The sappy, syrupy, sentimentality oozed through the series thus far finds its source in this melodramatic volume of The Big O. However, the show's self-conscious, tongue in cheek, noir flavoring makes it work somehow. Perhaps it's the playful homage to the caped crusader, or perhaps it's laughably over-confident main character, Roger Smith, or the oppressive gothic tone that gets under the skin, but The Big O can stare directly into the eyes of its audience as if to say, "I dare you to cry, you sissy."
The music helps counter the sentiment, and consequentially, the urge to bawl like a baby, by maintaining an ominous underscoring that allows the action to speak for itself. It hardly ever punctuates movement, or suggests mood. But it doesn't really have to when the action is as conspicuous as it is here.
The opening episode to this treasure trove of tenderness involves Dorothy falling in love with a kitten. (Kudos to director Kazuyoshi Katayama for keeping her emotions distinctly robotic.) The kitten ends up being the genetically altered corpus of a little boy, who is then genetically altered again into a giant, exoskeletal monster - the cue for Smith's Megadeus appearance because, yes, inherently that's where every episode still leads: a giant beast showdown. As manipulatively painful as the writers intended, the beast decides to sacrifice itself - for more narratively convenient reasons than emotion - to the fires of the genetics lab, as a forlorn Dorothy looks on. Cheesy, yes. But again, so easy to buy in the world that Katayama has established.
The second episode is standard fare, roping in the original villain of the series, Beck, for one last hurrah against the Megadeus. Ho, hum.
But the final episode of the volume features Lt. Dastun and the tenuous, love/hate relationship he has with aforementioned hero, Roger Smith. It's plot as transparent as the toilet water from which it came, Katayama dresses it up in all the noir trimmings - the old movie, the mystery woman, transcendent music. Again, he captures our hearts against our will - but he also tackles issues such as government manipulation of information, the psychology of a crime fighter, prejudice against foreigners (a delightfully Japanese issue), and other surprisingly complex themes in such an ostensibly simplistic story.
Now, it's just as easy to disregard the series as kitschy schlock, but hanging on for the ride certainly pays off.
