Review of Big Order (TV)

*spoilers for Big Order* Big Order is an enigma. It's beyond our comprehension, in the worst way possible. It throws you for all kinds of loops in the dumbest, more surreal ways imaginable, thinking that's it's a clever, emotional, deep, and truly thought-provoking being when in reality, it's a sloppy, horrifically told mess. Trying to really understand everything about it is to succumb to a Lovecraftian horror that will destroy your mind and soul since it actually manages to be both convoluted in all the potentially interesting and deep ways while fucking it all up and being convoluted the wrong ways. It doesn't answer all theright questions we are left with, and it sometimes answers them in ways that make things worse. Hell, it doesn't even understand the revolting implications of some of its characters actions, so how the hell can it expect to understand the major plot it has created?

It's actually futile to try to understand this anime since it doesn't even understand itself that well. It's like it's final antagonist, trying to delve deep into something it was never gonna truly get, making detrimentally wrong decisions, and losing sight of what it tried to do as it went and tried to one-up itself in "craftiness" and "mind-bending twists". It knows what it's trying to be, but that it's trying to be is something it cannot handle, which is truly fitting given that many of its characters suffer that exact same fate. So, just how badly did Big Order implode in on itself? Or rather, just what happened to make it suffer that fate? Well, let's find out, shall we?

Basically, 10 years ago, Eiji made a wish that ended up destroying the world, add that wish was to dominate it for world peace. Now, you're asking why didn't he say "I want world peace"? The thing is, it wasn't his actual wish, it was his sister's. I know I'm jumping the gun but I need to tackle this early. The flashbacks make it seem like she's a girl who can comprehend full conversations and the state of our worlds as well as empathy by then we learn she was only 3, making this make little sense since actual 3 year olds don't do any of that. I know this because the flashback specifically states 10 years ago, as well as the fact that in the final episode, she turns 14 soon after the major events of the final episode. Now, basically, the plot tries to one up itself in terms of stringing its MC along for all sorts of twists, turns, betrayals, etc., so let's tackle some of them, as well as a few other moments and see what went wrong, shall we? After all, it's hard to really describe the plot well given how wrecked it is, but we can attack it's logic and see why the story falters, in sort of a rapid fire kind of fashion, though this isn't my usual formula.

When Kurenai Rin stabs Eiji's sister (Sena) in the shoulder with a sword and she bleeds horribly, you'd expect that when Eiji reaches her far more than 10 minutes later given how the episode presents itself, that she would actually be dead from blood loss. Eiji takes down two heavily armed and protected dudes by going ham with a sign (that was never shown), so yeah, that's dumb. If Rin wanted to finish off Eiji herself, she definitely shouldn't have ordered her men to riddle him with bullets (regardless of the fact that it didn't even work). When Eiji effectively puts her in his dominion, or rather, when he uses his order to block the shots before he uses his dominion order, she, for no reason, heals Sena and he never even ordered to. She wants to know why, and neither she nor we get a definite answer since we never hear him tell her to heal his sister. Barring the stuff I listed above that ultimately is explained away by the big Sena twist, this is basically all of the really crazy illogical moments from episode 1. Keep that in mind. Also at the end of the episode, Eiji uses his Order avatar to wrap Rin and given the audio and the way the episode fades to black for the credits, it basically sounds like he basically forced her into tentacle rape, and I'm not sure if they really wanted that implication or maybe they did it as a joke. Dunno.

Characters betray each other for no good reason. I mean, Franc betrays the group in episode 7 for no adequately explained reason only to do a face turn, only to do another heel turn in the finale. Characters also try to outsmart each other all the time, to varying and often pathetic degrees of success in terms of making any sense, like how in episode 4, one of the 10 members working for them was pretending to work for the enemy by giving the enemy heavily compromising information that jeopardizes his side's own plans to nearly getting their pawn (Eiji) killed (even though it easing their own order), or well, everything in one ginormous sequence in episode 7 that amounts to the two leaders trying to outwit each other until they are betrayed by one of their own (Rin for the bad guys and Franc for the "good guys", except Rin's was a part of the bad guys' plan). It's like the writer(s) decided to try to make the story one-up itself in terms of convoluted schemes of planning around plans and adding in betrayals regardless of whether or not it can be easy enough to remotely follow or if it all makes sense.

Characters also don't use their OP AF powers on ways that actually make good sense in their situations. There are a few notable accounts of this. Episode 3: Eiji has the Group of 10 (what a boring name) under his dominion and claims to be in control (though that's what they want), and he doesn't even do anything to bind them under his will aside from "don't leave my domain". If he really wanted to be in control, he should've tried to make them actually submit to his power and decisions via his dominion instead of saying "you're in my dominion" and expecting them to just follow him and not get him entangled in their scenes. Episode 6: A swordsman has an inter-dimensional sword that can slash between dimensions, and when he has Eiji and Iyo in his sights (as well as a now useless colleague and Kuroko (the Miko of vitality and couples in episode 6 who is gorgeous AF), he swipes vertically to kill the latter two. Even if it's revealed that Eiji needed to be alive for his father (the main antagonist), did he swordsman know that? Why not swipe vertically to kill everyone, or if he knew that he needed Eiji alive, why not depends diagonally to try to cut off a limb to make him more susceptible to capture? Episode 10: Sena Wishes dominion over the world for world peace. Even if she was basically 3 at the time, why didn't she just wish for world peace? So that the plot could happen? There had to have been better ways of making this work, like maybe trying to justify why she didn't (like maybe she wanted to emulate the world domination aspect of her idol book comic character, or maybe she didn't think it through at all). Instead, she wished for world domination and couldn't handle the power so it fucked over the world. Also, when Eiji wished to shoulder all of the damage she did with that wish, how does it equate to him taking her power, messing both his and her memories, and basically suppressing and replacing their memories of their father? Bah! Moving on!

As I said, this show doesn't understand any of the downright horrible implications of some of the characters' actions. Let's run down the list, shall we? The Group of Ten basically leaked info to basically ruin a high schooler's life by turning the world against him and manipulating him into their schemes just so they can kill his father and stop his plans, even knowing that both he and his sister were crucial in his plot. That literally makes no sense and the fact that they expect him to go along with it is especially galling. They basically made him a global pariah worse than Adolf Hitler, so no shit he often has a hard time of complying! In episode 4, Eiji and Sena are in bed with him on top in a very sexual position, and then we next see all of their clothes on the floor and an open shower curtain. Regardless of the fact that we only blatantly know that they're just showering together, it's very creepy for a teenage boy to shower with his not much younger sister at their ages. Also, given all of this context, you can imagine that the implications of actual incest run rampant here, which is just not good. Hell, the fact that she kisses him in the final episode of the anime (without any context to blatantly suggest otherwise), it's basically confirmed that she was wanting to have incest with him, or at least heavy implications make it come off that way.

Time for this last example to really sell my point home. In episode 9, Iyo has Eiji handcuffed to a bed with just his shirt off and they take off their clothes, but he is trying to decline sex in favor of current matters, and given the context of what's going on, it's implied from the anime that she was already sorta having sex anyway thanks to Eiji's line about her going any deeper, and again, he never actually consented and she was still trying to have sex with him. Does that sound like rape to you, because it does to me. Don't try to give me some bullshit spheal about "women can't rape men, that's not how that works; at worst, it's only physically possible for it to be sexual harassment or assault" since she had him chained up to something without his knowledge or consent and is trying to have (and given the anime's context, likely in the middle of having) sex regardless of his declining (likely because he'd rather save it for a time where his sister wasn't in danger) so that counts as attempted rape, even if none of the characters realize it as such. Do you see what I mean by horrid implications that no character seems to take into consideration regarding their actions!

Before we get to the real meat of the convoluted nature of the series, let’s also smash a few weird ass scenes apart since, well, this anime is beyond strange. The ultimate example of this is the beginning of episode 5. Kagekiyo basically grabs and fondles the tits of Rin, Mari (the chick with the glasses and lasers), and Iyo, all while basically having an orgasm over their “twin peaks” when she fondles them enough, getting her ass kicked every time, brushing it off like it's nothing before moving to her next target, and not learning not to be such a perv to other women. All this scene adds is time and discomfort. I've already talked about the episode 4 scene that really hints at incest, so I'll tackle one more scene: Eiji gets an arm and a leg cut off in episode 8, and the moment he uses the Eiji x Iyo fusion of his Order avatar, he can suddenly manipulate his limbs to attach to him for no reason other than asspulls since it was never shown to be able to do that. I know orders defy conventional logic, but they only do that via the user’s ordered actions, not by nature of their existence.

There’s this whole thing about how the people hate Order users because they hate Eiji for what happened to the world. Problem is, the way they go about this is hamfisted. Civilians in this show are absurdly hateful and are portrayed in this vicious, uncivilized, basically evil light. Also, you know, it seems like none of them try to move on from their grief and put it past them in order to try to live a better life. I get that their families were killed and their lives were inverted but everyone comes off as insanely hateful for the sake of it. I'll address the final thing that makes the civilians on the show horrible when we get there.

Yeah, time to delve into the big plot of the second half. Given that the anime ended a few months before the manga did, I can only assume that all of this, or at least a good chunk of it (namely the final episode or 3) was filler, though even with the research I did (without reading the manga or knowing someone who has) I cannot prove this. Well, it turns out that the Group of 10 were initially meant to track down and kill Genai, Eiji’s father, and you can refer to a few paragraphs ago on why that is horse shit when taking everything into account. Also, the bad guys are tracking down and trying to kill mikos. Apparently it's because they are involved in this pentagram involved with the gate to this mental world that he wants to unlock because it was Sena that originally did so, though she couldn't control it, causing the world to be ravaged, apparently so that he can create an infinite amount of parallel universes, including ones where Sena’s wish was granted and she was happy and world peace, even if it means forsaking the universe that we are currently seeing our characters in and everyone storms the place and betrayals and Eiji denouncing his goal and getting stabbed by his sister and then fusing orders and kicking ass and winning and God shows up and the world is now good and now that means everyone sees Eiji as a hero which makes no sense given how much whiplash that is with how hateful they were and good ending and blah blah blah! I'm not even gonna question any more aspects of the finale like the memory parasite robots or anything since my mind is fried beyond belief.

Another crucial problem is that very few of these characters have any remotely interesting personality to speak of, so I'll prattle a lot of them off quick. The Group of 10 are mostly useless, with only a few of them being relevant like the leader, Mari, Iyo, and 3 other dudes who only do one specific thing like flying, teleporting, and punching, and some of them are so useless that they don't even have any real screen time, and of course, each of them is basically one note and dull, even the fun-loving flying and punching dudes are just meh, and are just there for deus ex machinas. Even the main character Eiji is a boring teen protagonist who is basically Lelouch if he had the personality of an ordinary school protagonist, including his devotion to making his sister happy. Rin is just an annoying chick who always wants to kill Eiji until one final sappy scene where she motivates him in the final episode. Also, yeah, different hair color aside, her design is strikingly similar to that of Yuno from Mirai Nikki. Kagekiyo is just a vengeful and quirky person who also happens to be a total perv (and probably either bi or lesbian given the twin peaks scene in episode 5), and is basically irrelevant aside from episodes 3 and 4, and one scene in the finale. Also, Sena is basically a worse Nunnally who sorta is in love with her brother and is the one actually responsible for the world ending. Plus, her heel turn in episode 9 was abominable.

Now into the full-blown antagonists. I don't even think most of them have names aside from Jyuubei (the sword guy) and Genai (the main antagonist). Aside from Genso, there nothing but generic, borderline personality-less baddies. It's sad when Fairy Tail can come up with tons of evil teams (Oración Seis, Tartarus, Grimoire Heart, Phantom Lord, and a good few others) that have each and every character have some kind of defined personality with some of them getting sort of fleshed out, and in rarer cases, even developed and yet no one here has a truly concrete personality aside from the most generic templates of a personality. Genai has this weird obsession with flowers and the series tries its damnedest to make him a sympathetic scientist father whose plans drove him insane and ruined everything for everyone, but when they can't even do a good job with his backstory, the backstory about him for one of the characters, or even how despite supposedly caring so much for Eiji and Sena he never actually shows care after the major incident (he never looks for them orthopedic to get others to do the same, and he doesn't care how badly their hurt as long as they're alive and useful), even he misses the mark.

I can't even really begin to describe Daisy in any way that isn't how much teasing he does to Eiji about his powers and memories. She is as much of an enigma as the show itself, and I don't think it was as intentional as you might think since we know nothing about her backstory other than the fact that she was used as the vessel of an experiment that caused her to become some kind of floating person that hands out Orders. We never really see that from her perspective, nor does she really have anything concrete about her aside from her great looks and how much she teases Eiji about pertinent information. What was she like before? Did the change affect her in any way? Why did she get a job as a waitress at the end of the series! Despite being one of the more prominent characters in the series, I probably have the least feel for what kind of personality she has. Also, the only Miko we get to know aside from Iyo is Kuroko, a beautiful lady who has perfect vitality and spend her days basically forging couples, and it's funny to hear her get annoyed when Eiji and Iyo don't understand one another and have awkward moments despite them being obviously the pair that will be a couple, though she doesn't really get to do much since she was killed off unceremoniously. She was, all things considered, the best character in the show, and when a basically one-off character is the best character in your entire series, that's pretty pathetic.

The character art...is inconsistent. Sometimes it looks amazing, with all sorts of wonderful shading to complement the (mostly) wonderful (albeit sometimes borderline copy paste) character designs, and other times, it looks flat with characters having none of that shading. It would've been great if Studio Asread were capable of doing what Studio Wit did with Kabaneri and managed to have the perfect shading all the time instead of only sometimes, but hey, it's better than having the flat looking moments for the characters all the time. Only one design looks terrible and that's Kagekiyo’s, especially with those absurdly pointy nipples that stick out from her g-string big time. The actual animation isn't spectacular but ultimately competent, despite a few laughable moments like the way Eiji turns/slides in episode 2 (I bet you know the scene I'm talking about). The censorship is pretty terrible though, but not as horrid as the usual black bars or even black circles. The kaleidoscope imagery looked nice though, even if the series doesn't really do well in terms of having contrasting light and shadow in the same frame. Also, the CGI is pretty terrible, not just with the avatars, but especially with the nukes in episode 4 and just how prevalent the CGI is, also bogs it all down, especially since it doesn't work well with the aesthetic of the series, nor does it look good on its own. I do at least like when the imagery gets really triply like with the world destruction and with most of the final episode.

The OP “Disorder” by Yousei Teikoku...is certainly fitting in terms of its chaotic nature and how much of a mess Big Order is. I don't particularly like it, especially in comparison to some of her other songs like Mirai Nikki OP 1 or Deus’s character song. The ED “Kobore Sekai Oware (毀レ世カイ終ワレ)" by Aki Hata is...fascinating. Both somewhat unnerving and simultaneously alluring. I really like it, more so than any other piece of music in the series. The Actual OST is somewhat ok but is really unfitting (with tons of jazz pieces that sound like they’d be playing at certain parts of a fun spy series instead of an anime like this), and some of them, especially the track “Dominate” are played over and over again and it gets annoying since none of the tracks (aside from track 7) are particularly good. It's not that they're bad, it's that they are overused and ill-fitting most of

For a while now, Big Order was easily the most enjoyable train wreck I had ever seen. It's decisions were so baffling and out of left field that I couldn't help but laugh my ass off constantly throughout the first 6 episodes. It wasn't enjoyable in the conventional sense and the episodes got increasingly aggravating, but the last 4 episode felt more aggravating than funny bad, mainly due to how it grew stale and unbelievably convoluted, and the fact that it tried harder than ever to be serious and heartfelt rather than crazy and fun in terms of what it was trying to do. I don't actually hate the ending, partially because I couldn't even care anymore and my mind was crashing like Hindenburg or the Titanic, and blowing up like a Megaman boss. I was more distraught by its failures than infuriated or poised to laugh at them in the last 4 episodes, especially the finale. Plus, certain implications and true ramifications of situations really broke me at times. Nonetheless, I can say that for most part, I consider it to be the first truly effective schlock title I have ever seen, in the way that I laughed my ass off constantly throughout a majority of the run, for whatever that's worth.

Big Order is an absolute mess. It's not just convoluted, but stupidly confusing and confusingly stupid. It becomes legitimately hard to grasp as to what is actually wrong with the story and what is just convoluted and/or absurd but intentional and not harmful. As your mind tries to parse all that, as well as the awful CGI and constant kaleidoscope imagery, as well as the unfitting music that makes you speculate as to what kind of series the OST would better suit, it all moves along at breakneck speeds. It's mentally taxing for sure, and not even mostly good character art, a few good songs, or even kaleidoscope imagery can remotely salvage that. You actively need to be mentally prepared to sit through this show or you will be left in the dust worse than any unprepared schmuck watching episode 20 of Ergo Proxy, which is an actually good anime that comes off as very convoluted at times. Big Order is a big pile ‘o shit and it deserves its dismal rating. It's sort of fascinating in a way if you’re capable of keeping up somewhat with the absurd narrative and decisions of the show, which is probably its biggest strength despite being fully comprised of the show’s fatal flaws. Only watch this if you're an expert at ripping bad anime to shreds. Everyone else, spare your brain cells. With all that said, I bid you adieu.