Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to The Big O, where we last left Roger staring out at an approaching wave of Megadeus. After a full season of slowly chipping away at the vast mysteries of Paradigm, The Big O’s first season ended in a flurry of ambiguous revelations, and ultimately offered far more questions than answers.
And for two years, that was it. With the producers discouraged by poor viewership numbers, The Big O’s original 26-episode run was cut in half, leaving only this open question of a finale. It was only two years later, buoyed by additional funding from Cartoon Network, that The Big O would finally reach its conclusion. Based on the show credits, it appears that The Big O’s second half might be shifting in an even more cerebral, ambiguous direction over its second half – after all, Chiaki Konaka wrote every script for the second half, rather than splitting duties with a variety of other writers. Fortunately, the show’s surfeit of excellent directors remains, with this first episode featuring Ikuro Sato, a Sunrise/BONES mainstay who also directed The Big O’s first season premiere. I don’t know what to expect and I couldn’t be happier for it, so let’s not waste any more time, and dive into The Big O’s second half!
Episode 14
We open right back where we started, with the megadeus approaching the beach as Dalton and Roger watch in horror. I gotta admit, I was half-expecting Konaka to pull a time skip to some indeterminate point in the future, and leave us all hanging
I can tell that we’ve switched from hand-painted cells to digitally painted ones, but as far as early digipaint productions go, this one’s holding up so far. Many shows from the period where production studios were transitioning to digital painting tend to have a blurry, indistinct quality, along with a clumsy sense of separation between individual colors. The Big O’s bold, full-color linework is able to largely mitigate the aesthetic shortcomings of this transition period
God, that cut of Dorothy dropping in next to Roger gives me chills. Love it when the grumpy hero and his murder-girlfriend at last work as a team
Hah, and Angel lets another red balloon go floating into the sky. Konaka can’t help himself with these ostentatious visual motifs – this one tends to imply a loss of innocence, which I suppose here applies to the city at large
“It’s too soon. It’ll ruin everything if the power is released.” So this all is within Rosewater’s plan, and just happening prematurely. Presumably because the megadeus themselves can’t be fully controlled
Goldwater’s voiceover informs us that it wasn’t just Paradigm that lost its memories, but the world at large
“When you resigned from the military police, was Big O already waiting for you?” Right, last season capped off by informing us that Roger is some kind of brainwashed sleeper agent, created by Rosewater’s brother, and presumably a pawn of the same scheme
I adore this robot with the asymmetrical face built into his shoulder. Something about the exaggerated, off-center design of his body just makes him seem so monstrous – he is far enough from a default human form that you understand he is some kind of unnatural creature, something you could never hope to reason with
The Big O’s lost an arm and Roger’s having an identity crisis. The team’s not doing great
Goldwater holds one of his brother’s tomatoes in his hand, making clear the connection between their schemes, and underlining how Roger himself is a fruit they’ve grown and can discard at will
They’re really leaning into the inhuman nature of these megadeuses, emphasizing their awkward shuffle-stride as this ominous music plays. As in the first season, Big O is able to merge horror and giant robots to remarkable effect
And more surreal psychological horror, as Roger sees himself buried under the tomatoes that have robbed him of his identity. Yeah, we full Konaka from the start this time
“Roger the Wanderer”
Roger awakens to find himself alone and disheveled, collapsed in a subway station
He emerges into a world that has changed dramatically – instead of the domes, skyscrapers give way to clear blue sky. Paradigm’s origins as a spin on Manhattan are made inescapably clear
Sato uses a variety of tricks to convey Roger’s disorientation, ranging from aiming the camera straight up (this both naturally creates a sense of vertigo, and also inverts the scenery to make it seem more alien), to employing quick cutaways featuring loud incidental objects like the running trains (to disrupt the peace of the scene with threatening sounds and imagery, echoing Roger’s feeling of being haunted and unfamiliar with this place)
His usual info spot is now populated by strangers
More low-angle shots, presenting the sun above as an oppressive, perhaps even malevolent presence. Using an anonymous, sun-bleached city to create a sense of oppression and disorientation is also a trick Konaka uses to great effect in both Serial Experiments Lain and Texhnolyze
Aaand now his home is a bank, owned by Beck, no less
Some very backgrounds for the city at night, using warm, shifting tones for the city lights, and wisely avoiding any finicky linework
Dorothy and her father appear, but her eyes are all wrong. It’s not his Dorothy
The broken clock which Big O frequently uses to open its episodes is here restored, with its glass reflecting the lights and bustle of the city in motion. One more symbol of a world perverted from the one we knew
Reflecting on his first meeting with the Big O, Roger is struck by a stage spotlight. We jump to an auditorium, where an audience of Roger’s silhouette is watching Roger himself explain his history. An energetic visual interpretation of a self-reckoning; some audiences might find a trick like this disorienting, but we’re going full Konaka this time, and I’m thrilled to see it
The stage play conceit also underlines Roger’s bitterness about this whole situation – he sees the life he was living as literally being a puppet on strings, which isn’t far from the truth
According to the play, basically every aspect of his current life was set up for his arrival, waiting for him to appear and assume this reality as his own
Aaand now we’re seeing his first meeting with the Big O as conveyed through comic panels. “We conduct a dive into Roger’s fractured identity through a metatextual montage of alternate storytelling forms” was not my first guess for The Big O’s triumphant return episode, but I’m more than happy to see it
It’s a terrific conceit, really. Roger is being forced to reckon with the artifice of his own identity, and what better way to express that than to highlight the artifice of The Big O as an animated production. Through this, both Roger and the audience are made unmistakably aware of the intentionality of everything around them – the fact that every object on screen was put there for a reason, and that the camera is not an unmotivated observer of objective reality, but a conscious perspective with its own motivation
Some gorgeous layouts as he reckons with the truth by a river. Love this shot from under a nearby bridge, emphasizing the wavering line of the streetlight’s shadow
At a screening of Dalton’s french film, Roger spots the woman with the red balloon. The real and imagined are blending in every way possible, as he wanders in and out of memories framed like films, and stories framed like memories
“I was only an actor playing those parts. If those roles were taken away, I would have no reason to exist”
He runs into Angel, who addresses him as a Major
“Tell me, were you really that afraid of reawakening it?” As is frequently the case, Angel is captured largely through partial body shots or shots aimed at the back of her head, emphasizing the sense that she is concealing information
Roger’s most primal, terrifying memory seems to involve these subway trains
And at last, he acknowledges that he’s always been running away from the truth, finding it too terrifying to bear, and lying to himself to avoid even recognizing what he was doing. But if he keeps denying his past, he cannot move forward
“As long as you keep on calling me that name, I’ll be Roger Smith.” And with Dorothy at his side, his fears of being a meaningless puppet are assuaged, as well. He might have been a puppet, but now he can see the puppet masters, and challenge them
After that profound crisis of faith, we return to the battle at sea!
Goddamn. Incredible cuts of animation for the Big O’s final attack, as it fires harpoons out across the bay. As always, The Big O’s effects and debris animation are remarkable
At the very end, that strange megadeus reveals its internal form looks just like the Big O, echoing the revelations of the end of last scene
And then Angel turns towards him with tears in her eyes. What is your game, Angel!?
And Done
Dear lord. Well, I expected Konaka to veer the show in a more surreal, cerebral direction with full script control, but I wasn’t expecting it to happen this fast! The Big O’s return offered us a fascinating journey into Roger’s psyche, as he grappled with the truth of his brainwashing, and attempted to rebuild his identity in the wake of learning he was a puppet. I loved the way this episode mirrored Roger’s journey with its self-reflective visual theater, and though Roger’s ultimate resurfacing felt a tad abrupt, his final revelation placed him exactly where he needs to be. Running from the past has only left Roger incapable of facing those who have manipulated him – by accepting it, he can embrace his identity without fear, and at last square off with the figures who are truly pulling the strings. I’m looking forward to working with this new and improved Roger Smith!
This article was made possible by reader support. Thank you all for all that you do.