Big O thread

[Heinken111]

 I know Big O is dead, Im very sad about that as well. But I feel this is a good place to discuss it and any future hopes we have for it.

Here is my first contribution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o0nb1n37D1s&feature=player_detailpage

[Maeriberii Haan]

Holy hell, another Big O fan!

 

It sadly won't really have much continuation, unless something really unlikely happened.

 

But, who can hate not!Bruce Wayne with a giant victorian mecha?

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

FUCK YEAH BIG O!!!

[(GigaDrillBreaker)]

Dude big o is amazing. I think it has more fans than you think

[Heinken111]

Red Destiny was one of my favorite episodes, it was terrifying in a 50's film fashion, but yet intellectual.

[Astro Dude]

I loved Big O from beginning to end. What is more epic than a negotiator who sounds like Spike from Cowboy Bebop, riding a mech suit? Nothing, that's what!

[Heinken111]

Just made Big O cards in casual multiples. :) Please leave criticism.

[Susie]

been meaning to go for this one since its one of the classic mecha series and i do enjoy quite a bit of mecha stuff, ive had this one on my list for quite a while and will probably go for this one once i empty my plate out a bit more

[Premier Alexander Romanov]

Big O is important to the history of anime as it was the first big post-Evangelion mecha show to not only embrace the changes Evangelion brought to the genre, but also still find a way for them to work with the older sensibilities of mecha, by adopting the experimental craze of the late 90's and early 00's.

Pre- and Post-Evangelion mecha can be seen as similar to the superhero scenes of the 80s and 90s, respectively. Before, the giant robot genre was about epic space operas and action shows and more campy and fun. Then Evangelion slapped everyone in the face by showing the reality of what a Monster Of The Week would really do to a city, to the hero, to the other pilots. It tore down the genre and exposed everything wrong with it, changing the landscape forever. "Gospel for a New Century" indeed.

For a while, everyone wanted their own spin. We had shows like RahXephon and Turn A Gundam that explored further into this idea of what it means to be a giant robot anime, but Big O came at the right time, because another fad was sweeping over anime: the experimental boom. With the success of Cowboy Bebop, and a greater eye turned towards the West, anime was trying out new concepts, also attempting to rediscover what anime was in the wake of the OVA boom that ended earlier that decade.

So Big O was a turn of the millennium experimental anime, with its neo-noir themes, such as that the world is literally a stage, mixing with post-Evangelion mentalities of what the giant robot has become, and we have an awesome anime that is a massive callback to what we love, and trendsetter to the first half of the first decade of the 21st century.

[BANZAI!!!!]

Man this brings me back. Big O is one of those shows that gets better every time I watch it, mostly because I usually catch something I missed or I pick up on some foreshadowing or symbolism that I overlooked or didn't get last time. Its a really fun series to dissect and talk about philosophically (i've literally read someone's paper on the philosophy of the show. Here if you're interested). At the same time I can still entertain my inner 12 year old whenever Roger Smith decides that some motherfucker needs a good piston punch. And the show delivers magnificently in that regard, with my personal favorite being the fight between Roger and Alan Gabriel's rebuilt Big Duo in season 2.  Its pretty sad that season 3 never materialized and we're more or less left with an incomplete bookend of a plot, but for what it was it was a good show, and a part of my childhood.

 

Big O is important to the history of anime as it was the first big post-Evangelion mecha show to not only embrace the changes Evangelion brought to the genre, but also still find a way for them to work with the older sensibilities of mecha, by adopting the experimental craze of the late 90's and early 00's.

Pre- and Post-Evangelion mecha can be seen as similar to the superhero scenes of the 80s and 90s, respectively. Before, the giant robot genre was about epic space operas and action shows and more campy and fun. Then Evangelion slapped everyone in the face by showing the reality of what a Monster Of The Week would really do to a city, to the hero, to the other pilots. It tore down the genre and exposed everything wrong with it, changing the landscape forever. "Gospel for a New Century" indeed.

For a while, everyone wanted their own spin. We had shows like RahXephon and Turn A Gundam that explored further into this idea of what it means to be a giant robot anime, but Big O came at the right time, because another fad was sweeping over anime: the experimental boom. With the success of Cowboy Bebop, and a greater eye turned towards the West, anime was trying out new concepts, also attempting to rediscover what anime was in the wake of the OVA boom that ended earlier that decade.

So Big O was a turn of the millennium experimental anime, with its neo-noir themes, such as that the world is literally a stage, mixing with post-Evangelion mentalities of what the giant robot has become, and we have an awesome anime that is a massive callback to what we love, and trendsetter to the first half of the first decade of the 21st century.

 

To be quite honest, you really don't know what you're talking about at all here Dan. Big O is so far removed from Evangelion that I dare say they have nothing to do with one another other than being super robot mecha anime, and as far as its place in anime history is concerned Japan gave absolutely zero shits about the show, and we only got season 2 because cartoon network wanted it and paid for it. Big O didn't heavily influence much of anything that came after it, and at best it's got a nice footnote in the history of the western fandom as a show that did well here in the early 00s. As for where Big O actually takes its influence from, there are two main sources. One is Batman, specifically the animated series from the 90's, as both shows were animated by Sunrise (you know, the company that produces gundam) and shared a lot of the same staff. You can plainly see it in the art deco designs of paradigm city, the show's rather muted color palette, and the noir themes. The other one is Giant Robo, which is a mecha series (specifically a manga, though there have been tokusatsu and more recently an OVA in the 90's that also shared a lot of staff with The Big O) so oldschool that it predates even Mazinger Z and piloted giant robots as a whole. The Big O itself is an homage to Giant Robo in its design (look familiar at all?) and everything from the mecha to the fights to the set pieces in the show are meant to be reminiscent of old 60's and 70's tokusatsu and kaiju movies. In short, Big O comes from the polar opposite end of the spectrum that Evangelion does, since barring its batman influence its played as straight as a super robot show can get, and personally I feel that its better off as a work for it.  

[Just Crouton]

I remember Toonami airing the first episode in 7th/8th grade, and shrugging at it, then later watching season 2 on Adult Swim and enjoying it.

[Heinken111]

Man this brings me back. Big O is one of those shows that gets better every time I watch it, mostly because I usually catch something I missed or I pick up on some foreshadowing or symbolism that I overlooked or didn't get last time. Its a really fun series to dissect and talk about philosophically (i've literally read someone's paper on the philosophy of the show. Here if you're interested). At the same time I can still entertain my inner 12 year old whenever Roger Smith decides that some motherf***er needs a good piston punch. And the show delivers magnificently in that regard, with my personal favorite being the fight between Roger and Alan Gabriel's rebuilt Big Duo in season 2.  Its pretty sad that season 3 never materialized and we're more or less left with an incomplete bookend of a plot, but for what it was it was a good show, and a part of my childhood.

 

 

To be quite honest, you really don't know what you're talking about at all here Dan. Big O is so far removed from Evangelion that I dare say they have nothing to do with one another other than being super robot mecha anime, and as far as its place in anime history is concerned Japan gave absolutely zero shits about the show, and we only got season 2 because cartoon network wanted it and paid for it. Big O didn't heavily influence much of anything that came after it, and at best it's got a nice footnote in the history of the western fandom as a show that did well here in the early 00s. As for where Big O actually takes its influence from, there are two main sources. One is Batman, specifically the animated series from the 90's, as both shows were animated by Sunrise (you know, the company that produces gundam) and shared a lot of the same staff. You can plainly see it in the art deco designs of paradigm city, the show's rather muted color palette, and the noir themes. The other one is Giant Robo, which is a mecha series (specifically a manga, though there have been tokusatsu and more recently an OVA in the 90's that also shared a lot of staff with The Big O) so oldschool that it predates even Mazinger Z and piloted giant robots as a whole. The Big O itself is an homage to Giant Robo in its design (look familiar at all?) and everything from the mecha to the fights to the set pieces in the show are meant to be reminiscent of old 60's and 70's tokusatsu and kaiju movies. In short, Big O comes from the polar opposite end of the spectrum that Evangelion does, since barring its batman influence its played as straight as a super robot show can get, and personally I feel that its better off as a work for it.  

I just watched a series called Ultra7, one of Japans most famous heroes and I noticed something interesting about the opening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7xWXVQE0lw4

This is the theme of Ultraseven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s7_Od9CmTu0

Bio O, influence much?

 

Although I understand what the mod was saying, Big O tried to incorporate elements of Evangelion with the old toku shows. (Hell Chromebuster can be seen as a Mazinger Z Breast Fire and Ultraseven Emerium Beam fusion.)

 

Although (Im sorry Airwolf Fans) it does remain as one of the fan demanded shows that did not f### up the demanded season.

[BANZAI!!!!]

I just watched a series called Ultra7, one of Japans most famous heroes and I noticed something interesting about the opening:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=7xWXVQE0lw4

This is the theme of Ultraseven.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=s7_Od9CmTu0

Bio O, influence much?

 

Although I understand what the mod was saying, Big O tried to incorporate elements of Evangelion with the old toku shows. (Hell Chromebuster can be seen as a Mazinger Z Breast Fire and Ultraseven Emerium Beam fusion.)

 

Although (Im sorry Airwolf Fans) it does remain as one of the fan demanded shows that did not f### up the demanded season.

 

Big O really does have absolutely nothing to do with Evangelion, like at all. Their themes are wholly different, their casts have nothing in common, hell, the robots behave completely differently in battle. Not to mention that while Eva basks in its heavy handed (and quite frankly meaningless) religious symbolism, Big O uses it sparingly (preferring instead that oh-so-juicy tomato analogy), and mostly as a metaphor for the follies of man and the results of the creation/use of megadei. Big O may have the intellectual weight that people attribute to post-evangelion mecha anime, but the fact of the matter is that the genre was and has always been that intelligent, as shows like super dimension century orguss and space runaway ideon (the thing that Eva rips a great deal of its ideas and plot from, by the way) prove. The only thing I think Big O really shares in common with Eva is its grandiosity, which is rather typical for a super robot show that's not intended for kids. 

 

I'm pretty sure the similarity between the OPs is coincidental, despite the show's influence from that era of japanese television. That is unless the animators for the OP were  big Ultra 7 fans (which they might have been, idk). In which case that's pretty awesome.

 

And yes, the chrome buster is meant to be the Breast fire and every derivative move that spawned from it, most specifically (to my knowledge) the getter beam from getter robo. I've also heard that the piston punch came about as a result of one of the production staff asking "So what would happen if you could throw a rocket punch without detaching your hand?" but that could just be me remembering something incorrectly

[Heinken111]

Okay just found another possible Ultra7 reference:

https://youtu.be/CtV4hMCm2uo

 

compare to above sea monster getting slain in first post.

[BANZAI!!!!]

Okay just found another possible Ultra7 reference:

https://youtu.be/CtV4hMCm2uo

 

compare to above sea monster getting slain in first post.

I'm convinced. Someone on the staff was a fanboy. Awesome.

[Johan Liebert]

I had watched the first episode awhile ago. It seemed interesting, but I was in the middle of nearly thirty other anime, so it kinda got lost in the mix. I thought I'd pick it up soon. What are the pros and cons of the series?

[Philemon]

I am terrible with starting anime series and never finishing them. The Big O was one I started and couldn't stop until I watched it all the way through. Hell, it's one of the few series I watched twice, something I never do.

[BANZAI!!!!]

I had watched the first episode awhile ago. It seemed interesting, but I was in the middle of nearly thirty other anime, so it kinda got lost in the mix. I thought I'd pick it up soon. What are the pros and cons of the series?

Pros: Done by the people who do gundam. Sunrise knows how to do mecha and the action is great in nearly every episode. Also if you're american there's a lot of batman influence and its very easy to get invested if you're a westerner. Its also got a philosophical bent to itself, but its never preachy or ham-fisted about it like Evangelion is. Takes multiple sit throughs to pick up on things but when you do you'll be pleasantly surprised about how well the show does its foreshadowing. In a nutshell Big 0 knows what it is and what it wants to do and pretty much solidly delivers on both. Its well done, if imperfect.

 

Cons: It does the LOST thing and leaves you with way more questions than answers by the end. Does this for both seasons actually, so it never really feels completely solid as an encapsulated story. Also if giant robots aren't your thing then you're going to be disappointed that there's as much robot fighting as there is intrigue mystery and suspense. It sort of takes a love for both to get the most out of the show. Also its from 2002 so if dated animation isn't your thing you might have some hangups with the artstyle or the age of it.

[Heinken111]

 

so much Getter, not enough HEATS!