Welcome all, to week 3 of The Big O! This week gives us another pair of Monster-Of-The-Week stories. One follows a ghosts quest for revenge, the other an androids memory of its father. Are they any good? Lets dive in and find out!
First up we have episode 5, “Bring Back My Ghost”. To cut right to it, I felt like this episode was the first real miss of Big O’s run. The core of the story is split between an old woman wanting to see her family for her birthday and a son, murdered by corrupt cops, out for revenge. On the one hand we have a mothers tale about bad people still loving their family, having wants, desires and feelings despite being ostensibly horrible people. Yet because we spent so little time with her, instead focusing on the son, it ended up feeling underbaked and ultimately toothless. Meanwhile on the other hand we have the sons story, which did little more than remind us how corrupt Paradigm City is, not telling us much more than that. And together? Well they don’t really fit together at all. That’s the problem.
Watching this episode, I couldn’t figure out what the common throughline between these two halves was supposed to be. Are we meant to learn more about the class struggle in Paradigm City, to see how corrupt the Military Police are and why Roger hates it so much? But we already knew about all of that. What about how Roger chooses his clients, why would he work with the old rich lady if he normally only picks those who are sincere? Well this is an interesting idea, but we really only see her twice in the whole episode. Because of this neither half works. We neither learn new information about the world nor care about the emotional core of the episode. It all felt so out of place with what have watched so far.
Speaking of out of place, don’t even get me started on the giant robot. The fight this week is exactly what I was afraid of early on, it doesn’t fit anything about the episode. It’s just sort of… there? And it has illusions powers? Yet no one noticed the 20 story tall Megadeus maybe a quarter of a mile away? I get that there was fog but come on, surely someone would have noticed that. Plus its sentient enough to save Bonnie when he falls into the ocean, implanting memories in his head about how to use it, only then he doesn’t actually have to be in it at all to use it? Everything about this machine, and its place in the story, is messy. I almost feel like the episode would have been better had it been removed entirely.
On top of that, the way the robot is incorporated into the revenge plot also doesn’t make any sense. All those people died because they saw a ghost and just… crashed? Or fell off a bridge? The robot itself never actually shot at any of them? Are you telling me none of these people can drive, or have the mental facilities to just turn around? Hell, that isn’t even mentioning how Big O rose out of the water when it appeared without flooding the underground. I get that some of these are nitpicks, and if it was only one or two I could accept it. But nothing about this setup makes sense. Not real sense nor narrative sense within Paradigm City. The entire episode just feels like someone had an idea for a ghostly robot and decided to build a story around it, fuck how it fits into the show.
Luckily as we move forward episode 6, “A Legacy of Amadeus”, is a tad better in this regard. Still not great, it’s still rather irrelevant to the overarching show, but this one at least has an emotional core I can get behind and is generally a lot less messy in its execution. The core of this episode is centered around an android named Instro, famed for his emotional piano playing, and Roger’s request for him to train Dorothy so he can have a pleasant morning. Sure, the catalyst for the episode is pretty shallow, it’s just Roger hating Dorothy’s robotic music again. But it quickly transforms from there into not just an appreciation for what makes music truly beautiful, not the precision of the notes but the emotion behind them, but also an exploration of legacy and our parents. Both very relevant topics for Dorothy.
And that’s where I think the strength of this episode really lies, Dorothy. Her and Instro, practicing emotions, playing the piano, the discussions on fulfilling a parents dreams, etc etc. That’s all solid. The bits that fell through, that held the episode back, were actually everything around Giesing. The murder of Amadeus, wanting revenge against Paradigm for being let go afterwards, pulling Instro in as a tool for Amadeus’ “last wish” and Instro just sort of going along with it despite very clearly being kidnapped earlier in the episode. All of that just holds back an otherwise engaging story. Going back to episode one, this is what I was afraid of. That Big O, in it’s desire to have a weekly robot fight, would force them into situations that didn’t need them, that didn’t need physical mecha conflict. Both of these episodes were exactly that.
Still, overall I think the episode, and more specifically Instro as a character, worked. The discovery and teaching of his passion, relearning how to play the piano with new hands, the implications that he was a real boy, or at least based on one with his memories. It’s all great, and it relates back to Dorothy and her relationship with her father really well. I was really glad to see her get more screen time this week because she’s probably my favorite character so far, with her relationship with Roger being my favorite part of the show. More than the giant robots, the noir art-deco style, or Roger’s personality, Dorothy is kind of driving the show for me. So hopefully Big O will keep that in mind, the fact that Dorothy is just great, and use her more often. That’s my hope at least.
So yeah, all in all these episodes were kind of disappointing compared to the four we had already seen. 6 was fine enough, it had a strong core to it, but 5 was a total miss. They weren’t terrible, they didn’t ruin the series for me. But they also weren’t good. When this is all over, when I think back on Big O and wonder about the “best episodes” or “reasons to watch the show”, neither of these will come to mind. Now in the long run? This is probably fine. If this is the worst Big O gets across the 26 episodes we’re going to be watching, it’ll be fine. These only become a problem if they are an indicator of things to come. Still, that isn’t something we can know just yet, so lets wait, pray and see if Big O can pull itself back up.
The post The Big O – 5/6 [Bring Back My Ghost/A Legacy of Amadeus] – Throwback Thursday appeared first on Star Crossed Anime.
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