Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m eager to return to The Big O, which we last left in a moment of total crisis, as both Roger and Dorothy found themselves under assault by agents of the mysterious “Union,” the only glimmer of civilization we’ve seen from outside the walls of Paradigm. Living in the ruins of the wider world, they have infiltrated Paradigm on all levels, from Roger’s would-be confidant Angel to Alex Rosewater’s associate Alan Gabriel. And now their agents have gathered, amassing in their chapel to pass judgment on this hedonistic dreamworld.

The unveiling of Paradigm’s true peculiarity has been the great work of Big O’s second half, as both Roger and the audience shift from taking his retro-futuristic city for granted to acknowledging it as a strange and unnatural outlier in a world otherwise fallen to ruin. Whatever Gordon Rosewater did, it appears his intent was to create a bubble world much like his tomato garden, a patch of enduring twentieth century excess that would resist the ruin otherwise enveloping the earth. To this end, he likely programmed Roger and others like him to act as this vessel’s antibodies, rooting out threats both internal and external in order to ensure the safety of the harvest. But what can Roger even do with this information? Knowing he is a pawn, would it be better to rebel against his programming and risk all of Paradigm, or remain complicit in Gordon’s project to protect his home? Neither answer seems quite right, which makes me all the more eager to see his own choice. Let’s get to it!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’re returning once more to the city of Paradigm, as Roger Smith attempts to divine what fragments of his past identity he can use to construct his future self. As external invaders continue to pierce the veil of Paradigm’s manufactured reality, Roger himself is coming to doubt the role he has been assigned, knowing full well that his control of the megadeus is not an expression of agency, but a fulfillment of his “father” Rosewater’s wishes. So then, as Roger himself recently asked, “who is my real enemy?”

Well, that’s a complicated question. The easy answer would be “Rosewater,” as he’s clearly the one currently pulling the strings behind Paradigm’s current age of amnesia. But Rosewater himself appears to be channeling his energies towards fighting some external threat, the survivors of a world gone mad attempting to puncture the bubble of Paradigm’s security. Mankind’s hubris will always lead us towards forbidden knowledge, whether it’s the technology that wrecked the world or the sins that were buried forty years ago. Like many men, Roger is a hammer in search of a nail; he play-acts an agent of truth and justice as a “negotiator,” but the secrets he uncovers may prove themselves more dangerous than any of the foes he’s dispatched. Let’s see where his fraught path takes him as we return to The Big O!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to at last be returning to The Big O, after an outrageously overlong stay of absence. Big O’s mixture of noir drama, robot action, and philosophical interrogation of identity has made for a show unlike any I’ve seen, one of those unique genre blends at which animation uniquely excels. The show is expertly woven with internal mysteries, but they’re frankly unnecessary to maintain its allure; not when every episode offers something so novel and compelling, whether it’s Dastun’s lost movie love or last episode’s Beck insanity.

With our last escapade serving as perhaps the most irreverent of the series so far, I’m guessing things will settle a bit this time, as we presumably return to the question of Roger defining himself outside of Rosewater’s shadow. Roger has always seen the Big O as his method of enacting change in this world, his will to protect and redeem Paradigm made manifest – but if his identity as a pilot is also Rosewater’s design, can he truly hope to change his destiny through the very means that destiny was provided? Regardless, I imagine we’ve got plenty of sumptuous imagery and charming Roger-Dorothy moments ahead of us, so let’s get right to it!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m delighted to be returning to The Big O, where the assumptions that define Roger’s world are collapsing with terrifying rapidity. More and more, it’s seeming like the entire city of Paradigm is some vast fabrication, a dream of a city more than the genuine article. As last episode quotes from Hobbes, “Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations hath diverse names.” What we don’t know or remember, we fill in with creations that feel just as substantive as our true memories. And in a city without memory, who is to stop a man like Rosewater from painting our collective consciousness in the hues of his dream?

In a city that’s already seeming like cardboard facades on wooden struts, Roger feels like the greatest fabrication of all. He’s already learned he’s a product of Rosewater’s conditioning, specifically bred and brainwashed to pilot the Megadeus. Given that knowledge, how could he possibly believe he’s acting of his own volition, rather than simply playing out some minor thread in Rosewater’s grand opera? Given the profound incuriosity of Paradigm’s general population, perhaps Roger’s desire for the truth was also premeditated – perhaps Rosewater, having already claimed everything else, now desires an observer to witness his ascension. Did Rosewater intend for all of this, and to ultimately claim Roger as his chosen son? Let’s find out!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be journeying back to Paradigm, as Roger continues to uncover the secrets of his amnesiac city. That process has actually been going quite smoothly lately; this season has already offered new context for the histories of Roger and Dorothy, and the last episode even saw Roger trading barbs with Rosewater directly. Explaining that his plans are predicated on the “memories of the future” extracted from his stolen data disc, Rosewater seemed almost eager to reveal his grand designs. As we move further into what was always intended as Big O’s second half, it seems the series is gearing up for both a physical and metaphorical paradigm shift.

I apologize for that awful play on words, but seriously, Paradigm’s name is feeling more appropriate all the time. The city of Paradigm is not a stable reality – it is one way of seeing reality, a specific set of assumptions underpinning an artificially conjured present. Paradigm is a state of mind, a world that could only be created through cultural manipulation on a mass scale: the great wave of amnesia. Now, Rosewater holds the blueprints of a new Paradigm, and intends to use that knowledge to remake the city in his image. Whether he succeeds or fails, the dream that is Paradigm is sure to dissipate in the harsh morning light. Let’s get to it!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am eager to return to the streets of Paradigm, where Roger and Dorothy have recently been making incredible strides in illuminating their shadowed histories. After a first season largely defined by external, episodic mysteries, The Big O’s second half opened with dual investigations of our heroes’ own stories. Roger confronted his fabricated identity directly, casting away any doubts about his personhood by reasserting his current self. And Dorothy returned to the place of her birth, confronting her “siblings” and finding validation in Rosco’s unambiguously human existence.

The two have each cleared some key psychological hurdles, but for all that, the forces surrounding them are still shrouded in mystery. We know Roger was indoctrinated as a child, but not why, or what happened to the other children. We know that our Dorothy is one of many siblings, but almost nothing about her father’s ultimate intentions. Both Roger and Dorothy feel like the castaway orphans of a grand conspiracy, each tethered by their nature to Rosewater’s plan, but without a clue as to its nature or objective. Each of them fiercely value their independence, but exist within a world so artificial and tightly managed that true agency feels like a fantasy, forcing them to suffer continuous reminders that they are guided by forces outside their control. Can our fledglings crack the shell that is Paradigm, and reveal the truth of the world? Let’s find out!

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Hello folks, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I am delighted to be returning to The Big O, in the wake of a season premiere that was more boldly surreal than anything the show’s first season threw at us. With the revelation of his origins having shaken his faith in his own identity, Roger Smith walked the streets of a city that was alien to him, and saw his own life story refracted through theater and fiction. After a season of repeatedly dipping its toe in the water, The Big O at last took a plunge into the waters of existentialism.

The Big O has dabbled in surrealism and art-horror before. After all, these genres make for comfortable bedfellows with Big O’s central noir and giant robot influences. Noir has a tendency to embrace ambiguity of all kinds – moral ambiguity, of course, but also a more existential sort of uncertainty, a sense that this world is more vast and inexplicable than our capacity to contain it. Noir heroes know they cannot tame this world – they struggle against it, but the genre’s best moments are often acts of surrender, the “forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown” or “stuff that dreams are made of” moments. In these moments, the distance between noir and conventional crime dramas becomes clear – crime dramas are a fantasy of order and control, whereas noir understands this world is too strange and terrible to ever be pinned down.

Unsurprisingly, this sense of existential unease fuses naturally with The Big O’s psychological inquiry, presenting a world where the boundaries between reality and fantasy, or mystery and horror, are frequently blurred. Whether investigating his client’s requests or his own past, Roger is beginning to discover secrets that are perhaps better left undisturbed. The question is shifting from “can Roger discover the secret of Paradigm” to “should Roger discover the secret of Paradigm, and will his own sense of self survive the process?”

Let’s find out.

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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!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today I’m pretty much bubbling over with excitement, as we’re about to explore the original “final” episode of The Big O. Though the production was slated for twenty-six episodes from the start, poor viewership numbers in Japan forced them to cut back to a lean thirteen. It was only a couple years later, after a successful Toonami run resulted in Cartoon Network co-funding the followup, that The Big O’s second half was produced; because of this, I assume this original thirteenth episode is going to attempt to serve as a “conclusion” to a story it cannot possibly conclude.

Roger has barely learned a thing about Paradigm’s history, and the last episode only just introduced the idea that Megadeus have some intrinsic connection with the city, and a will of their own. Fortunately, considering this is a noir-soaked property that delights in ambiguity, I imagine there won’t be any clumsy rush to tie up loose ends; I’m mostly just eager to see how such a talented team handled this unfortunate reality of the industry, and what Chiaki Konaka chooses to leave us with. Let’s return once more to Paradigm!

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Hello everyone, and welcome back to Wrong Every Time. Today we’ll be returning to The Big O, as Roger continues to unravel the secrets of Paradigm. Well, I certainly hope Roger unravels some secrets, because at the moment, we’re actually some distance ahead of him in terms of our understanding of this world.

In episode ten, we learned that there are still human civilizations beyond Paradigm, and that Paradigm’s alleged city council all ultimately answers to one man. In eleven, we learned that that man is well aware of Christmas’ pre-amnesia cultural significance, yet chooses instead to frame it as a secular city festival. Given his awareness of humanity’s culture both pre-amnesia and outside Paradigm’s walls, it seems reasonable to assume that Paradigm’s monarch is enforcing a policy of strict information control – and beyond that, that he might even be responsible for Paradigm’s amnesia in the first place.

If he’s attempting to create a private kingdom, provoking a wave of mass amnesia is certainly a great way to start. While we generally think of confinement in terms of physical barriers, the most robust imprisonment is generally imprisonment of the mind – total inculcation into a specific way of thinking, or denial of the education that might inspire someone to question their circumstances. While we can rage against injustices we can define, if we can’t conceive of a world beyond our own, we tend to accept our circumstances as simply “the way it is.” By collectively frying Paradigm’s memory, a dedicated tyrant could reshape its society into whatever shape they choose, and fill in the blank slates of its populace with a wellspring of comforting propaganda.

So that’s probably not good. But as I said, Roger wasn’t actually there for most of the scenes that revealed this information – he’s currently some distance behind the audience, and I’m not exactly sure what use that dramatic irony could serve. For the moment, let’s quit with the conjecture, and find out what secrets the city will offer next!

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