Review of Big Order (TV)

(This review will try to be as spoiler free as possible to help you decide whether you wish to watch this) After having rewatched Mirai Nikki for the first time in three+ years and enjoying myself much more than I thought I would on the second run through (although I think a lot of that enjoyment was from nostalgia), I decided to check out so of Sakae Esuno's other works and after reading the plot to Big Order I decided to check it out in the hopes of some somewhat similar quality piece. Boy was I dissapointed. Big Order is like the somewhat awkward cousin you see onceor twice a year due to distance/family issues. Semi enjoyable for the first ten minutes as you reminisce about the past and family matters, but then quickly slips into awkward silence as you stand there looking for any other member of the family at this gathering so you can slip away as quickly and kindly as possible without damaging your boring cousin's feelings.

I know Mirai Nikki is a contensious topic with some hailing the anime as the next coming of Christ whilst others wouldn't cross the road to spit on it, but when all is said and done Mirai Nikki had some objectively good features to it, such as a nice soundtrack, some form of character development (and indeed personality in the first place), and genuinely good moments that would evoke certain emotions. Big Order takes all the good parts of Mirai Nikki and throws them out the window, whilst keeping the crap like annoying whiny characters, a bizzare plot that moves at a mile a minute and often makes no sense, and enough plot holes to sink a ship. So without further ado, lets discuss why Big Order royally sucks.

Story: 4
Spoilers inbound.
Hoo boy. The story. The story... Big Order sure is a piece of work. The basic premise is the main character Eiji believes he caused the great destruction of Earth 10 years ago due to a divine power he obtained, and also that his sister only has 6 months left to live.
In the first episode we get the set up, the exposition which immediately feels forced and boring, particularly with his sister, who just sort of sits their and says "Onii-chan" a lot. Then all of a sudden he is attacked on the way home by Kurenai Rin, one of the other main characters, and he gets into a fight with her where he uses his Order power for the first time since the destrction to win. Following the fight he binds her to his will stopping her from hurting him and not allowing her to leave 'his domain'. Already we have run into several problems. Firstly, before I rant, I'd just like to say at this point you're thinking "Ok, so this is going to be some sort of Shojo anime where every week he attacked by another order user (mainly girls), and he dominates them and eventually they sort of warm up to him over time. Sounds a but stupid but hey, I can enjoy a light hearted semi romance Shojo every so often". However, the show has already set itself up for a massive fall. By giving him the power of domination, it falls in to the same trap as Mirai Nikki, as the main character is clearly the most powerful, they have to puropsefully nerf/make up convenient rules/ completely forget about their ability to be able to make other characters have a chance at beating him and providing any tension. This in and of itself makes the show feel completely stupid. Then in the next episode he ends up fighting some more guys and this time gets introduced to the ten, half of whom you will see again about once. These ten are a callous and cold bunch, and are using Eiji to take over the world, and are the definite enemies of the show. For about ten minutes. Then we move forward with the change to taking over prefectures and seeking people out instead of having people come after him. Here he stops two nukes, but he couldn't do it himself and needed help in a moment of plot convenience. Then the plot moves again to having them go look for a healer for Sena, who then gets killed by a mysterious man (who is supposed to be one of the main villains but you never really feel any hatred for him as he is only in it about three times), then it turns out the ten aren't evil, then it turns out the evil is Eiji's father, then it turns out he isn't evil, then it turns out Sena is evil, then it turns out Sena isn't evil. See a large problem here? Plot twists happen about every minute, and they always tend to take the same shape. There are a hell of a lot thrown in and Im not sure a single one made any sense/was a good idea. I'm going to cut the story review off here and move on to the next section as otherwise it will devolve into episode by episode plot bashing.

Art: 6
There isn't really much to say about the art style, it's quite nice, and has the same feel of Esuno's other works (Mirai Nikki), just be warned if you weren't a fan of the creepy contracted pupil drawings that Esuno does throughout Mirai Nikki they're back again here, but this time with far less meaning as it the characters just aren't meant to be being creepy. Eiji and Rin are also carbon copy clones of Yuki and Yuno which docks a mark. Another one is docked as the Order's are basically discount stands from Jojo, but these use cheap looking CGI to make them.

Sound: 6
The sound track is alright. It's no masterpiece thats for sure, but I genuinely enjoyed some of the songs, particularly the piece that plays when Eiji uses his domination order the first few times which was a genuinely fun piece that made me feel like I was watching a superhero show, however the rest of the soundtrack was unmemorable and unimpressive, there is at least nothing offensive to the ears in it though.

Character: 3
Now we come to the dregs. The characters are without a doubt the worst part of this show. In the first three episodes we are introduced to somewhere between 10 and 15 characters, of whom half you can just ignore. Eiji, the main character is boring and bland, and never progresses throughout the show. We get great character development such as him going from "I want to save my sister.", to "I want to save my sister!". Truly astounding. His character also seems to lack set personality traits bouncing from brave to cowardly to relaxed to downright insane at times without there really ever being a reason for the character change. The only attachment I felt to this character was any lingering attachment I had to Yukiteru because, as stated above he is practically a clone of him looks wise. Then we have Rin, the 'Main heroine' if you will. I put it in quotes because she is absent for half the show, being abducted and just sort of never discussed again. She goes from hating Eiji to loving him in about 30 seconds, but that never gets explored because Eiji is too busy trying to date his sister. Speaking of his sister, Sena is a very 2d character whose only role is to occasionally say "Onii-chan" and get her brother riled up. She is held as a hostage for about 80% of the film and the only reason you want her to be rescued is so you dont have to hear Eiji obnoxiously scream "SENA!" one more time. She loves her brother very much yet does a complete 180 at the end of the show for about 30 seconds before flipping back again, but that's nothing new here. I'm going to talk about the rest of the characters as a whole as they're all cut and paste useless 2d lumps that have no souls. The rest of the cast are unimagined, lack any goals or purpose, and don't have any real reason for being their. Also the commander of the ten changes personality dramatically half way through, going from being evil to good in the span of five seconds.

Enjoyment: 4
My enjoyment of this was pretty low. All in all I feel like I wasted my time watching this. The main reason I stuck around from the halfway point was because the whole thing is only ten episodes, and I feel like thats a lot of the problem with this show. Because its so short there isnt really any time to discuss or cover anything, so the plot jumps a mile a minute to keep up. I don't know whether this is faithful to the manga or not, or whether it is a lot more fleshed out and actually semi decent, but quite frankly, I don't want to know anymore.

Overall: 4
Again, this was a poor piece, it is very rare I walk away from an anime series with absolutely no attachment to the characters or without a twinge of sadness that the journey is over, as with most things I watch/read, however, this was one of the rare times that I can just put it down and walk away without any sadness (although I will be playing the song "Domination" again a few more times).

Do I recommend Big Order?
No.