orty years after an unknown catastrophe stole the memories of everyone
in Paradigm City, the past is still missing, but only the oldest citizens
care any more. Everyone else continues their daily lives under the thumb of
the Paradigm Company, which serves as "both God and state" to the city's
residents.
When memories of the past do surface, they generally cause trouble, and
veteran deal-broker Roger Smith, the self-styled "top negotiator of
Paradigm City," usually ends up at the center of that trouble. As the
series begins, he's called on to handle a ransom agreement, exchanging a
briefcase full of money for the kidnapped daughter of a rich industrialist.
But after he makes the trade, he finds out he's been stuck with an android
instead of the missing daughter. Roger has no idea whether androids were
commonplace before Paradigm became "the city of amnesia," and has no idea
how the girl functions or what her true relationship is to the men who
claim to be her father and grandfather. He even makes a point of not
particularly caring, even after she attempts to hire him as a bodyguard,
moves into his palatial manor, and starts blandly insulting his taste and
manners.
But Dorothy the android isn't the only mystery on Roger's hands. The
"real" Dorothy, the one Roger was supposed to retrieve, is still in the
kidnappers' hands, and she quickly proves dangerous. Subsequent episodes
offer other negotiation deals that lead to other mysteries that usually
lead to Roger being attacked by gigantic monsters of various types.
Fortunately, in addition to wealth, a vast collection of cool gadgets and
a strong sense of panache, Roger has a giant robot called Big O, which he
whips out of the abandoned subway tunnels (usually destroying half a city
block in the process) whenever the opposition looms large.
Gloss, gears and familiar faces
The Big O looks and feels like an organic blend of Cowboy
Bebop and Batman:
The Animated Series, with more than a touch of
Giant Robo
thrown in. (And no
wonder--Big O and Bebop were both Sunrise Inc./Bandai Visual
co-projects. Sunrise did animation production work for Batman: TAS,
and Big O director Kazuyoshi Katayama was Giant Robo's
animation director.) But it also seems heavily influenced by noir films and
James Bond movies. Roger's square, broad face and shoulders and sharp
angles would fit neatly into Batman: TAS, and his mansion, his
remote-controlled, heavily armed and armored high-tech car and his dryly
helpful white-haired butler (who bakes, cleans and pilots the giant-robot
disbursal system) are pure Batman mythos, but his suave,
self-congratulatory smugness and slightly predatory attitude toward women
is pure Bond. Dorothy is more Spock than Robin or Pussy Galore, though; she
mostly serves as an emotionless (yet somewhat comic) foil.
Big O has some problems as a series--like Bebop, it tends
towards unresolved stories and plotlines that don't quite add up. The whole
show suffers from a lack of context and continuity--so many things about
Roger's world are unclear that it's easy for the writers to suddenly pull
random surprises out of nowhere. Like Bebop, Big O is more
about style than tight storytelling.
But the style itself is worth watching for. The music can't live up to
Yoko Kanno's amazing Bebop work, but it covers the same sort of
broad, ambitious range, from '60s jazz to blues to ballads. The animation
stresses dynamic motion and complex multiplanar tableaux that occasionally
lend scenes an almost 3-D quality. The chunky, bolts-and-gears retro-mecha
design, much like Giant Robo's, gives the series a bit of a steampunk
feel that contrasts sharply and pleasantly with its characters' sleek '90s
look. The dub is wellcast, with David Lucas (who voiced Bebop star
Spike Spiegel) as Roger and Lia Sargent (El Hazard's Nanami
Jinnai as Dorothy. All told, it's a complex and appealing package that
seems constantly familiar but intriguingly new.
