Review of Big Order (TV)
WARNING: This review contains some spoilers for this masterpiece known as Big Order. I'm fully confident to say that Big Order is the most misunderstood anime ever released, the fact that it has such a low score everywhere is truly baffling to me. Now wait, calm down. Drop those stones you're holding there and hear me out for a bit! I too once thought Big Order was a shitshow, especially because its author is the same fella who wrote that ungodly abomination called Mirai Nikki, and Big Order was full of random bullshit just like the previous series, which actually makes me question why Mirai Nikki hasa higher score than this when both are essentially terribly-written trainwrecks that fail at every single thing they try to do... Or is it really how things are? Well, for Mirai Nikki that's definitely the case, but Big Order finally clicked with me on rewatch and I realized that the series is actually a lot smarter than most people think, because unlike Mirai Nikki, it actually treats its absurdly dumb plot points and twists like absurdly dumb plot points and twists! Big Order doesn't try to paint itself as some kind of brilliant 2deep4u work of art like Mirai Nikki does, it's actually quite the opposite: When you're watching it and say "wow that's fucking ridiculous", Big Order turns to you and says "I KNOW RIGHT?" as it pulls another unbelievable twist right out of its ass in a glorious never-ending show of ingeniously crafted shitstorms.
It's almost like Sakae Esuno is actually aware of how terrible Mirai Nikki was and decided to make Big Order into a parody of his previous work, laughing at himself for actually writing that garbage without the smallest bit of self-awareness, and maybe even laughing at people who actually think Mirai Nikki is a good series without being ironic about it. Yes, my friends, Sakae Esuno incorporated shitposting into anime and manga before it became a popular thing to do nowadays with shows like Pop Team Epic, Berserk 2016 and Darling in the FranXX. I haven't read the Big Order manga, but the anime adaptation even adds to the shitposting by having a soundtrack that couldn't be any less out-of-place with "heavy" and "dark" scenes playing out as some bouncy jazz is playing on the background, it's clearly a deliberate move on the director and/or the composer for this anime, they're well aware of the true nature of Big Order and were happy to play along with Sakae Esuno's joke. I like to think that there's a bunch of ninjas who are always playing jazz while hiding themselves somewhere in the scenery, you'll never see them, but you certainly know they're around, and the characters in the series may also know of that, but they choose to ignore the background noise because there's always too much going on.
Do you doubt that Big Order is a spoof of Mirai Nikki, and maybe even some other terribly-written anime? Alright then, explain to me why the protagonist Eiji and one of the girls in his ever-growing harem, Rin, have such a strong similarity with Yukiteru and Yuno from Mirai Nikki in their character designs! Is it because Esuno can only draw those types of characters and nothing more? Of course not, his other manga seems to have fairly distinct character designs, so why would he replicate characters from Mirai Nikki specifically for this particular series? I rest my case. But relax, just because these characters look like Yukiteru and Yuno, doesn't mean that they're the same, Eiji shows more balls in one episode of Big Order than Yukiteru shows in the entirety of Mirai Nikki for once, and Rin isn't really a yandere who wants to keep everyone away from Eiji's cock, in fact she actually hates him and wants him dead for most of the story, obviously because Esuno wants them to be the anti-Yukiteru and Yuno as part of the joke. The basic premise of the story is that there's a bunch of people known as Orders who have Stands with unique abilities each, because no shitposting anime would be fully realized without a JoJo reference, and Eiji is one of those people, he also apparently made some kind of fucked-up wish that caused the apocalypse and people hate him a little bit because of that, but he doesn't give a shit, he's got a cute little imouto called Sena who has AIDS and will die in a few months, but bigger than her disease is her lust for some onii-sama D, so he's just fine. However, it all changes when Rin tries to kill Eiji, which leads him to re-awakening his Stand power, which happens to be the Geass of Absolute Obedience! Thus, Eiji forces Rin to marry him and proceeds to legally rape her with his stand's pointy tentacles as the screen fades to black and some smooth jazz plays on the background.
After that, Eiji becomes buddies with a bunch of other people who are also Orders and want to take over the world, but most of them don't really matter much aside from the bunny girl called Iyo who gets pregnant because Eiji touches her ribbon... Yes, she says that anyone who touches her ribbon which acts like bunny ears will impregnate her... This actually fucking happens! They take her to a nearby hospital, the nurse says a baby is coming out and later they actually have a discussion about pregnancy and raising kids. How in the world can anyone actually think this was meant to be taken seriously? The show is obviously taking the piss, you're supposed to laugh at how absurd this set-up for a "romance" subplot is and be on the edge of your seat for whatever the hell the series will want to throw at you next, and I assure that you won't be disappointed. I don't even want to spoil much of the plot, Big Order such an unpredictable beast that I could be ruining the experience if I spill out too much, and for the record, I showed this series to a friend of mine without letting her know much of what it's like, and she laughed her ass off from beginning to end, which is how we are all meant to react to it.
By the way, the opening is pretty neat, yeah.
Anyway, the only complaint I have about Big Order is the fact that it's only 10 episodes long, but... Oh God, it's 10 episodes of pure, unadulterated hilarity.