Review of Big Order (TV)

Oh boy where to begin with this one... Well firstly would be the "similarities" to Mirai Nikki, Big Order is done by the same author, Sakae Esuno and LA put "similarities" in quotation marks as it really follows and fails the "basics" of Mirai Nikki, the easiest being Rin Kurenai voiced by Shiori Mikami being a poor-mans vers. to Yuno Gasai and Eiji Hoshimiya voiced by Masakazu Morita as Yukiteru Amano with all his denseness, heck there isn't really a death game held in this anime, it's more like world domination with the side of superpowered humans trying to assassinate Eiji. From that LA has some obviousproblems and some rare strengths to give Big Order.

Obvious problems include, very weak main characters overall across the board, Eiji if anything is a stand-in for Yukiteru but even dumber considering he's got the entire "dense main male protagonist" going pretty strong, LA calls Eiji dumb for the basic reasoning if his power is to dominate anything in his area, he can use his "imagination" to think up some very good ploys to cripple his opponent, instead he just makes the more difficult route into "dominating" and heck even the powers have some plot holes here and there, but that's a bit later. His motivations is a bit mixed for LA, LA gets he's doing all this for his sick little sister, but later on it becomes incestous but that a bit later. Rin almost feels like a storyboarded prototype of Yuno Gasai just without the detail and intrigue behind the character, her motivation contradicts her actions and sure she got dominated by Eiji (that sounded bit off) AND now CAN'T kill Eiji throughout the anime, she tries desperately to be Yuno Gasai but seriously with her motivations and actions being constant contradictions to one another and her CONSTANTLY spouting that she'll kill Eiji...and maybe marry him, it gets even worse when she CONSTANTLY switches sides to the side for her better benefit (or forced to due to the Order powers) but because there are higher powers other than Rin in the series, she quickly becomes more of a satellite character to the side she's on/betraying later than an actual main character with a presence in the plot, ultimately this is Yuno Gasai ver. "GO BACK TO THE WRITING BOARD WITH HER" and was very poorly executed. As for the other main cast of Eiji's Group of Ten (Great name, so if Eiji and Rin joins isn't it now Group of Twelve?), they just aren't fleshed enough for LA to care and just making them either plot devices or showing their power equals "personality", which becomes odd as the ONLY character LA managed to like was Mari Kunou voiced by Saori Hayami, the 9th Hand of Group of Ten but even her presence, power and personality was enough for LA to like her given her VERY little screentime...she's better than the REST of the cast that moves the plot forward!.

The character focus becomes bizarre and once again poorly executed when we get focus on Iyo voiced by Azusa Tadokoro a divination expert, the fourth hand of Group of Ten, she gains a plotline within the story but takes a bizarre turn due to her becoming pregnant if someone grabs her bunny ears ribbon and that someone becomes Eiji, she immediately becomes pregnant then in the next episode...the "baby bump" is GONE and effectively making her presences both bizarre and almost meaningless due to the gaping plot thread left dangling there (and yeah it's explained later that it was a future prediction of the pregnancy, but the anime DOESN'T TELL US THAT) and yeah she becomes infatuated by Eiji from this incident which doesn't help matters as Eiji loves "LOVES his sister" (not to mention it's MUTUAL on the other side)...so not Iyo or Rin are even competitors in this "harem"...ultimately making many of the minor main cast members bland or underdeveloped...they just come and go which was a shame as some of the minor cast members from Group of Ten were interesting and LA wouldn't have mind them being fleshed out as to how they came into the Group of Ten and whatnot (obvious ones LA wanted fleshed out were Mari and Benkei Narukami voiced by Fumihiko Tachiki). Ohh yeah the incest...ohh boy. Ok, LA is a person that does look into the while incest topic with some bold ("anime" not real-life there's a difference) expectations but this too was poorly handled and was just done with the mindset of "incest for the sake of incest to be more controversial", look LA looks at incest in two ways of "success", either make it a serious drama REALLY looking into the topic of incest like Ore no Imouto ga Konnani Kawaii Wake ga Nai or if your a comedy, poke fun at the topic but don't take it TOO seriously comedic or over the top ecchi, a nice balance of ecchi and harem incest comedy like Oniichan dakedo Ai Sae Areba Kankeinai yo ne! did it, guess what Big Order tried to do.........none of them!.

Ok with that out of the way, the Order powers, right, LA had with Big Order was again to go back to what LA was saying about the Order powers being all over the place, it's not told specifically and felt like it was more going along with just to get the plot moving forward, Eiji has UNlimited uses for his Order powers, yet he's either too stupid to get the easiest route in taking down an enemy or some new "rule" comes in to limit his powers...when he shouldn't of..."HE CAN DOMINATE ANYTHING ON A WHIM"...why can't the anime get this?...ohh right to move the plot forward quicker. Finally due to Big Order only having 10 episodes, it's to be expected that this anime rushes it completely and it does...but if anything LA will say that it keeps a "constant rushed rate" for the most part and yes that dampens characters development immensely. Wow that's alot of things wrong with Big Order...

Anything "good"...like any tiny little speck of...well the animation is decent. No really the same studio who did Mirai Nikki, Asread did a pretty good job on the animation sans the CGI Jojo stand-ins, the animation backgrounding to character designs to the few battle scenes were pretty nicely handled. The CGI however is the only detriment to the animation, the most blatant and ugly being Eiji's Order avatar. The OP done by YUI was also pretty decent as well, it was catchy at best, but LA still liked it. Finally, as rushed as Big Order was it still kept some semblance of a plot to easily keep up with it, even with the constant betrayals, mind-games, tactical espionage missions and the grand scheme of the villain of the series.

In terms of voice acting, well what with the majority of the voice cast had to work with, LA can't blame them for how they did overall, Masakazu Morita and especially Shiori Mikami being the worst off (Shiori Mikami's first yandere role and again given her material LA just knew she was trying). As for Misaki Kuno as Eiji's sister, well she was the most mixed for LA, as her "little sister" scthick was fine, until she goes into obssessed-evil sounding, it was one part grating, one part "Misaki Kuno, LA knows your trying to sound evil with this material". If there was a voice actor that was LA's favorite would oddly go to Hitomi Harada as Kagekiyo Tairano, it just felt like she was having so much fun voicing this eccentric walking-ecchi Order.

The ending, well LA was rather mixed by this ending as it had a few rare moments where it was good, emphasis on "rare", like the main cast coming to defeat a big menace (with the likes of Kagekiyo, Mari and Benkei) as well as the plot threads finally resolve itself (except the entire pregnant thing...that never comes up or heard again). Now what was wrong with this ending was that the major villain of this anime ultimately made a wishing granting "gate" and really Eiji's and Sena's motivations towards the ending...LA didn't give a shit, not only was the motivations incestuous to say the least, but the "wishes" granted to put the major plot threads together were either too convoluted or trying to be a ripoff vers. of the Holy Grail by skewing your wish...no seriously, going into to SPOILERS here, but LA is gonna say it, how can a simple wish like "want our family to be happy" turn into "let's destroy the world" and sure it was stated that Sena couldn't control her wish, but how can a simple wish just turn into what happened in the plot and yeah now it goes into Eiji's wish, sure he could finally control his Order power now 100% to have ANY wish granted, basically making him a GOD, but really in fighting the "big menace aka. final boss" of the anime, he took it down too easily. *SPOLERS END* Rin's involvement in the ending again felt even more disjointed as revelations to Rin about what really happen opened Rin's eyes...it was kinda too late, as LA just saw no chemistry with her to Eiji and obviously because of Eiji's incestuous relationship and goal to Sena...she was little but a plot device to the ending. Does LA even need to tell you this ending was rushed to no end?. Ultimately, due to the incestuous motivations of our main two leads, LA just didn't care and cared more about the survival of the minor characters more. Eiji can FINALLY be with his beloved.....good keep them together and far away from LA. LA did say this ending was mixed for LA...but honestly even with the good and bad points, the bad points made LA lead into Big Order from So-Bad It's Weirdly Awful to So-Bad it's Bad territories.

LA more or less knew what LA was getting into watching Big Order and the rumors and expectations was what LA had imagined it became, only slightly worse.....a cluttered and rushed mess of ideas and characters all trying to get screentime in which 10 episodes let alone 12 wouldn't be enough to fix. On paper, the premise looks promising, but in execution is where Big Order utterly ruined itself. LA can safely say that Big Order belongs in the drenches of bad anime of Spring 2016 with Seisen Cerberus with Big Order as it's running partner.