The Big O

Roger Smith is a private investigator / giant robot pilot in a world where everyone lost their memories forty years ago.

Big O struck me as a cross between Batman and Evangelion. Imagine Bruce Wanye as a giant robot pilot with Rei Ayanami as a sidekick. The characters in Big O have well rounded and dynamic personalities, which makes them very interesting to watch as the story progresses. Big O is one of the few giant robot series with more than just mecha bashing each other. The plot centers around the jobs that Roger takes and how the assignments he’s set on slowly reveal the secret of what caused the massive destruction and memory loss forty years ago. The first season of Big O is wonderful, but story quality tapers off in the second into a very dissapointing Evangelion-ish ending.

The background music sets a good tone for the dark environment that the show is set in. The opening song is very good but doesn’t seem to match the feeling of the world of Big O.

This is a very good series for people who are not interested in anime because of the visual similarity to US cartoons (Batman, Superman, etc…) and because the English voice acting in Big O was better than the Japanese version.

Objectionable Material:
Some minor gun violence.

Recommended Age Group:
Late teen and up. The plot line is fairly complex and slows down at points/episodes. Younger children may not be able to understand some of the interrelationships of the characters, or may not have enough of an attention span to deal with the slow points.

Second Opinion:

In Short the big O is pretty darn good. Imagine Batman driving around an enormous robot with seemingly limitless power, lots of fights, explosions, and neat music. The visual style is stupendous with animation that has a anime feel to it but looks very american too.(once again the Batman series from the early 90′s, remember the one with the realistic animation and dark overtones. Then add a japanese influence to it). ASide from Looks and cool fight factor, big O has a complex and twisting storyline. If only the series had been finished anyways. Many episodes foreshadow future events or revelations that wwere never developed, and only hinted at. The series jsut kinda ends o na big [...] cliffhange, and thats it. The show seems only ok, until you’ve seen it all, then you can piece togeether some of the stuff from the first few episodes and it STARTS to make sense. Altho it’s like only 1/2 a series was created, whatever happened to the other half i dunno. So after you watch it, and get hooked on it you must do 2 things. A) Buy the dvd or vhs versions when they come out B) CALL, WRITE, STALK BANDAI CARTOON NETWORK and SUNRISE Entertainment, and tell them to make more BIG-O episodes. Say Yo! I need My O!

So watch it and see if you like it, if yer mildly interested get Vol2 and so on. If you wanna know the truth. You can technically just buy vol.4 and get all the info you need about the story in 1 great little chunk. But don’t do that, that would be cheating. THis series reminds me of a cowboy bebop that almost was. WHY WONT THEY FINISH IT. JUST FOR ME? maybe if i make puppy dog eyes at em they will.