Big O II

Publisher
Bandai
Director
Kazuyoshi Katayama
Production
Bandai, Sunrise
Country of origin
Japan
Format
Series
Running time
13 episodes
Year
2003

BIG O II V. 3 & 4

By David Rasmussen
12th Feb 06

It has finally come to this, hasn’t it… the finale! I started this review some time ago it seems, and yet I never stopped working on finishing this review and seeing it all the way to the final episode. So without further ado let’s put this one to bed as we close up Paradigm City with the final episodes in review…

Big O II V. 3
Sadly I didn’t get ahold of this DVD. So yeah, I know, I know, how did I wrap this up without DVD V. 3! Easy. The seldom useful, mostly on the fritz thing known as Free on Demand… it seems that, for once, it was actually on long enough to serve some form of useful purpose… believe it or not.
Here’s a recap of this volume in short.

The foreign “enemy” (hinted at for episodes) has been revealed to be an organization called “The Union”. This group, the apparent survivors of the remains of Europe (and probably the Middle East) have been hungering for lost memories, memories their sleeper agents are now most certain are hidden beneath Paradigm City. Yeah, if you bet that they and big bad guy Alex Rosewater (head of Paradigm Corp) were collaborating in the past you’d be right. But apparently, as this DVD rolls on, that alliance of convenience has fallen to the wayside after the Union delivered 3 Mega Deuses which were themselves hiding the parts to assemble ONE Mega Deus dubbed “Big Fau”. Huh? Why? Well the alliance fell apart because they delivered, and Alex… as you probably guessed… didn’t deliver on his part. So they’re out to kill him, but not before Alex has most of the agents arrested by the Military Police with only a few (like our beautiful Angel (Wendee Lee) still on the loose).
Meanwhile it looks like one of those still loose (who has ties with Angel) has (as the DVD rolls to a close) triggered a beacon to signal the rest of the Union that what they seek is in Paradigm City… and to start the bloodbath to bring the city down. Apparently they’re not too happy with “civilizations” since they supposedly live a nomadic existence in the wasteland, go figure. Meanwhile it looks like Roger has found a new function for Big O (revealed during “flashbacks”) while Big Fau moves one step closer to completion.
Oh, and then Beck is released from prison to help Rosewater with his Big problems, which triggers the kidnapping of R Dorothy and the return of Big Duo (Schwarzwald’s Mega Deus).
As the DVD ends we’re at a crossroad with everything about to fall into place for a major finale… oh, and we’re left with a cliffhanger with R Dorothy being kidnapped and the only thing standing between Roger and saving her being Big Duo… and whoever is piloting it.

Big O II V. 4 - Aggressive Negotiations
Episode 24 - The Big Fight
The first part of the story is the big battle between Big O and Big Duo, who is piloted by… wait for it… wait for it… Alan Gabriel! (Phhhhrrrrrwwwwrrrr…. Bonk). Yeah, after all the first few minute buildup that Schwarzwald was piloting, and would bring back the terror of his madness piloting Big Duo, we get disappointed (and yet not surprised because we figured it would be so) when Alan Gabriel (hardwired into Big Duo’s cockpit thanks to Beck’s “advice”) was revealed to be the pilot. Yeah, he didn’t last, and despite the fact Big O takes heavy damage it still manages to take out Big Duo by doing a White Queen on it and proclaiming “Off wit’ it’s head!”… then Big Duo wises up.

After suffering the piloting of Alan Gabriel for a few minutes Big Duo decides his “new” Dominos is no better than a Dominoes Pizza Delivery guy as a pilot, and declares him inferior by wrapping him like a mummy in wiring and snuffing him out, just as he delusionally sees Schwarzwald gloating over him.
Goodbye Alan Gabriel, ye guilty (sucker).

Roger then finds R Dorothy… or to be more precise he finds her body, sans her core memory and her “soul”, apparently. He vows to go out and hunt her down, after finally admitting he could fall in love with her, while Norman sees to the revival and restoration of Big O.
That sets the stage for the finale, and the endgame… which shouldn’t have sucked the way it did.

Episode 25 & 26 - The War of Paradigm and The Show Must Go On
By the very set-up we have as we roll into the finale we should not have had a sucky ending!
And yet the devil in these details is the final two minutes of the final episode. That’s where the suck lies.
The setup should have made this fine.
Everything that has happened before has led to this moment.
The foreign “enemies” have been proven to be an organization called “The Union”, the last survivors of Europe (and probably the Middle East) who hunger for the memories buried deep in Paradigm City, and who are not above destroying Paradigm City to harvest those memories.
Big Fau, the present from The Union to Alex Rosewater, is done and now stands tall over the city as the Union’s attack begins. Rosewater, it’s pilot, using the attack as his tool to purge Paradigm City so he can recreate it in his own image.
Big O is rapidly being repaired by Norman and a crew of homeless who were, in fact, engineers.
Roger is hunting for R Dorothy’s “soul”, while Angel has just found out her past is a lie.
Oh, and Big Duo has exited Stage Up with the dead corpse of it’s former would be Dominos Alan Gabriel, judging him inferior in comparison to it’s former Dominos Schwarzwald. Ye guilty, Alan Gabriel, sucker.

So how did it end so badly!
Angel’s whole past thing is a mess, and I didn’t want to try and figure it out… so I didn’t. But these last two episodes did give the woman who was supposedly her “mother” an excuse to play dominatrix with Angel and give her a whipping… only to jump down a hole and come up in some Deus which is probably “Leviathan”… but that doesn’t last so why bother. The fight is between Big O and Big Duo.
Dorothy self revives, while Beck (who is now moot) stands around on the rooftop of Roger’s place trying to figure out what’s going on… what’s going on? Oh, Big Duo flies up into the stratosphere and crashes into the huge lighting grid in the ceiling of the Mega Dome that Paradigm City exists in… that’s when everything goes downhill. Oh, Beck proves to be useful in the end since he gives the same wisdom to R Dorothy that he gave Alan Gabriel, and that helps in the final battle as she reunites with Roger and saves him one more time so Big O can get back into the battle with Big Fau one final time.

As for the sucky ending? Apparently the “city” lives in a Mega Dome, and the whole world is a “stage” and it’s citizens actors whose lot in life is to play the roles given to them… what the hell!!
Now I would have bought the fact that they were living a lie, and were sealed into an underground dome to survive the death of the world and forgotten that they fled the sky and sun in order to survive. But that doesn’t come close to what I thought would happen, and in fact it made near zero sense, especially since in order for this “ending” to make sense you have to completely toss out Episode 16 which concerned the “return” of a Mir like spacestation that fell back to Earth (which wouldn’t be possible if the entire city existed in a Mega Dome)! So then, to counter that they went with the Mega Dome thing only to realize it doesn’t work, they wrap the last two minutes in this manner…

During the whole rush to finale we find out that Roger and Gordon Rosewater had an agreement.
Roger was hired to “negotiate” with the “Director” of the “drama” that was unfolding in Paradigm.
The Director, in the end, turned out to be Angel (Wendee Lee), who grew wings and then took her place in the director’s booth (control room) for the end. After Roger Smith used Big O’s final mode to cut Big Fau in half, exercising the ultimate in Mega Deus weight loss plans, but failing to completely destroy Big Fau we see the revival of a stupid Mega Deus called “Big Venus”. Big Venus makes the world go away Matrix style, and makes the evil Rosewater disappear. Then as Big O begins to vanish Roger steps out and delivers a rambling Captain Kirk style speech (William Shatner would be so proud) only for the end to cut to the control room with R Dorothy touching Angel’s shoulder and announcing Roger the Negotiator has come to speak to her… then Paradigm City resets back to the beginning of Episode 1, the credits roll, and we’re left staring at our screen muttering… “What the (bleep) is this”… sorta like our feelings towards We Love Katamari, only without the profound wonder and respect we had for We Love Katamari.

What the hell just happened?!? The show suddenly ends, the credit rolls, and we’re left with NOTHING!
Breakdown time… because only there can we finally exclaim why BANDAI (and we the viewers) deserved better, and yet why I still have love for the series… let’s do it.

Big O Breakdown the Finale
What’s Hot?
Yes. Nothing has changed about my recommendation about this series. Yes, the last two episodes dragged the series right down into an improbable ending that should never have happened… but as I said above the “Devil” was in the detail, because there was still moments in even the last two episodes where you were given hope that all your emotional investment in this series would pay dividends.
Yes, as we all know when you become involved in a series like this you invest “emotional investment” in the story. Each episode is like a installment payment, of which you pay off abit more emotional investment in the series as you walk towards the ending. Each episode that investment grows, with an expectation, a promise if you will, that your investment will pay off in the end when the series comes to a close.
The series itself is not bad. Even in the end there are moments that pay small dividends into your emotional investment, so that even if you don’t yield the full investment back you at least get something back for your time and that is at least something.
I won’t say the series is bad, because it’s not. Dubbing wise it’s still one of the few English dub series worth watching because it’s good. Series wise it’s still one of the good series because it is more good than ill with only a small smidgen of it falling short, so the series as a whole cannot be ostracized for this one faux pas because the series is still oh so recommendable.

What’s Not?
However, and this is my one true complaint, you are ripped off of your emotional investment in the series. You do get a small amount back, but it doesn’t come near to replacing what you lost by the ending. And, worst of all, BANDAI doesn’t even try to explain to you whatever the heck happened at the end! At this point an extra from the original Director which explains the end, and what happened, would have been oh so welcome. Either that or a Commentary track by the director during the two episodes to explain what’s going on, which is something else they didn’t do but should have.
Heck, even if it’s only a 30 second to 1 minute explanation similar to Leonard Nimoy’s Death of Spock proclamation (clearing up internet rumors about the “Death of Spock” at the end of a Star Trek II showing during a marathon hosted by Leonard Nimoy several years ago on the Sci-Fi Channel would have been something we oh so desperately needed, but didn’t get).
The simple matter of fact is that we wouldn’t be nearly this uptight about the ending if we had some sort of, I don’t know, clue as to what the hell happened! Some ending that tied it all up and presented it with some clarity and sense, and not… well, whatever the hell happened. If I knew what was going on at the end, and wasn’t stuck with a eyebrow raising confusing ending I wouldn’t be nearly so irritated by the ending, but with the show just ending the way it did without so much as a “by your leave”? Well… do you blame people for being irritated with this ending?

Now I heard there was supposedly an “original” ending… was this it? It’s on the DVD so I guess this is the original ending, but is it? If not then what was the “original” ending? Is there another ending to this series?
I’m not certain, and if anyone has any information of this I would greatly appreciate it, but would this be different if I had a different ending to go by? I don’t know. I honestly don’t know.
An interview would clear this up, I suppose. So that’s the homework then… if anyone has any information on an link to an interview with Big O’s director or someone on the writing staff which clears up the ending and explains what’s going on? That would be… what? File an interview request? That’d be nice, not practical with everyone’s busy workloads at Sunrise, but it would be nice… oh, well.

Moments to Remember?
Yes, lots are still memorable. There’s even R Dorothy moments to remember. The last two DVDs continue the solid viewing, even when I am criticizing the moments of Episodes 25 & 26. Overall there is more good to Big O than bad.

What to Ignore?
I’d like to ignore the ending if possible… can I just write my own ending? Can’t? Oh, well. I’ll stick to ignoring the ending then. Sorry.

Overall?
When it comes right down to it there is more good about Big O than bad. Yes, a few seconds of the end leaves you confused and cheated, but again it’s ONLY A FEW SECONDS!! You can’t throw away hours of solid viewing because a few seconds didn’t exactly synch! That makes no sense!
Overall, when it is all said and done, Big O does not falter nor fall short of my praise, nor does it become any less a series worth talking about and watching. Yes, again the ending could have been better… hopefully somebody explains this “original” ending to me, since I would like to know more. Anyway the series is mostly good, so remember the good and forget the few bad since even admist the few bad there are still good to hold onto. Big O, ending isn’t universally loved, but the totality of it still holds solid. Check it out, and see what I mean for yourself.

-- David Rasmussen 12th Feb 06

Big O II Images