Big O is basically a sci-fi noir/mecha anime from 1999. It has 2 seasons, both of which contain 13 episodes. It was originally supposed to only have 13 episodes, but due to positive reception of the English dub of it that premiered on Toonami (a popular action-animation programming block of Cartoon Network's) back in 2001, a second season was co-produced by Cartoon Network, Sunrise and Bandai Visual. It premiered in 2003.
The events of the series takes place in Paradigm City, which is controlled by the Paradigm Corporation. A lot of the city is domed; the rich live inside the domes while the poor live outside them. 40 years before the events of the main series, an unknown disaster named "The Event" struck the world that left its only survivors, the citizens of Paradigm City, all without their memories. Despite this, for the most part, the citizens of Paradigm move on and go on about their daily lives without worrying about their memories.
Memories and the nature of them are a major recurring theme of the series, considering the fact that pretty much every citizen of Paradigm lost their memories prior to the Event. Memories in the series are usually either records prior to the Event, forgotten artifacts that existed before the Event, recurring dreams and hallucations. The series often deals with how the people of Paradigm cope with their loss of memories, and what happens when certain individuals actually regain their memories.
The only things are believed to be left of the previous civilization are megadeuses, basically giant robots that only a few people know how to use. One of those people is the main character of the series, Roger Smith. Roger is a Negotiator, basically a person who is tasked with finding resolutions to the many dilemmas of Paradigm City. Often during the series, people regain their memories and use this newfound knowledge in ways that threaten the existence of Paradigm (usually the threats are other megadeuses). Roger then has to fight back and save Paradigm using his personal megadeus, named the Big O. The other main recurring characters are R. Dorothy Wayneright, a female android, Norman Burg, Roger's personal butler and caretaker of the Big O, Dan Dastun, the chief of Paradigm City's Military Police, and Angel, a woman with a mysterious identity.
The mecha elements of the anime come from the various giant robot fights, while some examples of the noir elements of the series are Roger's detective-style work as a Negotiator, the wry and witty sense of humor often present in the dialogue of the series, Roger's voice-over narration of the plot and really, just Roger Smith's character in general.
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Originally Posted by YungQ94
