down in this set makes it
feel like there’s only one or two episodes left instead of five.
For now though, I both see why The Big O II
is and isn’t seen as a strong continuation from its debut season, but we’ll get
to that later.
This second set of Big O II episodes was split into two
even halves.
First we had a couple of
fun stand alone stories that, while not measuring up to the pulp detective
atmosphere of Season One (I think this show left that behind a long time ago)
were still just fun episodes to sit through.
Beck returned for a third time and I’ll admit, I wanted to moan and
groan.
Just how much more of a threat
could this guy be when he’s been dealt with rather easily twice before?
The answer: just as easily but what makes
this tale the strongest of the “Beck Trilogy” is that The Big O II treats Beck
like the joke he is.
No one listens to
any of his boasts and tends to go about their business without acknowledging
he’s even a major threat.
Even Beck’s
reveal that he knows Roger is Big O’s pilot (or Dominus I guess), is met with
a
shrug.
The cherry on top is that even when Beck unveils his super combining
Super Robot…Big O just mows it down with its arm gatling gun and that’s the end
of that.
Guess if I’m trying to sum this
up, this is the first time I genuinely found fun in a Beck episode and it’s
kind of something the show needed after being super serious for a while.
I especially like Dorothy negotiating for a
captured Roger’s release if only so Roger would owe her a favor: letting her
play the Piano however she wants and he cant say anything (Roger rolling under
the covers growling “A promise is a promise” was freaking hysterical).
A couple of characters who got good spotlights in this
set were Dastun and Angel.
The Military
Police Colonel (Did I miss him getting promoted), got to team up with an
Android Detective, R. Frederick O’Reilly, to investigate a string of Android
murders.
While Frederick was acting
soley on the interests of those running Paradigm, his dynamic with Dastun was
solid.
Not that Dastun probably minds
having an Android partner, it’s his disdain for Paradigm interfering with how
he and his people do things.
There’s a
moment where Dastun lets Fred know that while he thinks his men are screw ups,
theyre still brave cops who put their lives on the line everyday and he wont
hear otherwise from anyone (his men even overheard this and had a nice “heck
yeah” moment to boot).
In fact, Dastun
has so much pride and belief in the Military Police that it truly bothers him
that it often falls to Roger and Big O to do what they cant.
Dastun might have the character design of a
hard ass top brass type, but deep down he cares tremendously about his city,
his men, even his friendship with Roger.
It’s good to see Dastun recognize how outmatched the MP can be at times
while also seeing the good Roger can do for them.
Though I have to ask: when did Dastun find
out Roger was Big O’s pilot?
There are
hints of it here and there and Dastun’s a good investigator (we saw this when
he was working with Fred).
And there was
that small snippet in the premiere when he asks Roger if Big O was waiting for
him when he left the Military Police.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m glad Dastun’s fine with everything but I still
wish we’d seen this scene at some point in Season One or Two.
As for Angel, The Big O II is handling her a lot better
than Season One.
Season Two has dialed
back her damsel in distress side and refocused on her feminine mystique
aspects.
She’s a girl from out of town
who has her own goals and agendas involving memories (cause everyone
does).
And yet, Angels finding she might
actually like her life in Paradigm, particularly around Roger.
The two spend a lot of time together and for
a moment, it looks like the Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle ship might become
official…until Angel gets it in her head that Roger is in love with
Dorothy.
Honestly, this didn’t bother me
because the show has teased a growing closeness between Roger and Dorothy
(especially when Roger was kidnapped by Beck).
And we later see said closeness in how Roger hold Dorothy after she’s
been rescued from death at the hands of Alan Gabriel.
Angel had one mini manic bout but afterwards
seemed to quietly accept she might not get the man she’s fallen for.
There was actually a nice moment between her
and Dastun that made me wonder if he and Angel could hook up if something had
started sooner.
After all, if Roger and
Dorothy are meant to be an item, why cant the hardest working cop in Paradigm
City get his own girl too?
The second half of this set saw the main story kick
things into high gear with the introduction of a new faction, a new Big Type
Megadeus and a lot of chaos and destruction that felt…well different, like
“we’re in the endgame now” different.
And while the action was solid with a bunch of good throwdowns between the
multi section moving Bonaparte and both Big O and Big Faux, the Union and Alex
Rosewater proved to be underwhelming and disappointing.
It’s been hinted at that there’s a force
outside Paradigm working its own agenda to acquire memories and that group is
The Union.
Led by the boisterous Vera,
they don’t really do much other than boast and they seem to be dealt with
pretty quickly, at least that’s how it seems when Big Fau wrecks their
Bonaparte Megadeus like it wasn’t even there.
Alex finally got to ride in his
own Big Type Megadeus, the Big Faux, and said Megadeus does get a great intro
with its Bonaparte fight.
However, the
Megadeus is a proper menace…Alex is not.
He’s a kid believing he’s King of his own Kingdom and the second
something goes wrong, he folds up and hugs Big Faux’s cockpit like a kid who
isn’t getting his way.
Honestly, I feel
like Big Faux shut itself down rather than fight Big O because even it was sick
of Alex’s whining.
If anyone comes out
feeling like a true threat this season, it’s Alan Gabriel (or Agent 271 of the
Union, yeah they all have numbers, including Angel).
Seeing the psycho…whatever he is (a human/android
hybrid or just an Android?) actually land some serious hits on the nearly
indestructible and unstoppable Dorothy was spine chilling.
That said, it was cool to see Roger jump into
to fight him hand to hand to protect Dorothy…just incase you might’ve ever
questioned if Roger was a bad ass out of the Big O.
At the close of this set, Alex is trapped in Big Faux,
which has shut down on its own; the Unions plans to deal with him seem to have
been ruined along with their Megadeus; Alan is still at large but Dorothy is
safe; Angel is in the wind and Roger has a better understanding of his
relationship with Big O than ever before.
All in all, you’d think we could wrap up Season Two in this set of
episodes.
But there’s five more to go an
a ton of questions that still need answereing…like how the heck is this show
going to properly wrap itself up.
Well
the moment of truth arrives This Friday as we see if The Big O II can end the
journey of Roger Smith on a satisfying…or at least good, note, right here at
the Gundam Anime Corner.
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