I can admit that this series is an ultraspecific amalgamation of weird things I personally like. As viewers approach the finale.let's just say the last couple episodes are heady and artistic in ways you wouldn't expect from an anime where giant robots punch each other for a quarter of the run time. Roger begins to question why he can pilot Big O, the nature of Paradigm City, and why exactly no one has memories. While still chock full of action, comedy, and pulpy flavor, it grows more navel-gazey. Season two is where this episodic steam-punky noir becomes a different beast entirely. Even the robots have their own personality, with the main machines (called Megadeuces) reflecting the style of the series while other villainous mechas offer campy takes on classic designs (think VOLTRON or even toy robots from the 50s.) All are memorable and given plenty of time to shine through little moments or even whole episodes dedicated to them. The Big O explores memories through episodic vignettes in which we meet an eclectic cast of fun characters such as Dorothy, a sarcastic android Norman, Roger's butler Angel, a femme fatale and Beck, the comedic relief villain. In pursuit of those memories is the Paradigm Corporation and its mentally unstable chairman, Alex Rosewater.
Androids walk among humans and giant robots called Mega Deuces appear seemingly whenever someone remembers something they should have forgotten. Inside the city, domes were built for the rich to live under while the poor are forced to subside outside in squalor.
The city, Paradigm, lost all of its memories 40 years ago but life has continued regardless. In it we follow Roger Smith, the pilot of a lumbering giant robot called Big O.
The first season of The Big O is mostly episodic. What begins as Batman: The Animated Series wherein our rich, perpetually black-clad protagonist solves Paradigm City's problems as The Negotiator, slowly becomes an existential battle, not only for Roger's sense of place in the universe, but the entire city's as well. It's an anime unlike any other, a blending of Eastern and Western animation trends and storytelling styles to create an easily approachable yet extremely complex tale. In the wake of Neon Genesis Evangelion over 25 years ago, the mecha genre has had few standouts.
0 kommentar(er)
