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[[File:thebigo.jpg|frame|'''[[By the Power of Grayskull|BIG O! SHOWTIME!!!]]''']]
{{quote|
{{quote|''"You're a louse, Roger Smith."''
|'''R. Dorothy Waynewright'''}}
Forty years ago, amnesia struck all the inhabitants of Paradigm City, a strange metropolis that seems to be 75% Film Noir [[New York City|New York]] and 25% City Of The Future. In the decades since, life has gone on, despite the loss of history, the loss of past, and the loss of self which has struck each and every inhabitant.
Roger Smith is one of them. A former member of the Military Police, Roger now makes his living as a negotiator (a combination of private investigator and professional go-between). It's a job that pays well, as the penthouse atop his private building proves. Roger has been described as half Bruce Wayne, half James Bond -- but when negotiations fail, he has something else to fall back on: The Big O, a giant battle robot (known in this show as a "Megadeus" -- pronounced "mega-deuce") that he stores in the abandoned subway tunnels under the city.
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And fall back on it Roger must; after forty years, lost secrets and forgotten memories are returning, and all manner of threats to Paradigm City and its people are coming with them. Aided by his butler Norman and the sarcastic (and opinionated) android girl R. Dorothy Waynewright -- along with (occasionally) his former commanding officer in the police, Major Dan Dastun, and the mysterious and beautiful free agent who tells Roger to just call her "Angel" -- Roger faces off against monstrous forces from all manner of enemies while simultaneously pursuing the truth behind Paradigm City's lost history.
There is a very Japanese cultural perspective here, in that wherever Roger goes in his investigation of the Monster of the Week, the people he talks to always think it is "a god
Despite that cultural perspective, it turned out to be [[Germans Love David Hasselhoff|hugely popular]] on its [[Toonami]] and [[Adult Swim]] runs (the show actually bombed in Japan); it was so popular with American audiences that it wound up getting a second season produced primarily for said audiences (with Adult Swim sharing production credits for the second season). It was even stated by the creator himself that this was his exact intention, wanting to create a show that would appeal to American tastes and sensibilities even if it meant sacrificing the Japanese audience (the show even used the somewhat-foreign concept of a season-ending [[Cliff Hanger]] to set up the second season years before it actually debuted). Although the second season proved popular, the show was not renewed for a third season (which likely would have answered the ''numerous'' questions the second season left viewers with) as [[Adult Swim]] began to focus on comedies and animated shows that were cheaper to produce.
[[Do Not Confuse With|Not to be confused with]] [[The Immodest Orgasm|the "other" Big O]]. Or [[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam
{{tropenamer}}
▲Not to be confused with [[The Immodest Orgasm|the "other" Big O]]. Or [[Mobile Suit Zeta Gundam (Anime)|The O]]. Or big-O notation as used in mathematics or computer science. Or the tire store. Or the [[Fan Nickname]] for the Olympic Stadium in Montreal. Or the common nickname for legendary 1960s NBA player Oscar Robertson. Or [[Big No]], either. And try not to mistake the sixth DVD, "The Big O: Missing Pieces" for [[Shel Silverstein]]'s book "The Missing Piece Meets the Big O." The name actually seems to be one of the many religious references (like "Behemoth and Leviathan") that appear in the show, in this case to "Alpha and Omega". This might not make much sense to the ears of American fans watching Toonami, but keep in mind that while American English pronounces it "Oh-may-gah", proper British English pronounces it "Oh-mega". O-mega, mega-O, "big" O. The name of the Greek letter "Omega" literally means "Big O", in contrast with Omicron (O-Micron), which means "little O".
* [[Tomato in the Mirror]]
=== ''Big O'' Tropes! '''SHOWTIME!''': ===▼
* [[Actor Allusion]]: [[Steve Blum|Roger's]] first lines in the episode "Leviathan?" "I'd say you have the wrong guy; [[Cowboy Bebop|I'm not exactly a bounty hunter.]]"
* [[Angst Coma]]: In the first episode of the second season, Roger goes introspectively catatonic as he struggles to figure out {{spoiler|just who -- and ''[[Tomato in
* [[Arc Words]]: "The power of God;" "tomatoes;" "the world is a stage;" "Cast in the Name of God." The final few episodes of the second season have a phrase repeated by several characters, which is "A bird whose wings have been plucked will lose all of its feathers, and turn into the creature that it was before it evolved into a bird."
* [[Audio Adaptation]]: "[http://www.konaka.com/alice6/big-o/index-e.html Walking Together Down The Yellow Brick Road]", released between the 1st and 2nd seasons. In it, {{spoiler|Roger reveals his commandership of Big O to Dastun.}}
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* [[Bandaged Face]]: Schwarzwald {{spoiler|and Vera in the last two episodes.}}
* [[Battle Butler]]: Norman again. The guy has a ''missile launcher'' in the sidecar of his motorcycle!
* [[Big Damn Villains]]: In Season 2, Alex Rosewater activates his own Big to stop an attacking Megadeus. It doesn't quite go as planned, though.
* [[Bittersweet Ending]]: {{spoiler|Aww, Pero...}}
* [[Bling Bling Bang]]: Alan Gabriel can be seen armed with a gold-plated pistol as his personal weapon.
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* [[Call to Agriculture]]: Gordon Rosewater and his tomatoes.
* [[Canon Foreigner]]: In the manga, Beck's gang has a female member in addition to the squat black guy and the [[Camp Gay]] guy. It also has {{spoiler|Big Four, an alternate version of Big Fau that is piloted by Angel.}}
* [[Char Clone]]: Schwartzwald: masked character with his own agenda, consistent rival to the lead, pilots three red mechs, and they are more maneuverable (three times faster).
* [[Cheeky Mouth]]
* [[Chest Blaster]]: {{spoiler|Big O's Final Stage.}} It's also got rockets hidden under the chest armor. The Chrome Buster acts like a standard [[Super Robot]] [[Chest Blaster]] but it's fired from the forehead.
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* [[Cool House]]: Roger's. It was apparently a bank once and now has a defense system that includes machine guns.
* [[Cool Shades]]: Goes with his suit.
* [[CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable]]: Subverted in final episode "The Show Must Go On" with this quote:
{{quote|
'''Dorothy''': Not with the displacement capacity of my air tank. You're such a louse, Roger Smith.
'''Roger''': Heh, you're definitely our Dorothy. }}
* [[Cultured Badass]]: Roger Smith and Alex Rosewater; Beck tries for, and fails at, this.
* [[Cut Short]]: Although it's not an overt cliffhanger, the second season was apparently written under the understanding that there would be a third. Unanswered: {{spoiler|Angel apparently remade the entire holographic world, but did she keep that power or give it up? Do people remember what happened? Is Alex Rosewater still at large, and is he really the [[Big Bad]]? Was the giant dome over the city restored, and if so, won't the lights fall and devastate the city all over again? Above all, ''why'' did someone trap a city of people in a giant holodeck with no memories?}}
** The finale was set up so it could work both as a conclusion to the series and as a way to set up a third season. In other words, the creators wrote it that way with full knowledge that they might not be able to make any more (which is also how they wrote the season one finale.)
*** And considering that this is ''Big O'' we're talking about, a third season would likely have ended even ''more'' ambiguously.
* [[Dead Man Writing]]: In episode 24 Roger receives a letter from Michael Seebach (Schwartzwald), which was to be delivered after his death.
* [[Deadpan Snarker]]: R. Dorothy Wayneright. So very much.
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** Episode 21 had Big Fau, the Third Big, respond to Alex's screams that he was its Dominus with "Cast in the name of God...Ye Not."
** Incidentally, the phrase "Cast in the name of God, ye not guilty" used to be put on the axes of executioners. Christianity was big at the time the practice was performed-it was specifically so that executioners wouldn't be beholden to the Sixth Commandment ("Thou shalt not kill") in the course of their work. The weapon was cast in God's name, and thus it was God's work that any given criminal should be punished in this manner. Make of this what you will.
** The Big units also appear to be able to recognize other Big-type units. In episode 21, all it took for Big O to subdue Big Fau who went berserk while being piloted by Alex basically amounts to a silent [[Get a Hold of Yourself, Man!]] gesture and little talk from Roger, at which point it shut itself down.
* [[End of the World Special]]: {{spoiler|Angel, in the finale.}}
* [[Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas]]: An [[Amoral Attorney]] hires Smith on behalf of his mother to find the corpse of the [[White Sheep]] of the family.
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*** With shades of Harvey Bullock, as Dastun is less-than-thrilled about Roger solving what the police aren't able to (which is almost everything).
** And Angel would be Catwoman. Really, we could go on and on.
** They also appear to use a [[Batman:
*** In fact, Sunrise Studios worked on animation for ''Batman: The Animated Series'' prior to the creation of The Big O.
** Big O's face is basically [[Robot Detective|Robot Keiji K's]]. No, really!
*** ...made better with R. Frederick O'Reilly's appearance later on, who strongly resembles Robot Keiji K in everything ''but'' the face.
**** Let's take it a step further: since the premise of this show involves a city that without memories it's very possible that all of these people are just the citizens of Gotham... just kidding.
** [[Adult Swim|And if you liked Robin]] [[Dissimile|if he were a girl robot...]]
** Unrelated to Batman for once, Beck is meant to be a parody of [[
* [[Eye Beams]]
* [[Eyepatch of Power]]: Again, Norman. (''Especially'' in the manga, where he has to face down a group of armed, arsonist youngsters in a church. He covers the one remaining eye of a goddess statue with his eyepatch, picks up a firearm, tells the punks, "
* [[Face Palm of Doom]]: the eponymous mecha's signature attack (Sudden Impact) can work like this by it grabbing an opponent's head and retracting the pressurized pistons inside the arms and subsequently releasing them [[For Massive Damage]]. Its power seems to be adjustable. When Roger did this to Beck's Megadeus, it completely separated the head and cockpit from the rest of the body. When he did it earlier against Beck's van, however, the van and its occupants were largely intact and merely shaken up.
* [[Fake Memories]]: Played completely straight with {{spoiler|Angel}}, but largely inverted with the apparent {{spoiler|fake amnesia the entire city suffers}}.
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* [[Flanderization]]: Beck's lackeys used to be normal-sized humans prior to his [[Villain Decay]].
* [[Foot Focus]]: In the last few episodes Angel's shoes simply disappear and there are a few close-ups of her stocking feet as she wanders around.
* [[Frequently
* [[Funny Afro]]: Beck and his gang sport this in episode 18.
* [[Gadget Watches]]: Roger's wristwatch, which can summon Big O, control his car, detect missile lock-ons, and has a grappling hook. But it never gets used to tell the time.
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* [[Giant Robot Hands Save Lives]]: Roger and Schwartzwald fall into their giant robots' hands and survive several times. Roger has also done this for other people.
* [[Gone Horribly Right]]: Alan Gabriel wanted to combine with his Megadeus. [[Be Careful What You Wish For|He got it.]]
{{quote|
* [[Grand Finale]]: More like a '''Final Stage'''.
** Roger says this in [[Super Robot Wars Z]]. [[Gratuitous English|In English...sort of]].
* [[Gratuitous English]]: English words and phrases meshed awkwardly with Japanese, as well as one episode where a phrase in gratuitous French acts as [[Arc Words]], and some grammatically incorrect German and Latin.
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* [[Heroic BSOD]]: The [[Cliff Hanger]] of the episode "Stripes," with Heroic Error Windows popping up throughout the series.
* [[Heroic RROD]]: Inverted in the final episode, where Alex Rosewater {{spoiler|allows Big Fau to integrate completely with him; the Memory Core behind him turns sideways and becomes a red hourglass}}.
* [[Humongous Mecha]]
* [[Infant Immortality]]: Averted. ''Winter Night Phantom'' makes it clear that a child was at ground zero of a bombing and did not survive.
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* [[Invincible Hero]]: While by no means the protagonist, Dastun goes through all manner of what can only be described as "serious shit" and always comes out in one piece.
* [[It Only Works Once]]: Roger only gets one shot with {{spoiler|Big O's Final Stage}}. {{spoiler|He misses, and the energy output burns the gun to a crisp afterward}}.
* [[It's Showtime!]]: Roger habitually shouts, "Big O! Showtime!" when he starts up the mecha.
* [[The Jimmy Hart Version]]: The opening theme sounds suspiciously similar to Queen's ''[[Flash Gordon (
** The song [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bRCsFIGTcAM "Touch"] is an homage to the ''[[Twilight Zone]]'' theme.
* [[Karmic Death]]: {{spoiler|Alan Gabriel}} gets done in by the very Megadeus that he's piloting.
* [[Kudzu Plot]]: ''It's like a friggin' [[Katamari Damacy|katamari ball]] went through an [[Epileptic Tree]] orchard''.
* [[Land, Sea, Sky]]: Big-O, Big-Fau, and Big-Duo respectively.
** [[Chromatic Arrangement]]: The Lighting in their cockpits are Red (Big O), Blue (Big Fau) and Yellow (Big Duo)
* [[Laughably Evil]]: Jason Beck.
* [[Leader Forms the Head]]: In "The Greatest Villain", when Beck and his henchmen form their giant mecha [[RX 3]], the part Beck is controlling becomes the head. Watch it [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NIbYfPbGc0Y here].
* [[Left Hanging]]: Several episodes, including the finale.
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* [[Long Pants]]: Roger is sometimes drawn like this. Wearing all black helps.
* [[Machine Worship]]: The humans think that the various [[Humongous Mecha]] popping up everywhere are gods. The [[Meaningful Name|Megadei]] [[Deus Est Machina|have a fairly good claim to the title]], being supposedly "Cast In The Name Of God" and sentient to some degree.
* [[Mad Scientist]]: Eugene.
* [[Meaningful Name]]: The term Megadeus transliterated means something along the lines of "giant god." And everything bearing the name is huge, and powerful.
* [[A Mech
* [[Mega Corp]]
* [[The Men in Black]]: Roger Smith mainly, due to him nearly
* [[Merchandise
* [[Merry Christmas in Gotham]]: The Christmas special starts out grim as usual. We have a blind girl whose caretaker brother is a garbageman by day, and musician by night. They are starving, barely able to afford food at all. Then a mad scientist leaves a biological weapon in the boy's tip jar and it turns out the "weapon" is a massive self-growing Christmas tree made to teach people to love nature and each other. While the tree grows, everyone hears the boy's music and he is discovered. It's implied that they'll never need to worry about money ever again. D'awww.
* [[Mighty Glacier]]: The Big O itself is a non-fighting game example. Unlike other mecha shows where increasingly even the real robot-type machines show increasing amounts of ninja-like agility, the Big O is massive, plodding, unsubtle, and destructive. When it's shot from a distance it's shown that it can actually move quite quickly (like a car with low acceleration but high top speed), but it's so heavy it can't stop on a dime, and it's not exactly graceful. Of course, it's got tremendous amounts of firepower, with even its weakest weapons blasting tremendous holes in skyscrapers. {{spoiler|Its [[Wave Motion Gun|Final Stage]] canon blows away most of a city the size of New York.}} In addition, its armor seems impervious to all but the most powerful attacks in the series, taking only minor damage usually. Its Arm Shields are notably stronger then the rest of its armor, being visibly damaged (said damage being a long, thin scratch from a Megadeus's sword) just
** Most of the Megadei are massive and cumbersome. Even the flying Big Duo handles more like a heavy bomber than an interceptor, flying mostly in straight lines and needing vast amounts of space to make a turn. The exception is the Archetype, a [[Lightning Bruiser]] which is apparently the stripped-down skeleton of a Megadeus and moves with the agility of a monkey.
* [[Mind Screw]]: Try and explain the ending. Go on. Try.
** Considering the show was written by Chiaki Konaka, the man who brought us ''[[Serial Experiments Lain]]'' and ''[[Digimon Tamers]]'', this is probably to be expected.
** There's also episode 14. Watch it.
* [[Mind Rape]]: The premise of the show is that this happened ([[Mind Screw|or may not have]]) to everyone 40 years ago, giving them amnesia. The problem is that there are objects and people over the city that cause the memories to reemerge, thus mind-raping them once more.
* [[The Mirror Shows Your True Self]]: Roger and Dorothy near the end of episode 14.
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* [[The Other Darrin]]: In the English dub of Season 2, Alan Oppenheimer replaced Milton James as the voice of Norman.
* [[Overt Rendezvous]]: Roger always meets with his street informant Big Ear in a bar.
* [[Plot
** {{spoiler|...''Roger''?}}
* [[Police Are Useless]]: Generally [[Justified Trope|justified]], as the only times Roger normally finds himself dealing with criminals are negotiating hostage situations where calling the police would endanger the captive, and [[Humongous Mecha]] attacks that the police are understandably unprepared for.
* [[Precision F
* [[Pretty in Mink]]: A few fur coats in the background, and one or two of Angel's outfits have them.
* [[Private Eye Monologue]]: Roger does this almost every episode, especially in the first season.
{{quote|
* [[Psycho for Hire]]: Alan Gabriel.
* [[Punch Parry]]: During the fight between Big O and Big Duo in episode #24.
* [[Punch
{{quote|
* [[Real Robot]]: The Megadei, especially the titular Big O, straddle the line between this and [[Super Robot]]. While shown to be much bigger than reality would allow, they're all incredibly big, bulky, and slow with the amount of mass they carry. When Big O is knocked over, Roger literally has [[No Plans, No Prototype, No Backup]] when it comes to getting him back on his feet, the classic [[Super Robot]] staples are used sparingly. {{spoiler|Big Fau}} is the main mech to have a [[Rocket Punch]], and the one time {{spoiler|Big O}} uses {{spoiler|'Final Stage', the chest-mounted [[Wave Motion Gun]]}}, it has to anchor itself into the ground and the pieces of {{spoiler|the cannon}} fall off afterward.
* [[Recursive Canon]]
* [[Red Eyes, Take Warning]]: Several examples in the episode "Eyewitness".
* [[Redshirt Army]]: They DO get a [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] at the end of the series, though.
* [[Replacement Goldfish]]: Dorothy to the real (deceased) Dorothy.
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* [[Sand Worm]]: In episode 17 "Leviathan", the title megadeus is a giant mechanical version.
* [[Scannable Man]]: Only in flashback.
* [[Schizo
* [[Self
* [[Ship Tease]]: Several, but the most memorably hilarious one comes from episode 18, where Dorothy declares her love for Roger...not.
* [[Sinister Subway]]: Though the residents of Paradigm City believe this is true about their own subway, they are apparently very safe and are used by Roger Smith to transport his robot, though, it should be noted that Roger has only mapped out the basic system (and has yet to explore what is beneath the subway).
* [[Sissy Villain]]: Eugene, in the dub
* [[Spell My Name
** Go on and guess what the "Wayne" part refers too...
* [[Spirit Advisor]]: Played with in the manga. {{spoiler|Schwartzwald appears makes his first appearance in the manga (post-disfigurement) as what may or may not be a drunken hallucination of Roger's. While he makes a physical appearance piloting Big Duo, Schwartzwald continues appearing to Roger while he pilots Big O, pointing out the parallels between the two of them as far as their attitude towards memories go and even giving him the occasional motivating speech.}}
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** This does not prevent him from using Big O's arsenal of Gatling cannons, lasers, pile driver punches (which usually blow through nearby buildings after holing their target). The local police often ''dread'' the destruction caused when Big O shows up.
** Again, this is par for the course in the long line of [[Batman]] shout outs, Bats himself refuses to use a gun but has no problem arming his various cars, motorcycles, jets, and other equipment with enough ordinance to completely level a small country. He has also shown himself as perfectly capable of wielding a gun.
* [[Telescoping Robot]]: Big O and the other [[A Mech
** Final Stage pushes it though. Even if it assumes that the "barrel" of the gun is hollow, it pushes the mass of Big O to extremes
* [[That Man Is Dead]]:
* [[This Is a Drill]]: Gabriel's prosthetic hand.
** And later, {{spoiler|Big Duo}}'s hands, when - appropriately enough - {{spoiler|being driven by Gabriel}}.
* [[Twelve-Episode Anime|Thirteen-Episode Anime]]: Though it was renewed for a second season.
** This was the first anime of its kind, mainly a [[Twelve-Episode Anime]] that got a second season, continuing were the first season left off. During that time, it was nigh unheard of in the anime industry.
* [[Timm Style]]: A rare [[Anime]] example.
* [[Title Theme Tune]]
* [[Truman Show Plot]]: Debatable, but in a possible [[Shout
* [[Tsundere]]: Roger is very much the male tsundere. Dorothy and Angel also have some tsundere traits.
* [[
* [[Wave Motion Gun]]: [[Crowning Moment of Awesome|"BIG O! FINAL STAGE!"]] {{spoiler|It doesn't entirely work. Big Fau (and the surrounding city) gets half-destroyed but is still standing - possibly due to Roger being a [[Technical Pacifist]].}}
** He missed. The Chrome Buster acts like a smaller version of one.
* [[What Happened to
** [[Word of God]] says that this was the Behemoth, the counterpart to the Leviathan activated by Schwarzwald, that was awakened by Vera and The Union in a final attempt to destroy Paradigm City. This was hinted and foreshadowed a little, but no one is gonna blame you for not being able to figure it out yourself.
* [[When It All Began]]: Forty years ago.
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* [[The Worf Barrage]]: Usually played straight, but subverted hilariously in "The Greatest Villain" - Beck's robot appears to block it, then falls apart a second later, resulting in an ''extremely'' short fight. Even mentioned in [[Super Robot Wars Z]] where its encyclopedia entry notes "it did not get any fight scene."
* [[Wouldn't Hit a Girl]]: Roger.
* [[X Meets Y]]: ''[[Batman:
* [[You Mean "Xmas"]]: Heaven's Day which is pretty blatantly Christmas under another name. Even Rosewater points it out near the end of the episode. Justified though due to the mass amnesia.
* [[Younger Than They Look]]: Dorothy. It's never lampshaded, despite the romantic interest that seems to develop between her and Roger; on the other hand, maybe this is normal in a city where androids and humans coexist as equals.
** Though as mentioned above, {{spoiler|this [[Epileptic Trees|possibly]] applies to [[Mind Screw|Roger]] as well}}.
* [[Zeppelins
{{reflist}}
[[Category:Studio WHO]]
[[Category:The Nineties]]▼
[[Category:Studio Cockpit]]
[[Category:Mystery and Detective Anime And Manga]]▼
[[Category:Viz Media]]
[[Category:Studio Jungle Gym]]
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[[Category:Seinen]]
[[Category:Trans Arts]]
[[Category:Adult Swim (Creator)]]▼
[[Category:Anime of the 1990s]]
[[Category:Anime]]
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[[Category:Edie Mirman]]
[[Category:The Big O]]
[[Category:Thirteen-Episode Anime]]
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