Saturday, June 25, 2016

[Ended] Big Order - A Flop of an Ending



Pros: Flashy
-Lots of Pretty Animation
-Pretty good fight scenes
-Characters have at least plausible, if not explicitly interesting Motivations

Cons: That Ending.
-Insanity. It's around. I can't tell if it's deliberate, or something being mishandled.
-The story wound itself up like it was all that, then flopped like a fish at the end.
-Main character wasn't as whiny as the one from Mirai Nikki, and does improve over the course of the show, but still is far too incompetent a lot of the time.

My Opinion: Meh. It tried at least. I give this show a rating of
Bad
Because it flopped hard at the end, but at least it feels like it was trying to be unique and interesting...albeit maybe trying a bit too hard, to the point where it feels like the show was constantly trying to be edgy.
I think that may be my major complaint for this one, that it all feels so edgy. We've got incest implications, a character who's conflicted about liking and hating someone at the same time, a big ole pile of regrets for every character, the innocent hostage, and a third wheel love interest just so we can have a love triangle. Although, I do want to credit them on that last part, because I have never seen an anime's third wheel actually show some fucking initiative, like they actually were trying to get someone to love them. Credits for a lot of things in this show, for trying, but not quite making the cut. I'd like to talk about more of them, but that would be spoiling a lot of things. The show does try to be vaguely mysterious and have a bunch of dramatic reveals, although most of them are lackluster.

The ending though. We need to talk about it a bit. That was the most rushed thing I have seen, since Evangelion. There was definitely a budget cut somewhere on this anime. Either that, or the studio or producers or something, saw something coming up that they refused to actually animate and publicly air, so the show got the knife. The story apparently is from the same person who made Mirai Nikki, but I don't myself know whether Mirai Nikki or this show were made from light novels, mangas, or were just original scripts for animation by the author, I just know that both are sourced to him. I'm vaguely interested in if Big Order has a source material, but at the same time, I don't really know that I'm interested in reading it. I don't dig the Eiji and Sena thing. I don't mean that in a 'ooh incest is bad' sort of idiocy, I mean in the actual characters themselves getting together, as the show portrayed them. Eiji seemed to get on a lot better with either 'Not-Gasai-Yuuno, no-really' and bunny girl. Eiji and Sena really were portrayed as just brother and sister, for all the edgy'ness that was around them. Also, a lot of comments that I was reading seemed to be saying something about Eiji pledging himself to his sister in a romantic way? I never saw that. Maybe they were quoting the source material, and the anime rubbed that out. All I ever saw was the one scene in the opening music and animation, and hell, that things 100% tripping, so that doesn't mean squat.

Impartial Opinion: For all that the ending flopped hard, it really feels like it flopped because it was rushed, to me at least. I thought that the big reveal about what Sena's wish would be was done spectacularly, both in lead up, twist, and actual execution and how Eiji reacted. It was just ... everything else falling apart. The big bad turned over like a piece of paper, none of the 'Elite Squad' that was gotten together to face him down in the first place really amounted to jack shit in the ending, and so on. Plus that last dramatic fight...talk about reaching for a climax. The ending after it? Also completely unsatisfying. How many times do I have to say it, you can't just magic hand wave something important away, and expect everything to be fine. 'A contradiction cannot exist in reality, neither in part, nor in whole'. If you leave a contradiction in the weaving of your story or plot, and especially in the world both of those contain, it's going to taint the experience. To me, the biggest contradiction was always 'Why doesn't Eiji just use his fucking power more'. I mean, the show did make a point of Daisy sealing his power to puny levels, but still, he showed several times that he could be clever and innovative with it, but a bunch of other times, he basically just curls up in a ball and starts crying. Also, they never really used his special trick that he did with the bunny girl again, right until the ending. I was expecting more out of that special trick. Ah well.

At the end of the day, I think you should watch this show. Just, don't put your expectations anywhere above mid-level, and definitely turn most of your brain off and just go with the flow. It's a pretty enjoyable show for flash, and it definitely tried to have depth, even if it didn't succeed in actually getting it.

Over all, the show just feels like what you might get if you only watched half the episodes of Mirai Nikki. Like a helluva lot is missing.