When a trio of Foreign Megadeus’ rise from the Ocean
outside of Paradigm City, it heralds the coming of something truly terrifying:
the truth of what happened 40 years ago.
It also brings with them a slew of new threats to Paradigm City. Something is stirring within the city and
only a handful of rare individuals know the full scope of what is coming,
including the man who sits at the top of Paradigm, Alex Rosewater. The pressure is mounting against Roger Smith
and his allies but nevertheless, he continues to hold back the coming tides of
the past with his Megadeus, the Big O.
When The Big O first aired in Japan in 1999, it was a
ratings flop and the series was cancelled after only 13 episodes.
When those episodes were shown in the US on
Cartoon Network’s Toonami block in 2001, it became a huge hit overnight thanks
to the brilliant marketing push tactic, “What if Batman had a Giant
Robot?”
Despite the cliffhanger that
came with it, The Big O ended up being such a success on Toonami that two years,
Cartoon Network partnered with Sunrise and Bandai to continue the series with a
13 episode Second Season, dubbed The Big O II in Japan.
It was one of the first major instances of an
Anime being so popular in the West, Japan found it necessary to continue it, if
only for another audience.
Personally, I
found Big O’s Season One cliffhanger to be a good one but the rest of the
season was so well done, I was just fine without an sort of follow up.
But, literally by popular demand, we got it
and right off the heels of finishing Season One, the Gundam Anime Corner is
delving into The Big O II to see if it can somehow fulfill its unenviable
mission: finish the story of Roger Smith and Paradigm City on a satisfying note
while not tarnishing the legacy of an incredible First Season.
We picked things up right where we left them, with a trio
of “Foreign Megadeus’” rising from the sea and heading right for Paradigm City,
with Roger, Dorothy in Big O, ready to meet them.
After replaying those last few moments, the big
battle finally begins and…yeah I’ve just gotta get this off my chest.
There was a four year gap between seasons and
in 2003, Digipaint Anime was all the craze, especially after the success of
other Sunrise projects like Gundam Seed and Seed Destiny.
I don’t think The Big O II looks ugly by any
means.
But part of the First Seasons
allure was its hand drawn animation style that looked heavily influenced by the
art styles of the 1992 Batman: The Animated Series.
With Digipaint, some of that charm feels
lost, even if the characters, city and Mecha are all the same.
In truth, it does give The Big O itself a
nice bit of shine, along with the other Megadeus’ it goes up against in the
premiere.
Idk, I’ve always liked Hand
Drawn over Digipaint and wish this season had just kept up that approach.
I doubt anyone would mind.
With that out of the way, onto the Season Premiere.
It’s a bit of a mixed bag, the actual
premiere episode.
It starts off the way
we all want it to, seeing Roger throwing himself right into a 3v1 onslaught
that the Big O was always gonna have trouble with.
But then, after a couple of cool moments,
including a simultaneous attack from both elbow rocket arm cannons, Roger
freaks out and suddenly finds himself in an alternate reality where he’s a
wandering vagabond, isn’t rich, doesn’t have Big O, and Beck is the head of a
Bank…so can we just call that Hell?
The
entire sequence makes no sense to me.
How did Roger end up here?
Did he
just snap somehow mid fight because of what he discovered in the Season One
Finale?
I get that Big O isn’t big on
offering a lot of answers but that worked within the context of the Detective
Novel style plots of the First Season.
This
just felt like something out of Twin Peaks, complete with a stage play showing
us how Roger first met Norman and how he came into possession of Big O in the
first place…ok that part was actually pretty neat.
Also once he’s got his head on straight and
is back in reality, Roger doesn’t even destroy the three Foreign Megadeus’ but
just incapacitates them…as we see later on, that’s coming back to bite him in
the ass hard.
It looks like Season Two will be ditching the Stand Alone
Mystery of the Week approach, which is both a good and bad thing.
The Stand Alone nature of most of Season Ones
episodes made jumping in at any point easy.
Now, it’s time for the main story to take over.
While each new story offers a new case for
Roger to solve, everything it tying back to earlier events.
It’s like all of the nuggets spread across
Season One are finally being pulled together.
And while Roger still has his Monster/Mecha of the week to contend with,
there’s also the rise of the shows Big Bad: Alex Rosewater, to consider.
Alex sat in the shadows for most of Season
One but slowly emerged and now he’s no longer hiding, though his ultimate
ambitions are still cryptic and shrouded.
The man has a God complex the likes of which I haven’t seen in a while
and it all comes from the untold access he has to memories…both of the past and
future?
Those aforementioned three
Megadeus’ that Roger never properly destroyed all contained pieces of a brand
new “Big” type of Megadeus and Alex is quite content to lord this in front of
Roger as if he is perfectly fine with Roger knowing everything (or very little)
about his plans.
Why doesn’t Roger just
summon Big O and take care of this right now?
Probably because Alex is the big man at the top of Paradigm and God only
knows what kind of chaos would ensue if he isn’t taken off his throne without a
plan.
But Roger has more than just Alex and his ego to deal
with.
You’d think that the show couldn’t
top a 3v1 showdown between Mecha but it is still offering plenty of fun and
diverse action sequences.
The Glinda
Megadeus Roger takes on in the second episode is probably the first Mech in
this series to bear some semblance to a Gundam, specifically the Stargazer
Gundam from Gundam Seed CE 73 Stargazer, with it’s slim build, halo on the back
of its head and use of beam spamming.
The Leviathan Megadeus was pretty cool too, even if it does feel a
little too much like Roger fighting the Electric Eel from Season One.
Probably the most interesting of the action
in this set didn’t come from a Megadeus Duel but rather Roger stepping in to
defend a section of the city from a falling satellite.
My mind immediately went to the fourth
episode of FLCL, where Naota had to repel something similar with just a guitar
Haruko pulled out of his head.
Granted,
a Giant Robot is probably a far more useful bat in a situation like this but I
couldn’t help but think about it.
And
you’d better believe Roger took that thing out stylishly.
Also, BIG O HAS A FREAKING GATTLING GUN IN
ITS ARM NOW!!! (I’m just gonna presume it received that as an upgrade when
Norman replaced the arm it lost in the duel in the Season Premiere).
In short, the action still rocks.
Season Two also shows Roger getting some extra assistance
in the field from Dorothy, Dastun and Angel (the latter getting a promotion
from recurring to main character).
Dorothy and Rogers back and forth banter is still great and it has a bit
of a new wrinkle with Angel tagging along for a few episodes.
I loved the scene where Dorothy was once
again caught by her Kryptonite: Magnets, and suspended in the air while Roger
chatted with Angel.
You could tell how
annoyed Dorothy was at being held captive and ignored by Roger as well.
Actually, does Dorothy look annoyed or is she
truly jealous that Angel seems to be spending more time with Roger?
Is a love triangle subplot coming?
Speaking of Angel, apparently she was fired
from being Alex’s secretary and is working on her own initiative but to what
end?
She does get to have a bad ass
moment at last when she guns down a robot assassin trying to kill Roger.
Plus while she is still a little weak
characterization wise, I did get a chuckle when she told Roger she wasn’t
prepared for any field work before pulling off her cloak and revealing her sexy
catsuit.
Then there’s Dastun.
It seems he’s finally revealing he knows
Roger is Big O’s pilot and even at one point admits that the Military Police
does benefit from the Megadeus’ help.
Good
on Roger to prop Dastun up by reminding him how much good he and the MP do to
protect the city, what a humble guy.
Obviously Norman is still around, fixing Big O and steaks at home.
Most notable thing about him is that he has a
different voice actor for Season Two, the legendary Alan Oppenheimer.
While he’s best known for voicing dozens of
cartoon characters in the 1980s, I know him best as the voices of Falkor, the
Rock Bitter and Gmork from The Never Ending Story, and you can kind of hear
some Falkor in his speech too, neat.
While some elements have changed, both from a production
and storytelling standpoint, The Big O II is still off to a pretty solid
start.
The lack of stand alone stories
is a bit sad but I like that the Season is starting to bring all of the bread
crumbs together to solve the greater mystery.
There’s still plenty of good action and for every answer we seem to come
across, more questions arise to take their place.
It may be too early to say but maybe The Big
O II has a shot at concluding things on a positive note.
Still, too early to tell though.
I’ll maybe have a better idea when The Big O
II continues Next Monday right here at the Gundam Anime Corner.
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