Embroiled in a mystery rife with intrigue, the story of The Big O comes to a sudden end at episode thirteen, loose ends blowing in the wind like the severed threads of a torn flag. However, the depths plumbed in this last volume of episodes bodes well for the tale that will purportedly continue in Viz’s The Big O manga series. Up to this point The Big O has indulged its giant-mecha fan base while garnishing its plot with modest dollops of back-story for those viewers drawn to richer narratives. These last few episodes bring the enigmatic Paradigm Corporation, as well as the secret to the Megadeus, into sharper focus, locking the blow hard Roger Smith into the center of a noir-flavored tale of corruption and hubris with the potential for packed action and spiritual profundity.

The disc opens with "Daemonseed," in which a lunatic ex-scientist terrorizes Paradigm on the eve of Heaven’s Day (a bastardized version of Christmas that celebrates the birth of Paradigm City rather than the Son of God). Refreshing about this installment, Smith’s Megadeus does not end up saving the day. He shows up, of course, but finds that his foe has a finite form. The following episode, "Enemy is Another Big," marks the return of lunatic journalist, Michael Seebach [the soothsayers of Paradigm’s fate, it seems, are always homicidal lunatics], who introduces Smith and Paradigm to another Megadeus, thus revealing some secrets behind the giant robots’ puzzling existence. And the disc ends with, that frustratingly thrilling episode thirteen, "R.D," in which Smith’s quest to uncover the lost history of Paradigm brushes abrasively close to the Paradigm Corporation’s improprieties.

Aside from the plot congealing into a thick, appetizing sauce to spice up the droll rhythm of "enemy of the week" – type episodes, The Big O team makes bolder poetic parallels between Paradigm City’s civic life and our own. Heaven’s Day, as Paradigm celebrates it, is all about the gift exchanging, but elders have faint memories of singing in churches and Rosewater tosses off a comment on how the day is actually supposed to mark the birth of God’s Son. And, the team delving into the poetry of character development, Roger Smith declares his commitment to protecting the citizens of Paradigm and yet he ends up unleashing devastation on the city nearly every time he calls upon Big O. Now, this could be an oversight on the part of the creators, giving lip-service to the protection of mankind but really only wanting to showcase mecha battles, but I believe that the contradiction also helps to illuminate Smith’s own struggle to reconcile his stated compassion, his displayed ego, and his exercised hatred of the Paradigm Corporation.

But the effulgence of story ornamentation only prompts more questions. The last episode is pocked with visions - either of the future or the past – that intrigue and beguile: an apocalypse at the hands of a Megadeus army; children, completely bald, implanted with false memories and marked with bar codes; a library of books, specifically history books, ablaze. More plot questions also attach to this leviathan of a story: the aims of a tomato farmer named Gordon Rosewater, apparently the father of Paradigm’s President Rosewater, to recreate a society of memories; the motives of President Rosewater’s secretary, Angel; the identity of the assassin sent to execute the children whose implanted memories have been resurfacing; why it’s necessary to suppress those memories; and, finally, what Rosewater means when he says that the Awakening is almost here, especially since the last episode ends with a legion of abnormally shaped robots emerging from the ocean to lay siege on Paradigm, having "awoken" from their aquatic tombs.

So, The Big O, at once transcending its mundane plot pattern and littering the storyscape with skeletal revelations, may turn into a gripping tale of human folly and corporate hubris, or it may suffocate on its own sheer girth. I suppose only the comic book will tell.