The Big O | Retcon_404 (Anime Retrospective)
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 22 มี.ค. 2024
- What could be better than a late 90's anime that is basically Batman but with a huge robot? The Big O is the story of Roger Smith, a negotiator for the city of Paradigm who is responsible for resolving disputes among the citizens. However, when Roger uncovers a grand conspiracy concerning the disappearance of the world's memories he embarks on a job that will change the fate of the city forever.
-- THIS VIDEO CONTAINS MAJOR SPOILERS FOR THE BIG O --
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"No one wants to talk about Big O."
Hi, I'm No one.
Hey, wait a minute...
painful silence
Lol when I saw Big O in a thumbnail I literally blurted out "FINALLY", as though video essays were a disappointing parent arriving an hour late to pick me up from soccer practice stinking of Buffalo sauce and half-off pitchers of Miller Lite.
Same here. I loved this show
Woah, weird finding out I share a name with so many people XD
One thing I absolutely adore about Big O (the show and titular mech), is the sheer heft of the Megadei, especially the Bigs. The Big O's massive pile bunker fists are just beautiful to watch in action. "Cast in the name of God, Ye Not Guilty".
And then the one time they announced "Ye Guilty"
truly colossal
Ya, I really love it when a Mecha show actually has the heft it should behind the Mecha itself.
And they kept that up with Big Duo, it's pretty chonky even when flying. Big Fau less so once it gets underwater, but considering how little opportunity it gets to actually take advantage of that...
Big O came out at the wrong time. It literally has the same structure as Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, or Vampire Hunter D.
This is in desperate need of a reboot that keeps to the mysteries of season one- the bald children with the barcodes was very much in the vein of The Matrix and the fiction of that decade.
SHOWTIME!
“I’m the domineuce of this megadeuce” is still proclaimed amongst my gang.
It’s what I shout whenever I’m in the stall of a public bathroom
YE NOT GUILTY
Rise Big O!
Treasure them.
One of the coolest animes since Cowboy Bebop. The noir feel, the cold calculated almost Batman lines, the 50ft mech with Duel pile bunkers. Holy hell I love Big O
They were a lot taller than 50ft, but I agree that it's a great show.
So many times I fell asleep in class trying to catch this 😂😂😂😂
Loved this show as a kid. It combined my two favorite things. Batman and Gundams. The Megadeuce are some ofbmy favorite mechas out of any mecha series.
I was 40 when this came out in 1999. Great show and animation. No moronic comic relief that often plague many cartoons.
"If we do not learn from the past we are doomed to repeat our mistakes"
@41:50 Honestly, I've always liked ending, because it's surprisingly straightforward: Angel wrote the book to come to term with her memory loss brought on by abuse caused by her mother (who might be literally so, or figurately as someone who taught her acting.) Each Megadeus is piloted by a different philosophy involving memories:
1. Schwarzwald seeks the truth, no matter how self-destructive doing so becomes.
2. Alex rejects the truth, going so far as to try and eliminate everyone with memories, because Alex based everything he is on being of noble birth.
3. Gabriel is a straw nihilist, who gets rejected out of hand.
4. Roger is fine both having, and not having memories, so long as he can live according to his own values.
They're all "Cast in the name of god" because they're literally a cast made of characters that came from a book, which had the author's name on it, IE, the god of the book. They're all androids, because they're all acting the part of humans who are probably real, just not 1-1 recreations, with a few exceptions. Beck actually being a bank manager in New York, for example.
By the end, Angel realizes that she can't actually distinguish her memories as an actor from real memories (so, probably a child actor,) and while her acting has let her live among society, it's also left her feeling estranged from the world. Roger resolves that by acting as a negotiator between her and the characters: stop re-writing the world/her memories, and come to terms with who she's become as a person, even if that person might have been built on memories that came from a script. She does so, and thus, the half-finished story finally continues.
That's the thing with mystery stories, the double meaning in words are usually literal. I know it's directly implied with a scene of mass produced Rogers, but also the fact that he didn't struggle when catching Dorothy and Dastun struggled to drag her.
The ending is very much making the intent of the first season more literal. The answers to what really happened in the past aren't important, because the story wasn't about that. It was meant to be an episodic show, where paradigm was just there to serve as an interesting setting of Roger's adventures. Season 2 made this more literal by revealing Paradigm as a literal stage.
@@TeamTowers1 The entire mystery of the show was the characters realizing they were in a show
I mean, that's one layer but it's not like it's all the dream of one random person.
That's still really dumb compared to the previously established worldbuilding.
I actually like the ep13 cliffhanger as the ending of the show. That shot of him facing the 3 robots coming from the ocean with Dorothy at his side is so cool!
Agreed! As a kid, I was not really left wanting when it ended. I sort of liked it ending like that.
However, the second season came out of nowhere and left me so excited I could’ve cried.
Loved Big O so much. Steve Blum was perfect as Rodger, and the Sudden Impact finishing move has lived rent free in my head for YEARS.
Big o is one of the rare cases where the dub is as good as the sub
@@jchoneandonlymassive agree!
@@jchoneandonlyone of those was *dub?
@@nathanlevesque7812 yeah. My bad
@@nathanlevesque7812 fixed it
Blame Cartoon Network for the ending. Their stipulations for producing the new season were to make the action a little more anime-like (which is why the action scenes with the robots move more quickly), and to come up with an actual resolution for the mystery threads set up in the first season. The director said he never had a plan to resolve anything when he started the show because the mystery and the atmosphere were all he really cared about. I wish he was allowed to just leave this stuff alone and have fun asking questions but I don't dislike the ending. While the second season isn't as great as the first, I'm very happy we got what we did, and I have to admit the last batch of episodes do a great job ratcheting things up and keeping you interested.
The ending always struck me as it was a memory of humanity. That was a warning to any life or humans to not repeat their mistakes but the program was damaged as it ran. Eventually the memory loss caused the AIs to forget what their pourpose as a warning to the rest of humanity or future life as the system fails.
That big O theme was the favorite part of every episode
Man, this will always be one of my all-time favorites alongside Trigun
The noir aesthetic was perfect for the Giant Robo-inspired character designs, and the music being inspired by classic tokusatsu and Kaiju films was a great touch
If like this try watching full metal alchemist, Inuyasha, outlaw star, wolf's rain, princess Mononoke, wicked city, dragón ball that I can name of the top of my head right now. Some of those are movies.
Can I just say that I got into band in elementary school because I fell in love with the music if Big O! Specifically, the saxophone. My dream was to one day play Jingle Bells like the cover played in the Christmas special! I fell in love with that particular cover. Till this day it’s my favorite cover of Jingle Bells and I listen to it every December.
Don’t get me wrong ask the music is fantastic in Big O! The jazz is such a mood! I used to play it in high school, I KNOW such an edge lord, and just angst. LOL
Now Big O! It's showtime!
Ready that’s awesome. I’m going to rewatch it now.
We are all tomatoes now
We were always tomatoes 🍅
apparently that's an insult in england
Its the matrix with fewer steps, big robots and stage/simulation theory before the matrix existed. What gets me is the Noir, jazzy thing its got going.
My favourite interpretation is that everytime the ending happens a new city is build on top of the old with slight differences as a new loop starts to see how it turns out.
Though i think there are some things that debunk that
The theme of identity and lost memories reminds me a lot of the underrated movie Dark City, Paradigm City has a lot of visual similarity as well 👍🏽
Big O is one of my favs! I had no idea it wasn't as popular in Japan, but due to its art deco noir graphic style I guess it makes sense..
A lot of the issues with the ending really come across from behind the scenes, CN and Toonami really were hoping for a third season of the show having the ending with big venus be more or less a status quo reset. but obviously that never came to pass.
It's also a result Konaka's frustrations with people not getting that the show was meant to be episodic and not actually about the larger mystery. Eg Paradigm in a meta sense was just there to be a stage for the characters adventures to play out. And Konaka responded to people not getting that by making it more literal, in the second season.
@@TeamTowers1 It's really kind of hilarious that he ended the show with essentially the same message twice, being even more blunt about it the second time, and twenty years later people are still convinced it was cut short by the network.
@@DanBickeru now i am just imagining a 3rd season where it beats it over your head even more while it has unhinged rants. jokes aside it was a nice show with interesting premise. also it is rather nice to see a mech show were the mechs felt like they had weight to them. so much stuff now days makes stuff like that extremely agile and so on.
I mean, considering what they've done with FLCL, it could still happen.
@@TeamTowers1 What a dick move. If someone makes a story where the implied worldbuilding is more interesting than the actual episodes, throwing a tantrum that fans are focusing on the wrong thing is just awful.
One time I had a job interview for a truck driving job and the interviewer asked me if I had experience with big vehicles. I told him “yes, I used to drive a Mega Deus in the military “ 😅.
*I did drive a a two ton truck in the military we called “the deus” and I had a brain fart lol.
I always find it hillarious to tell friends who lile batman that this sjow was produced by the same studio.
Once you know you can't unsee it in the old BTAS. Best East/West collab until Covid-19
BRUUUH! Finally someone is talking about it.
I still say "Cast in the name of God, YE NOT GUILTY" randomly when being dramatic and no one ever gets it. T__T
It’s not a simulation in the least. All the stage imagery and the concept of people being actors losing memories makes it clear; it’s metafictional. That’s why the mech that Big O fights in the first Scharzwald episode isn’t called a prototype, it’s an *archetype*, a literal storytelling prop. Big O is a story about being a story and makes it obvious pretty early.
I'm just not wild about stakes flattening concepts like that.
Kinda sorta but also not really. It's allegorical and metaphysical.
It was far better as more direct worldbuilding with a cool past war. Everything else is just lame.
I love the style of this show--a little bit of retro 60's giant robots, a little bit of Batman the Animated Series with a ton of style. I'm not sure I feel about the overall plot (the early 2000s tendency in anime for massive mind-screw endings I've kinda mellowed on--it was the style at the time, I guess) but it was quite stylish and the music and design was just incredible.
Angel was like the leader of the city but forgot. She should have realized this them things could go on. The "reset" ending is ridiculous
I have rewatched this show a ton , something about the setting , the vibe of the show . It made it work even though it was so dense in spots .
Big O was one of the first animes I ever got into, like REALLY into, and watching this just brought a rush of emotions and memories back. I'm glad MY older theories are somewhat confirmed by stuff you talked about here. Thank you very much for this!
The soundtrack and art style is still iconic to this day.
I am a simple man I see a video of Big O I click and I like.
When I was an edgy teen Schwartzwald was my idol anti-hero.
Ending was weird af, glad you did this video. Answered a lot of questions for me.
The " what if batman had a giant mecha" anime series
I love this show so much. the pacing, the characters and the mystery are all handled so well. To this day it's atmosphere and aesthetic is among the best in anime. I will say that when it comes to the parallels with BTAS Schwarzwald is less the Joker to Roger's Batman, and more a mixture of Two-Face and the Riddler. A better Joker analog comes in the form of Allen Gabriel. Right down his hyper fixation with Roger, lack of goals other than to weave chaos and murder.
One of my favorite shows of all time!! Got Steve to autograph my Big O boxset, it was an amazing experience.
Big Duo and Schwartvault are my favorite character and Mecha
The final two episodes completely reframed the whole anime, making a rewatch a totally different experience
To clarify something he doesn't seem to pick up on in the video, the simulation is falling apart over time. This is a simulation that is going through a decomposing loop as more and more data is lost. The implication is that humanity is being preserved by this system, but the system is failing. The paradigm is becoming simpler and more obvious, lasting less and less time between resets and having to recycle data. There is barely anyone left outside of Paradigm. The world is over, and the only thing left is falling into decay, trying desperately and failing to keep humanity sustained.
It was nice revisiting this show with you, the ideas and tone kept me but the ending always was a bit of stretch - appreciate the analysis! Honestly the moment that made me want to rematch it was seeing the "CAST IN THE NAME OF GOD" line again, such a neat vibe
I loved this show and need to give it a rewatch. Luckily, I have both seasons on DVD
big O really struck a cord with me on the metaphor note.
i didnt understand much back when it was coming out, but later on rewatching i can really appreciate it.
I remember being stuck on ep 13's cliffhanger until the rest of the show came out.
Same it was like "that's it?!"
Big O is a great example of style over substance. Visually and thematically, Big O oozes style, borrowing from and paying homage to Giant Robo, Batman the Animated series, Mazunger, Tetsujin 28/Gigantor, Astroboy/Mighty Atom, and even 40's noir movies, and mind trip anime endings like Akira and Evangelion. It was a collaboration of South Korean animators, Japanese, Korean, and western writers, artists, and mechanical designers. You can also see influences from Lupin III and even Black Jack series. The story is all over the place, the back story is confusing and convoluted with several contradictory explanations for what is going on, and with several plot elements and story lines that appear and disapear constantly. And honestly, I love it for all of it. It's a mistake to try and make sense of the story- its not about making sense or even telling a story, its about the rule of cool and the feeling of the setting just being left to go wild. Its like trying to make sense of Italian gialo horror movies or Japanese gore movies- they don't exist to make sense. They exist to invoke an emotion in the secenes they show, they want to be a spectacle to be enjoyed, not a story to be disected. Its like looking at a Picaso and spending your time arguing over the ingredients of the paints and how they relate to the skin tones of the person in the painting rather than seeing the abstract painting as the experience its meant to be, not as a reproduction of reality.
Big O is amazing
It great because you can watch over and over and find something new
Thanks for doing this!
I do wish there was more discussion about the production/problems and maybe even speculation about where the story was meant to go.
This was the director's choice, he didn't *want* to focus on the back history which he regarded as mere "Set dressing" so he made it a literal set.
Thank you for showing this show some love. This was one of my favorite shows and I used to watch it on Toonami and Midnight Run. Those were the days!. Since then I got the Bandai SOC GX 48 Big O figure and accessory pack which is amazing as well as the complete collectors edition Blu-ray set.
I brought this show up out of nowhere the other week.
I had not thought about it in close to 20 years.
OH yeah one of my favorite Mecha anime the noir tone, the psychedelic writing, the hard hitting action this was amazing.
Let's go Big O
TH-cam actually recommending something about one of my loves… that joystick slide sound, lives rent free… got it on BluRay, thank god.
I was living in Japan when The Big O season 1 was broadcast on the pay BS (broadcast satellite) service Wowow, and I was lucky enough to watch 90% of the show during the original broadcast.
I mention this because at about 24 minutes you questioned how it might have been to be a fan between seasons 1 and 2. For me, I thought season 1 had a perfect ending and I wanted for nothing more other than to watch season 1 again and again.
As you noted, Roger was questioning more and more as the season went on and he seemed to be unsure of himself. But when he ended up in the cockpit of The Big O at the end of episode 13 with Dorothy at his side he was finally in control. You said at one point Paradigm was a city looking toward the future, and here Roger finally felt that way as well.
The main conflict of the season was within Roger, and now that he was finally ready to move forward I felt that all that needed to be resolved was.
There was no doubt that he and Dorothy would win their current battle, and imagining what was to come was more exciting than anything that could be put on film. Like I said before, it was just perfect.
So for me, there was no agony at the end of season 1, just pure bliss from a well crafted story with a satisfying end. The only agony I felt was as I watched season 2, something I never thought was needed. (Well, that and Steve Blum as Roger Smith. I know everyone loves him in the US, but I never felt he matched the range that Mitsuru Miyamoto brought to the character.)
Anyway, thanks for putting together a video on The Big O and bummer you cannot use the real soundtrack. I wish I could say "ye not guilty" of failing to buy that soundtrack and the CD single back in 1999-2000!
Funny you AND Giant Robot FM are covering this at the same time.
First. I am a bit surprised that you did not mention how good the music was in the episodes. It is moody and atmospheric in a way that was almost never seen in anime of the time. It added to the good voice work and helped set the table for you to get your head around the mysteries.
Second, this is a story with many stories and mysteries with no answers. Every character and even the Bigs have memories and questions. The end of it can be taken many ways. Just reducing it to simulation misses a major point of a simulation- what were they trying to find out. And if you take it from any given viewpoint you get different answers. It is very much worth looking at to come up with your own answers
And that is what makes it great
Main theme isn't memories. It's the ,,scene". It's not really Lost, but Grant Morrison Animal Man, but without Creator Intervention. 1st season is much more neboulous, but it's spelled out during Gordon Meeting with Roger. It's creators saying that there is no answer. They made it up to be mysterious. Beginning of second season also shows it. People think it's memories from before, but Roger was a mp, not a actor. Schwarzwald mentions that everything is a lie, because they're characters in a anime. He crashes down into a searchlight, just like in first season when Roger got deeper and city was newer than Paradigm. Des Shinta put more eloquntly.
0:10 - "No one wants to talk about it."
Sorry, wot m8? Big O was on Adult Swim during the golden era of Toonami, there's no shortage of discourse about it.
I literally recommended this to a few coworkers over the past few weeks and talked to them during breaks. They now come to me for old anime recomendations
I have never heard a single other person besides me talk about the reference this anime in real life. Even when it was on TV, I only knew ONE KID who would talk about it with me.
I always just loved the outro song, the piano
I think the message of the second season is it kind of spelling out what the first seasons was about. Paradigm City was just their to provide an interesting setting (or stage if you will) for Roger's adventures. The story ultimately not being about a long running arc or the mystery of what really happened 40 years ago. Season two very much feels like the creator's frustration with people not getting this, boiling over into the story. So he responded by hammering that point in by making it more literal within the story itself. By making Paradigm City a literal stage, for Roger to have his adventures in, for some greater entity's (a stand in for the audience) amusement.
So in lue of further adventures we got a diatribe that makes what adventures we did get pointless?
@@patrickbuckley7259 Blame it Konaka writing the second season on his own, he was always the kind of writer that needed a filter. I guess in that regard it's lucky his antisemitism only ended up being mild undertones in Big O.
That would be reductive. Reality warping is to be taken literally, albeit as metaphysical.
Oh boo hoo people liked his set dressing more than his stories so he tore it all down in a tantrum.
And I say this as someone who quite likes the guy overall but it does come off as a tantrum.
Dude, great video! I have a Big Duo half sleeve and am a huge collector of Big O merchandise! Such an underrated gem
The ost if this series iscone of tge best out there.
I am currently doing a rewatch of Big O with some friends who never seen it and its been interesting seeing their reactions and confusion and their theories of the series have been interesting knowing whats coming
Love this show. Was convinced it was just another creature of the week, mech anime for the first 4 or 5 episodes. But then the show just starts winking at me, out of nowhere. And I'm sitting there like, "Wait a sec... this is a lot more cleaver then it's been letting on." Very underrated experience, I must say.
Watched it when I was little, watched again in my 20s.
Was pretty neat, should watch again
I was always a fan of BIG O and the mecha fights. They look, moved and sounded so heavy! It was so much fun to go from jazz blues and smooth dialogue to the heavy THOOM of the robots taking a step.
As someone who finally watched The Big O a year or two ago as part of an ongoing project to watch through formative anime for Americans that never aired in Canada so I didn't catch it growing up (including Big O, Cowboy Bebop, Samurai Champloo, Tenchi Muyo, and others), this show ruled and I enjoyed every minute of it. It felt like Dark City with giant robots, if the lead character was Bruce Wayne.
Another fun one that came out around the same time on Toonami was Ronin Warriors very much a Power Rangers meets samurai mythology. And another great one is Outlaw Star very Cowboy Bebop meets Star Wars.
Outlaw Star was another one on my list of Toonami anime that didn't air in Canada, yeah. I've been enjoying it.
I will never forget this show. Such a great setting, great designs, awesome voice cast in the dub, and just kickass action. SO good.
The deeper meanings are lost on people who need it to be only one thing. It's never just literal or figurative. We are not meant to have a simple answer. We are meant to find acceptance while embracing the meaning of this existence. 'Tis no dream.
Did anyone one else pick up on the fact the female character we're introduced to in the Rise of P ending for Lies of P is a "Puppet" named R DORITHY
I had forgotten about The Big O almost completely until your video showed up. I loved it during its run - the '80s anime style character design (Angel in particular looks ripped straight from SDF Macross), the noir feel, and of course the mecha battles that were half Tatsunoko, half Toei - but couldn't remember why I had left it behind to die in memory rot... It was the ending. The focused rush toward nothing was so disappointing that it actually soured the experience up to that point. It was even more of a "we didn't know how to wrap this up" than the original ending to Evangelion. So disappointing. With your video giving some time to reflect, I still do have quite fond feelings toward most of this series. It was a fun trip down memory lane.
I just started rewatching this- there are some huge differences between what was aired on tv and what was in the unedited version.
Man Big O was on when I was in high school came on late nights
Batman with huge freaking robots! Yes, let’s go with that.
fantastic series, good to see it getting more spotlight cuase it cant get enough.
I still find it surprising that not Only that Sunrise were responsible for this but also that it was made by the same Team who gave us Batman the animated series which explains so much because I kept thinking of Myself when I was a kid so this is what happens if Batman were to pilot a robot. Still a fantastic Mecha in spite of the not so good second season.
I don't even like Steve Blum but this was probably some of his best work in his "Regular" range. (Leaving out the crazier stuff like Green Goblin and that digimon)
13:05 He's like the Romero joker in Adam West batman.
Has a unique story line in itself👍 plus show has a pretty good ost
Oh my god, I'm so glad someone else remembers this!!
As a kid when this first came out that was so confused if it was anime trying to look like Btam, or Batman the animated series trying to look like anime.
The megaduses fights are awesome. I also liked when he fights the comet.
I once saw someone compare this anime to Batman, and yeah that is pretty apt. The hero is a rich guy who only wears black, has a butler who helps him in his secret life, is friends with the head of the police and lives a dual life as the protector of his city. Even the art style is a mix between Bruce Timm and anime. Just replace the Batsuit with a super robot and there you go.
I remember hearing somewhere that people who worked on the team for Batman: The Animated Series also worked on The Big O, but I have no idea if that's true.
I'm glad that I caught this show bwfore seeing Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow (which illustrates that a live action Big O could happen). When the big robots marched on New York, I stood up and shouted, "BIIIIIIG OHHHHHH! IT'S SHOW TIIIIIIME!"
Don't care Dorothy's an Android....I Friggin' Love her!!!❤❤❤
This era had so many wonderful shows 😊
Always enjoy going back to this show! I think I will have to rewatch it in April!
The weird, cryptic "bullshit" is what made it such a good show.
The Big O is definitely one of the most underrated anime series of all time, especially with the performances of Steve Blum (Roger), Lia Sargent (Dorothy) and Wendee Lee (Angel) in the Animaze dub.
I watched this on Adult Swim and it was such a fever dream in my teens
This was a great retrospective on one of my favorite shows. Thank you!
Film Noir, mecha, and an amazing background story for the plot. This show has pacing, tone, atmosphere, and style. My mind keep intentionally forgetting the ending to not spoil the rest of the story. I will happily fight anyone that says this is not a good anime.
Anything story which ends with _"And he woke up, it had all been a terrible dream..."_ is going to feel pretty emotionally unsatisfying. I'd have liked to see a coda episode confirming the implication that this definitely wasn't the first reset, as well as showing that every cycle is significantly different. A follow-up OVA could show a "better" ending for the main protagonists, or at least provide a clear explanation as to why the simulation exists in the first place.
I can’t imagine begin displeased with this show. I watched it weekly and everything was beautiful. 10/10 experience. Maybe I caught it with no two year gap I’m not sure but even if I didn’t. It was 10/10 no complaints. Except the ending lol.
If it wasn't for that ending I feel like it would have been more fondly remembered. "it was all a dream / simulation" is peak bad writing.
It’s peak bad writing nowadays because it’s been done to death.
But it was very well done for it’s day and time.
It’s like everyone gets jaded about the edgy and dark Batman style nowadays but that’s because they don’t remember what it was like before that became a cliche.
Now everyone is doing dark and edgy stuff with constant questions about your own reality like that ‘Life on Mars’ tv show.
It’s just become overused.
Now that I know it's a simulation the whole series kind of really reminds me of the movie The Thirteenth Floor.
I absolutely love this series with all my heart! Thank you so much for doing this review! You're one of the reasons I started watching Gundam 00 and Turn A!
The cylinder that amp his punches and the walking sound efx is what I remember
Amnesiac Batman in a Giant Robot is GREAT 😎✨
"Saving the world in serious style" was the Toonami tagline.
Had forgotten about this one, I really liked it but I think I missed a lot of episodes, thanks for the video!
Thank you so so much for doing this!!