The Big O | Retcon_404 (Anime Retrospective) 

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".

"No one wants to talk about Big O." Hi, I'm No one.

Big O came out at the wrong time. It literally has the same structure as Trigun, Cowboy Bebop, or Vampire Hunter D.

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

SHOWTIME! “I’m the domineuce of this megadeuce” is still proclaimed amongst my gang.

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.

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!

@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.

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.

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.

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

I was 40 when this came out in 1999. Great show and animation. No moronic comic relief that often plague many cartoons.

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.

"If we do not learn from the past we are doomed to repeat our mistakes"

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

That big O theme was the favorite part of every episode

We are all tomatoes now

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.

Now Big O! It's showtime!

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 .

The soundtrack and art style is still iconic to this day.

fantastic series, good to see it getting more spotlight cuase it cant get enough.

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

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.

I just started rewatching this- there are some huge differences between what was aired on tv and what was in the unedited version.

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.

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.

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..

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

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.

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.

The " what if batman had a giant mecha" anime series

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

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 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 👍🏽

I always find it hillarious to tell friends who lile batman that this sjow was produced by the same studio.

Ending was weird af, glad you did this video. Answered a lot of questions for me.

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.

One of my favorite shows of all time!! Got Steve to autograph my Big O boxset, it was an amazing experience.

OH yeah one of my favorite Mecha anime the noir tone, the psychedelic writing, the hard hitting action this was amazing.

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.

Man Big O was on when I was in high school came on late nights

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.

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 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.

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.

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.

Big Duo and Schwartvault are my favorite character and Mecha

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'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!"

Big O is amazing It great because you can watch over and over and find something new

I remember being stuck on ep 13's cliffhanger until the rest of the show came out.

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.

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.

I loved this show and need to give it a rewatch. Luckily, I have both seasons on DVD

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

Funny you AND Giant Robot FM are covering this at the same time.

RU-vid actually recommending something about one of my loves… that joystick slide sound, lives rent free… got it on BluRay, thank god.

I brought this show up out of nowhere the other week. I had not thought about it in close to 20 years.

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

Let's go Big O

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!

Dude, great video! I have a Big Duo half sleeve and am a huge collector of Big O merchandise! Such an underrated gem

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.

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 will never forget this show. Such a great setting, great designs, awesome voice cast in the dub, and just kickass action. SO good.

The weird, cryptic "bullshit" is what made it such a good show.

Always enjoy going back to this show! I think I will have to rewatch it in April!

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.

The megaduses fights are awesome. I also liked when he fights the comet.

I always just loved the outro song, the piano

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.

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

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.

The ost if this series iscone of tge best out there.

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.

Watched it when I was little, watched again in my 20s. Was pretty neat, should watch again

Big O comes off as a pretty mature anime

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 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.

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.

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 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)

Oh my god, I'm so glad someone else remembers this!!

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.

The cylinder that amp his punches and the walking sound efx is what I remember

Batman with huge freaking robots! Yes, let’s go with that.

I grew up watching Big O and I love it so much. But I do wish the ending made more sense. I watched it probably like 20 times as a teen trying to understand every detail of the show and always feeling like I was missing something big. Waiting for it to finally click for me. It's been ages now since I last saw it and this made me want to research it now. Thank you for giving me an explanation of the end. I do wish the show explained more of the mysteries though. Seriously thank you so much for making this video. Big O has always been one of my favorite anime.

This was a great retrospective on one of my favorite shows. Thank you!

The show kinda implies that a young Angel was a childhood fan of The Big O show on tv if I recall correctly? Thus her self inserting herself (?) into the show she produces later as the Angel character and her feelings of competition for Dorothy who is her natural love rival. The underground scene with Angel and Roger and her Big Venus alter ego resetting the shows time loop makes me think of her as similar to a JK Rowling self inserting herself into her own beloved universe as she rewatches her story adaptation come to life from the control room. The Metropolis book seems to be an obvious tip of the hat towards Fritz Langs famous Metropolis film from the 1920’s with the theme of robot girl ‘Maria’ being created to lead people astray? Angel was the caged bird living in her time loop and that was why paradigm city had its clockface smashed out from its clock tower maybe? She is stuck in that loop emotionally or even physically? Actually this reminds me of the story of another strange anime I enjoyed called Kino’s Journey: The Beautiful World and I thoroughly recommend you check that out because it has a very similar ending featuring the nature of who Kino is and what her Journey was really about!

Has a unique story line in itself👍 plus show has a pretty good ost

I watched this on Adult Swim and it was such a fever dream in my teens

Schwarzwald was my favorite character from Big O. I wish that he was shown in more episodes

Thank you so so much for doing this!!

13:05 He's like the Romero joker in Adam West batman.

One of my favorite series of all time. I'm so glad you are covering this. Also, Steve Blum for the win!

Now that I know it's a simulation the whole series kind of really reminds me of the movie The Thirteenth Floor.

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.