For as long as he can remember, Roger Smith has been
fighting a never ending battle against the ghosts of Paradigm City, a 40 year
mystery that no one can solve. But that
hasn’t stopped some from trying and now clues have begun to appear that point
to a catastrophic event that resulted in city wide amnesia. The more Roger and those curious about the
past dig, the greater the threat to Paradigm City becomes. Now Roger faces his most challenging
opponents and even with the Big O, it may be a fight even he might not be able
to win.
During it’s initial run in Japan, The Big O was not a
huge ratings hit and was cancelled after 13 episodes, leaving the series on a
massive cliffhanger.
The only other
Anime I think I’ve seen that ended just as abruptly was Pilot Candidate.
Whereas that Anime left me furious with its
terrible story, characters and inability to tap into it’s potential, The Big
O’s First Season is the exact opposite, so much so that when I first saw the
cliffhanger on Toonami, it confused me but not enough to make me dislike the show.
In a way, despite the fact that we’re going
into Season Two starting Friday, I think the First Seasons unfinished story
works just fine and part of me didn’t really care if we got answers to the
mountain of questions still pilling up.
Yet here we are.
I’ll talk more
about the road to Season Two on Friday but for now, let’s take a look at how
this incredibly unique and special Mecha Anime wrapped up a very well done
first half.
Monday I mentioned a common pattern regarding the return
of lost memories from 40 years ago: everytime they resurfaced, something bad
happened and usually involved a Megadeus.
That trend continued to be true for these final five Season One
episodes, especially in the epic return of Schwarzwald.
The manic reporter turned crazed crusader
brought with him what could sort of be considered an updated or opposite model
of Big O: Big Duo and damn it looked so cool.
Granted all of the Megadeus Mecha in Big O have all looked great but Big
Duo’s aerial frame and flight capabilities gave it an edge and menace that
hadn’t been seen yet.
This goes double
for its ability to fly, the thing even looked like a Bomber Robot from one of
those classic 30s and 40s film serials that inspired Star Wars and even early
Mecha Anime like Tetsujin 28.
Schwarzwald
even managed to deal the biggest calamity to date for Paradigm City, causing an
Akira level explosion that left the interior of one of the Domes a
wasteland.
So this is the true power of
a Megadeus.
And as if seeing what one Big Duo was capable of wasn’t
enough, Roger got struck with a vision of what could have happened 40 years
ago.
The streets are on fire.
Dozens of Big Duo’s are flying above the
burning city.
Megadeus’ are everywhere,
blasting everything in sight.
It even
looked like Big O was leading the apocalypse alongside Big Duo and another
unidentified Megadeus.
It’s more than
enough to reinforce my belief that if these memories do resurface and can be
confirmed, Paradigm City is in major trouble.
But there’s far more too this.
The
sight of children observing the chaos with barcodes reflecting in their eyes
gave way to the revelation that some of them had been implanted with these
memories (another Blade Runner influence to be sure).
Was this done as a warning?
A cautionary protocol?
It’s more in a long line of questions still
needing to be answered.
Yeah Season Two
def has its work cut out for it delivering some satisfying revelations…starting
with how the hell Roger, Dorothy and Dastun, long with The Big O and the
Military Police can withstand an attack from not one, not two but THREE
Megadeus’ at once.
Seriously, Big O
firing its super attack at the enemy and the screen going white with “To be
Continued” on the screen right after is a helluva way to leave fans hanging.
In and around all of these game changing events, The Big
O still found time for solid stand alone stories that gave characters their
time in the spotlight and continued the impressive world building this show has
done so well since Episode 1.
Dan Dastun
got an episode mostly to himself as he investigated a serial bomber while
trying to figure out the mystery of his own memories, tied to a foreign film he
saw as a child.
I do wish that Dastun
had replaced Roger as Narrator for this episode.
It would have made the episode a bit more
special to have another character talking about their own lives, thoughts and
feelings on Paradigm City and they plot theyre involved in.
Still, I liked Dastun’s episode a lot and it
showcased his competent skills as a cop and his ability to lean on Roger, his
former subordinate, when he really needed help figuring out his memories.
These two may work different beats but the
friendship and respect is still there.
It’s also nice to see Dastun isn’t the stereotypical hard ass who’s a
jerk to the hero for no reason.
The man
can see The Big O as a threat and as a much needed ally and hasn’t gone out of
his way to figure out more about it.
The
final moments of his episode where Dastun holds the woman behind the bombings
in his arms was also a beautiful scene, complete with that sad harmonica laden
tune that has played at the end of so many episodes.
Serious side note: the OST has repeated
itself so many times and I’m still not tired of it at all, it is that good.
Dorothy continued to explore the human condition by
delving into a topic that even made Roger uncomfortable.
Being that theyre the main leads of the
series and finely drawn characters, the subject of whether or not Roger and
Dorothy might develop and romantic interest in each other was bound to come
up.
Honestly, I cant see it yet but
there’s a great level of care between them.
It aided Dorothy in shorting out her mind control device to keep herself
from killing Roger and the Negotiator even went out of his way to get Dorothy a
gift for her birthday (even though it wasn’t).
Do I think Dorothy is capable of falling in love? Absolutely.
Will she fall in love with Roger, if she
hasn’t already?
Maybe once we start
getting into Season Two I’ll have a better answer.
For now, it’s more about a deep caring and
trust than anything romantic.
After all,
Dorothy is right there with Roger in the Big O’s cockpit during the
cliffhanger, ready to help him pilot when his arm was injured by her psychotic
doppleganger, Red Destiny (and honestly that would probably kill any romantic
interest in Dorothy for at least a little bit if you saw her running at you all
warped, deranged and ready to murder you).
This set of episodes also saw the head of Paradigm
himself, Alex Rosewater, take a more active role in the events of each
mystery.
We’ve only seen glimpses of him
up til now but it’s clear he’s playing a long game and knows more about the
history of Paradigm City than anyone else.
At one point he references the Book of Revelations to Roger and the
Negotiator isn’t even aware of what the heck that is.
Rosewater’s board of directors even flat out
refused to hear Dastun’s theories about the Serial Bomber being foreign
because, in their minds, Paradigm City is all that’s left of humanity.
Whether that’s truly the case or not,
Rosewater is willing to let this would be truth play out if it keeps him in
total control of the city.
The man is
already aware that Roger is the pilot of Big O and seemed to have a hand in
Schwarzwald acquiring the Big Duo.
Even
if he isn’t getting his own hands dirty, Rosewater is using his knowledge of
the past to inflict damage on Paradigm City, but to what end?
No one knows, not even Angel who is
apparently his secretary.
But I’m sure
Season Two will start to see Rosewater ascend to the role of true Big Bad of
the series and the Final Boss Roger must face.
Couple of extra things before we wrap up this already
lengthy review.
Schwarzwald wasn’t the
only returning baddie in the Season Finale.
Beck, the first criminal we saw Roger take on in Episode 1&2 came
back and…yeah he’s still surviving on luck alone.
Beck is the stereotypical in over his head,
loud mouth thug who is way less dangerous than he thinks he is.
Even when he manages to capture Dorothy and
briefly take control of her against Roger, this is undone pretty quickly.
Honestly, I’m surprised Beck is still
breathing after not only kidnapping Dorothy AGAIN but also destroying Rogers
kick ass car.
If I were Roger, I’d be
pretty ticked too and show no mercy.
Speaking of no mercy, I loved the Roger vs. Schwarzwald rematch.
Big Duo’s impressive arsenal kept Roger on
his toes.
But once the Negotiator found
a way to turn Big Duo’s flight power against it, Roger didn’t hold back,
pummeling the Megadeus non stop and tearing open its cockpit kind of
ruthlessly.
I mean Schwarzwald did Akira
a dome and before that he set a bunch of debacherous citizens on fire and send
them falling out of a high building…those things alone net him a pretty brutal
beating.
Lastly, Angel is apparently
Rosewarter’s secretary/secret agent?
Honestly it doesn’t make her any more interesting and she continues to
sound like she’s whining in every scene she’s in.
Her femme fatale allure has quickly fallen
away and I wonder if Season Two will work to correct this.
Anyway, time for Final Thoughts on The Big O (Season
One).
Kind of like Ronin Warriors a ways
back, this another show I grew up with thanks to Toonami and I could let
nostalgia dictate my thoughts.
But just
like Ronin Warriors, The Big O’s First Season is just as good as I remember,
maybe even more than before.
The many
cases Roger Smith finds himself in are fascinating and even if theyre only
offering tiny pieces to the overarching mystery of the series, the stand alone
nature of most of the season works amazingly well.
Each episode is like a mini mystery novel,
complete with film noir esque atmosphere, animation, narraration and
music.
Even the Mecha themselves feel
like callbacks to the early days of Giant Robots with towering designs and huge
impacts both in terms of movement and how hard they hit.
Many times it’s like youre watching a 1930s
or 40s scifi pulp series and I’m perfectly ok with this.
With its visual comparisons to Batman: The
Animated Series, I can see why Toonami skillfully used this to its advantage to
promote the series when it aired.
Looking past that, The Big O is more than just “What if Batman had a
Giant Robot?”
It’s a one of a kind,
unique Mecha Anime experience that succeeds on so many levels and that includes
the cliffhanger ending that, for a time didn’t look like it was ever going to
get resolved.
And when a show can work
inspite of that detriment, all I can say is give it a shot and enjoy the
exciting thrill ride that is The Big O…and that’s just one season.
9/10
That’s a pretty high bar set for a series that was never
intended to be completed.
With
expectations that high, can an unexpected union between East and West give us a
satisfying conclusion?
We’ll see what
happens when
The Big O II begins This Friday over at the Gundam Anime
Corner.
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