Paradigm City is about to become a battleground as two
warring factions clash over who will control the city and the Memories buried
deep within. Against a vengeful army and
a Man who thinks himself a God, Roger Smith has never faced such insurmountable
odds. As all out war breaks out in the
streets of Paradigm, Roger and The Big O will have to run a gauntlet of the
most powerful foes they’ve ever faced.
To save the future of Paradigm City and it’s citizens, Roger must dare
to confront the Memories from 40 years ago, sealed away to protect them from a
potential apocalypse. The final battle
for the Past, Present and Future of Paradigm City has begun.
Going into The Big O II, something was always on my mind:
just how much of this second half was scripted before the show was cancelled in
Japan?
How much of The Big O II was
written after the fact and in response to the positive reception of the First
Season in the US?
For once, I actually
decided to look into this and found an interesting factoid that kind of ties
everything together and makes this bonkers finale make some kind of sense.
While both The Big O and The Big O II both
had the same writers, neither had intended to reveal the mystery of 40 years
ago, instead wishing just to tell an anthology of tales in this universe.
THAT MAKES PERFECT SENSE!!!
I always said that part of The Big O Season
One’s appeal was it’s accessibility and combined elements of scifi, mystery and
noir detective stories.
This explains
why The Big O II as felt like a totally different and less unique series.
It has been an interesting and fun ride but
now we’ve gotten to the one impossible point: the Finale, where everything had
to be wrapped up and explained when it was never really meant to. It goes down
about as well as you’d think and I can see why no one was satisfied with this
Series Finale.
Let’s delve into why that
is.
One could say that the entire Second Season of Big O has
been one continuous story across 13 episodes and that’s part true, some of
Mondays episode were able to stand on their own with only tangible connections
to the larger story.
However, the last 5
episodes are definitely one long, pretty much feature length finale with so
many loose ends to tie up, nevermind the 40 year elephant in the room.
Each episode did have a gradual, if mecha
sized build up with each new part.
You
had the Union seemingly launching an assault on Paradigm as revenge against
Alex Rosewater.
You had Beck being
brought back for a thankless role that he really wasn’t needed for.
You had Roger and Angel discovering and
accepting their roles on the grand stage.
And you had the final epic battle for the future of a city that was
always an illusion? Huh?
Yeah all of the
goodwill and standing The Big O II had built up until this point kind of
disappeared when it decided to just become an apocalyptic Mecha Anime trying to
merge elements of Evangelion, Rahxephon with a bit of Twin Peaks for good
measure.
In other words, it was the
production going Big as the title suggests and damn if there were positive
results, this just all had to be tied up and concluded in some way.
Everytime it felt like the finale was trying to poorly
explain or answer a long running question, new reveals came in that made my
head spin.
Constantly I was either
shaking my head or trying not to shout, WTF, especially when it came to what
Angel actually was.
Paradigm City is on
a sound stage.
The Union is a lie.
Roger and Gordon Rosewater knew each other
from a long, lonnnng time ago.
And for
some reason whoever is running the show decided to pull a Matrix sequel move
and just reset Paradigm City because reasons?
While Roger does make a passionate plea to Angel about the power of
Memories and those he has of her, in the end, does any of this even
matter?
At some point, everything just
feels like characters shouting their convictions and motivations without a
filter and it just becomes a huge amount of noise amongst the explosions and
rocket punches.
Some of these moments
are actually good, like Roger finally accepting that his life is his to live,
no matter how he came into this world or how he was created, or Dastun taking
off his badge and rallying his men to help Roger and Big O against Alex because
he’s a damn good cop and an even better friend.
In the end, many of the main characters got their moments to shine in a
convoluted cluster cuss of a finale…except the Villains who went out like total
chumps because really, Alex and Vera were just a bunch of crying babies who
wanted their way all the time and wouldn’t stop whining until they got it.
So the Finale offers little to no answers, ok fine.
But was there anything that was genuinely
good?
Well like I said, Roger, Dorothy,
Dastun and Norman all got their moments to shine and everyone got to kick some
ass.
I know I’ve been hard on Norman
because I feel like he doesn’t have much of a character but damn the old guy
brought the pain and even got in a rare swear as he fought tooth and nail to
defend the Smith Residence.
The guy even
assembled a small team of workers to get Big O ready for the final battle,
that’s commitment.
Dorothy spent most of
the Finale offline because her memory core was stolen.
However, she managed to pull through that and
once again save Rogers life.
It was good
to see these two face the apocalypse together in Big O, even if we still didn’t
get a proper resolution to that unspoken thing between them.
I mean, Roger kind of admitted he might be in
love with Dorothy when she was offline.
That said, I chuckled when Roger said Dorothy couldve resuscitated him
with mouth to mouth and she just rolled her eyes in a manner of speaking.
Oh and points to Roger for not standing for
Vera sadistically whipping Angel.
Dude
came in and kicked her ass despite it being against his principals and Vera was
a rare exception.
Speaking of the
Villains, considering Alex is a Manchild with a God Complex, seeing him cower
as Big Venus erased him was fine but Vera getting smushed off screen by debris
after Roger took out her final Megadeus trump card also off screen feels oh so
fitting for the boisterous Union leader.
I have taken note of how much more action heavy The Big O
II was compared to Season One.
While I
feel that makes this sequel a bit more of a generic Mecha Anime, the action has
been pretty good overall and the Finale did deliver some awesome destructive
carnage.
Roger got to pull out all the
stops with Big O, even unleashing a weird Super Saiyan Megadeus form when he
took on a Hydra (yes we still have Kaiju in this show) and a mega particle
cannon that Big O has seemingly always had in its chest…all Roger needed to do
was use Dorothy as a power up.
The Mecha
battles in The Big O have always been as unique as the setting and mysteries
Roger had to solve on a weekly basis.
Maybe I’m just too used to smaller sized Giant Robots zipping across the
screen at Mach 5, so the slower, more gladiatorial and heavy hitting action
that feels akin to something like Pacific Rim was a nice change of pace.
Big O itself certainly took a beating,
looking almost like an entirely different mecha when it reached the final moments
of the series.
Still, design wise Big O
is an underrated classic and a very dependable Mecha for sure, easily worth
having a show named after it.
God so much happened in this Finale and I have to say it
does affect the final score in some way.
So…how was the sequel that was never intended to happen?
Well…up until those last five episodes it was
ok.
The First Season is vastly superior
for trying something new and unique with the Mecha genre and it worked so well
I didn’t mind the lack of a proper ending.
The Big O II tries to me more of a standard Mecha Action series, losing
a lot of the mystique that helped it stand out.
The action was still great but I missed the stand alone episodes that
made Season One a hit, so it’s no wonder the middle episodes with Beck and
Dastun were my favorites of this season.
As for those ultimate answers to the shows biggest questions, let’s face
it, considering they were never meant to be answered, I didn’t expect things to
get this complex, confusing and sometimes a little irritating.
Too many new parts, factions and clues
appeared and the more Big O tried to tie everything together and wrap up one
mystery, several more appeared.
Hmmm,
it’s as if this really was never meant to be resolved and it shows in the mess
that is the final couple of episodes.
Overall,
yeah The Big O II is a let down when it comes to being forced to wrap up a
story that didn’t really need one.
When
it comes to action, the old school rock em sock em robots approach is fun to
watch and while Roger and the cast have to suffer through a lack of proper
direction from the story, his character and those of Dorothy, Dastun, Norman
and even Angel are still fun to hang around.
But yeah, in the end, The Big O was just fine without The Big O II, at
least it’s big cliffhanger ending didn’t leave me with a splitting headache.
6.5/10
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