A while back, I read a review of The Big O wherein the reviewer ripped the shit out of the show for being a copy of Batman, James Bond, some other show, destroying the wonderful intrigue they set up in the show by having a giant robot running around every episode and some other stuff I can’t remember.  At this point, I had already seen the whole series (as far as I know, I think there are only 13 episodes) and could not help to think this guy was an idiot.  Sure, it’s obvious that The Big O takes stuff from Batman and James Bond, hell, some of the people who worked on this show also worked on the Batman animated series in America, which is why the artwork resembles it so much.  But hey, even though this show takes stuff from those others, it doesn’t try and copy them and adds many things that make The Big O quite original.  Oh yeah, I just remembered one of the comments he made, he said he was sickened by how Big O just destroyed a new life form in an unprovoked attack… of course, this guy must not have realized that this ‘life form’ was not only a robot (it used energy from a power plant to operate) that was made by one of the people in the episode, but that it was attacking stuff.

            The story is that about 40 years ago (this is the future), everyone in the city (and outside) suddenly lost all their memories.  Since then, everyone has managed to survive and relearn technology.  Roger Smith is the guy with the robot, who runs around being a good guy.  He also tries to oppose the mega corporation of the city and its mad dash for lost memories so it can become more powerful.

            Anyway, the artwork may be a bit bland, but the animation is well done, and as I usually say, I’ll take a somewhat less detailed but smoothly animated anime over one that is well detailed but composed mostly of still frames.

            The music in the show is very well done, I even… hold on a second… ack, can’t find the soundtrack, or I’d buy it.  Yeah, the music is great and the sound effects are also very well done.  On top of that, the English voice actor for Roger is the guy who does Spike in Cowboy Bebop (it’s a running game for us to see how many times we can find that guy or the guy who did Wolfwood doing voices in movies and anime, you’d be surprised, Fist of Legend is just one example of Wolfwood goodness), so that’s good.

            The show itself is very interesting, and has a good plot that mixes with the atmosphere of the show to provide a happy land of good viewing.  The action is also nicely done, and it’s not just action in giant robots either.  So, go watch The Big O, the only differences I’ve noticed from the TV (Cartoon Network) and DVD version is “Cast in the name of GOD” and there’s some swearing in the DVD, but not much.