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SwimStar
TheBigOFan72
Posts: 7,812
Registered: ‎07-06-2010
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Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Personally considering how few people have watched this series, I have to say the series is underrated. Probably some things that deter people is the art and how the story moved in season 2. I think people just don't give this series enough credit at times. So do you think this series is underrated?

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Top_Gun
Posts: 8,123
Registered: ‎08-28-2005
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to TheBigOFan72 - Message ID#: 57911874

I don't really think so, honestly. It was certainly very popular all the way back when it first aired on Toonami, and the second season's premieres on [as] were just about the highest-rated anime episodes in the history of the block. I get the sense that there's a general awareness of and appreciation for the series among anime fans, and I've even seen some non-anime-fans comment on it positively. Toonami and [as] were pretty much the place to watch anime at the start of the previous decade, so quality shows like Big O in their lineups got a good deal of exposure.

(Heck, Mike Toole even gives the Christmas episode a plug here. :smileytongue:)

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CatRabid
Posts: 18
Registered: ‎01-22-2011
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to TheBigOFan72 - Message ID#: 57911874

The reason why they didn't decide to make a 3rd season, (oh how I wish they did!) was because there wasn't enough viewers for the 2nd season. It saddens me tremendously, how underrated this show is!

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ben0119
Posts: 18,974
Registered: ‎07-16-2003
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to CatRabid - Message ID#: 58378238

But it got the best Adult Swim Anime ratings EVER!  Yes, that's right... ever!  Look it up, if you don't believe me, but it's been stated multiple times on these boards, with sources cited.  If that's not enough for a Season 3, I don't know what is!  Maybe that Japanese didn't want to do it?  That's all I can think of. 

 

Also, while Big O is very popular in America, it really hasn't been the case in Japan.  And once shows get canceled in Japan, that is usually it.  It's tends to be a lot harder for "revivals" to happen there, just from the way the TV system works, it seems.  A shame, really.  But I wouldn't mind it even if it was direct-to-DVD or something.  I'd buy it!

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SwimPunk
CatRabid
Posts: 18
Registered: ‎01-22-2011
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IRe: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to ben0119 - Message ID#: 58379932

Yes I'd buy it too! I'd even be satisfied if it just had a movie to fully conclude everything.

SwimHipster
Posts: 1,251
Registered: ‎06-02-2009
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to CatRabid - Message ID#: 58378238

The problem is, this anime requires people to think.  People don't always like to think.  To fully appreciate the anime, one has to be able to understand the multiple levels.  It's more than... golly there's the enemy: "Fry him." 

 

If one didn't know about judeo-christian mythology, one wouldn't recognize why "Leviathan" is a serpent like 'mech.  If one didn't know Hobbes, one wouldn't appreciate the comment about memories and imagination being the same.  If one didn't know at least some things about NYC, the show wouldn't make quite as much sense.  JFK Airport, the Flat Iron Building, Grand Central Station, the Empire State Building, the Chryler buidling, etc.

SwimPunk
CatRabid
Posts: 18
Registered: ‎01-22-2011
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to XenopusTex - Message ID#: 58489274

Yes, it is what a lot of people call, a mindf*ck. I like how it makes you think, and all the symbolisms, but it did leave a lot of questions unanswered.

I understand that "it leaves it up to the viewer to decide what happened blah blah blah."

Love this show to death, but here are some of the questions that were left unanswered... (not to mention, Konaka had plans to make a season 3 and possibly a season 4, so there was going to be more to this wonderful story!)

What are those gears at the bottom of the ocean? What was all that about rogers coming off an assembly line? Why was there a picture of young gordon shaking hands with roger with an unfinished dome behind them? What was their contract? What is big venus? What is the point of those stagelights? What was the vision of roger with a seatbelt and different clothes all about? What is with b666? What is that underground place? Why did angel grow wings? What was that control room at the end? why was she rehersering her own life? why was she desigining a dorothy doll? why did everything get erased? what was roger doing driving at the end again? he was still a negotiator.... why were angel and dorothy standing at the side of the road? WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT GIANT YELLOW THING THAT GOT TEN SECONDS OF AIR TIME?! What is the nature of android/megadeus compatitibily? What is it that schwarzwald wrote to roger? What does beck know about androids and megadei? What exactly was gordons tomato project going to do, perserve memories? What memories? What was that giant ball of light that turned the sky to a giant grid? What is with glinda and dr waynerights mansion? Why does he have a copper room? The never fully explained the the soldano/wayneright situation? What is with winter night phantom and the repeating movie and mini dastun? What was going on in that scene where there were three rogers a including tomato child and invisable man? What did those images of many bigs figthing leviathans and destroying paradigm mean? What happend 40 years ago? Is there even such thing as 40 years ago? Is paradigm even real?


^^Those above questions I did not come up with, but I stumbled across a fan website that was pro-season 3.
SwimHipster
Posts: 1,251
Registered: ‎06-02-2009
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Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to CatRabid - Message ID#: 58490070

Probable spoilers ahead!

Let's see here:

Watch Episodes 25 and 26 closely, and you'll learn quite abit about Vera, Angel, Alex, and Gordon.

 

B-666 might be a reference to the judeo-christian belief in the mark of the beast, generally considered by evangelicals and fundamentalists as being the number needed to conduct business/live/etc. during the time of the antichrist.  Other view 666 as merely a reference to the existing Roman emperor.  666 is associated with satan, i.e. lucifer, more on that later

 

Stagelights-gears-etc.: In keeping with the theatrical nature of the series.  Probably to demonstrate the off-stage direction which is going on.

 

"Rehearsing" her life: Remember Roger's comment about Angel that she needs to deal with herself as a person, or something to that effect.

 

That big yellow thing: You mean the massive quad-Megadeus, that looks like it should collapse from the bottom on top of Big-O when Roger holds it up?  That would be Behemoth.  Another example of plot-based wimpiness.  Would have loved to see it better developed.  Never get to see what those things that look like gun turrets on the legs actually do.

 

Wayneright's copper plated room: Note that metal plating is also present in the Megadeus construction/repair facility operated by Paradigm.  While it's been a few years since I took chemistry/physics, I can tell you that the plating is for shielding from Electromagnetic signals and other types of radiation.  Not 100% sure why copper though.

 

Winter Night Phantom: My best guess:  Notice who is with the younger Dastun.  Notice the oh *expletive* moment when Dastun recognizes who's on the pier.  I'm assuming that Dastun had some type of relationship with the mother, given the apparent ages of the individuals involved.  Either that, or since ages seem to be relative at times, that he had a relationship with the daughter herself.  One really off-the-wall idea is that the daughter could be the product of the relationship between Dastun and the mother.

 

Isn't it interesting that in the end, Gordon seeks to consume the tomatoes?  Trying to figure out the significance of that.

SwimPunk
CatRabid
Posts: 18
Registered: ‎01-22-2011
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! Those Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrated?

Reply to XenopusTex - Message ID#: 58495408

Dang! Those are some very well constructed answers!

SwimHipster
Posts: 1,251
Registered: ‎06-02-2009
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Re: ! Those Re: Do you feel The Big O is underrate

Reply to CatRabid - Message ID#: 58504164

Of course they are :smileyhappy:  I try to never do anything half-arsed.  And, words are my career.

 

About lucifer and venus:  Before lucifer became the "devil" or satan, lucifer was equated with light.  For example, the enzyme in fireflies that produced bioluminescent light is called luciferase.  Venus and lucifer were basically associated with light... note that the planet Venus is extremely bright in the night sky when visible (particularly if you're in a rural, non-light polluted environment).

 

Also in judeo-christian belief, lucifer was an uber angel, perhaps one of the most powerful before he "fell" to vanity. 

  

Wings are a somewhat traditional aspect of angels, at least dating back to the late Medieval period.  My thought is that this is why Angel has wingscars on her back which later turned into wings in Ep. 26.

 

Note the demonic looking first appearance of Big Venus.  Ever seen Fantasia... and the end vignette with Mussorgsky's Night on Bald Mountain?  (If not, find a copy and watch... the entire film is worth just seeing that).  For some reason those two equate in my mind.  Speaking of Big Venus, notice too that in the inital appearance, the Megadeus was the all powerful destroyer, seemed to never need to do anything than fire its eye lasers.  In the end, Big Venus was the end all be all, as it eradicated Paradigm City in a slightly different way.

 

This does bring up the question of what stomped Paradigm City flat 40 years before.  The one version of Big-O (didn't it have a slightly different colorscheme?) with a dead Roger Smith was clearly cored by something other than a Leviathan class Megadeus (unless there's hidden weaponry).  I don't recall ever seeing whether Big-O's torso armour could take a laser blast or not; it seemed to be quiet pathetic if exposed.   

 

Here's a wild hypothesis on the story line:  What if Angel really is the director, but she's attempting to relive an event instead of creating a new work?  What if Angel was the pilot/dominus of a superweapon among Megadei, i.e. Big Venus who was personally responsible for toasting Roger, etc. and found herself unable to live with what she did after the campaign, so she spends her time living in a fantasy of what was?  And, that the scene in the control room was nothing more than hallucinations?

 

Long ago, when I had more free time than I do now, when I'd go to communities, I'd visit their graveyards to get some history.  I recall one gravestone in Syracuse, NY at the large graveyard just off the campus of Syracuse University, which marked the grave of a WWI machine gunner who had committed suicide about 7-8 years after the war.  While I don't remember the exact words, it was something akin to: Now he can finally rest, and can finally stop seeing all those he killed.  Post-Traumatic Stress is a powerful thing.