Paradigm City’s top Negotiator, Roger Smith, has found
his simple life becoming a little more complicated. A beautiful Android, R. Dorothy Wayneright,
has come to stay in his home, owing him a life debt. While Roger isn’t keen on the idea, he
continues his quest to serve and protect Paradigm City from thugs, psychopaths,
even ghosts, each with their powerful Megadeus at their beck and call. But Roger isn’t without his tricks for
dealing with such threats. With the Big
O and Dorothy at his side, the fight against the forces of the past just got a
lot more interesting.
The pulp detective narrative approach to The Big O has
kept things very fun and interesting despite only gaining nuggets of new intel
regarding the mysterious event from 40 years ago that left Paradigm City with
amnesia.
And while that’s a very
important mystery that needs to be solved, todays set of episodes were all well
told, well narrarated and action heavy mini mysteries that proved so effective,
I was just content to enjoy how each tale unfolds.
It reminds me of when I used to watch The Big
O on Toonami and how inspite of that epic “To Be Continued” we’ll get to on
Monday, this series still really works on its own terms.
It’s not in a hurry to arrive at its
destination and, pairing that with the unique setting and nature of the show,
makes The Big O all the better for it right now.
Episodes 5 & 6 both probably tie for my favorite
episodes of the series thus far.
Episode
5 set the bar pretty high with an unsolved murder mystery, a spectre looking
for revenge, and a creature design that looked like something out of a Miyazaki
flick.
It’s not hard to fathom that in a
city as rundown and desperate as Paradigm can be sometimes that its Police
force can still have corrupt elements.
With this in mind, it was easy to sympathize with Bonny’s quest for
justice, even if the means to an end were a bit extreme.
It also provided yet another well thought out
fight for The Big O and showcased Roger’s brilliant piloting and thinking as he
used his head to outmaneauver and stop Bonny’s Megadeus, Osrail.
And even though Bonny did have to face trial
for his crimes, the episode even had a sort of rare happy ending where he got
to see his Mom before she passed and have a tearful hug filled reunion with his
brother.
It was so touching it was easy
to overlook just how much of a douchebag said brother was to Roger throughout
the episode.
Episode 6 returned to the subject of Androids in Paradigm
City.
The story of Instro echoes
Dorothy’s in that his creator also built him to replace a long lost loved
one.
Instro’s an instantly likeable character
and arguably one of the more innocent souls in Paradigm City, so much so he’s
convinced his fathers wishes were for him to pilot a Megadeus and take revenge
on the city.
It’s also nice to see that
while Roger gets annoyed with Dorothy, he isn’t predijuced against Androids,
speaking to Instro on very friendly terms and even revealing he brought Dorothy
to him to improve her piano playing (albeit this was also so Roger could lessen
Dororthy’s hyperactive playing so he could sleep a bit longer).
Like Episode 5, 6 had its own happy ending
with Instro relearning how to play the piano with Dorothy’s help after he
destroyed his hands so his Megadeus, the Constanze, couldn’t be operated
again.
Although, this does also have one
of the more grizzly villain demises on the show.
Sure we don’t see Gieseng get destroyed by
his own sonic machine but seeing it turn in his hands as he starts to use it,
only for debris to fall against him and turn his weapon against him, well let’s
just say I’m surprised Toonami allowed that horrifying scream to be heard in
its edited format, yeesh.
As I said about EP6, Dorothy got a chance to deepen her
character and studying of humans a lot in this set.
Besides getting a bit of piano training,
Dorothy also had a cute episode where she adopted the most adorable kitten, she
came to call Pero.
It’s great to see The
Big O show Dorothy expressing emotion even if it isn’t evident or directly
expressed in a typical fashion.
She
pleads to Roger for help saving Instro and Pero and works hard to keep Pero
from being abducted by the mad scientist who partly created him (more on that
in a moment, I’m not ignoring that bombshell).
Dorothy even expresses sadness at Pero’s final fate when it realizes it
cant return with her to the city because of its current Kaiju sized state.
Dorothy’s continued evolution remains one of
The Big O’s best character arcs and there’s even plenty of moments of hilarious
banter between her and Roger as well as softer ones where the Negotiator acts
more like a guardian, mentor and friend to the lovely Android learning to be
Human.
On the opposite side of things, Angel, who was introduced
as a would be Femme Fatale character in the premiere set, isn’t exactly living
up to her Femme Fatale character design.
She may look sexy in her various pink themed outfits but man is she
incredibly annoying.
The moment anything
goes wrong, her sultry demeanor vanishes instantly and she becomes more of a
damsel in distress than a capable agent of chaos.
If Roger Smith is Bruce Wayne, the Angel
would be poised to be Selina Kyle aka Catwoman, the eternal love of Batman’s
life…but Catwoman hardly complains this much and is a much more ferocious bad
ass than Angel.
However, Angel’s
continued belief in the value of memories does open an interesting avenue to
the series.
The mystery of 40 years ago
looms large over the series, even if its only mentioned in passing at
times.
People want to remember what
they’ve lost, I get that.
However, those
memories may be more dangerous than any kind of threat a Megadeus can bring to
the streets of Paradigm City because they’re partly to blame for said
threat.
Bonny suddenly knew how to
operate Osrail after a near death experience without explanation.
Eugene used his partly restored memories to create
Kaiju sized Chimeras after merging humans and animals together (poor Pero).
Every time a memory is sought after or partly
restored, disaster seems to strike (usually in the form of a new Megadeus, are
they just buried all over the place?).
It makes me wonder if Paradigm should have all of its memories
restored…because doing so could unleash a pretty devastating, Armageddon level
event, and that’s damn terrifying to think about.
While we’re still no closer to learning the truth of 40
years ago, The Big O’s sophomore set of episodes still explored corners of
Paradigm City with emotion filled mysteries, explorations of what the risks of
long lost memories and continually creative action scenes.
Plus Norman got to use a Chaingun, that he
pulled out of freaking nowhere and while he’s still not much of a character, it
is a hilariously awesome image.
I love
seeing Roger solve more mysteries and prove his metal as a Megadeus pilot, even
if he had to put Big O through the ringer to get to victory.
But there’s still that looming 40 year old
shadow and while I’m not sure how much of that dark history will be addressed
in this first half, I know we’ll be heading into a pretty big cliffhanger on
Monday, the likes of which could hit the heights of Code Geass…if I’m
remembering correctly, this is the first time I’m rewatching this show since
Toonami after all.
The curtain on The
Big O’s First Season drops This Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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