ok can somebody please explain to me what the FUCK this show

It's about failed pandering to western audiences

It wasn't supposed to have an ending, it was just going to be a standard monster of the week format.

Blame CN for forcing them to make an ending. I still enjoyed it regardless.

Roger and the rest of them live in a computer simulation world, based on a book. Angel is an avatar for the author of the book. The whole world then resets. The end.

>>15484960
>>15484933
I think I'm just gonna forget the "second season" ever happened. I was happy with it just being a monster of the week with cool visual style. The "second season" ruined everything, plot wise and aesthetically (with reused shots from the first "season" clashing visually with the new stuff).

It's such a damn shame. If they had gone with a more grounded plot (like the Union actually existing and actually being a tangible threat, and the megadeuses and stuff being science experiments gone haywire that caused the incident 40 years ago) I would have enjoyed it so much more.

This was not a show that needed an EVA-tier mindfuck for an ending, it needed something more grounded.

>>15484922
Yokoyama and toku

>>15484986
>grounded
What?

>>15484986
>I was happy with it just being a monster of the week with cool visual style.
That was the intention, anon; Konaka never intended for the "mystery" to be solved, he just wanted to have an anthological series of stories, just like Batman: The Animated Series and its ilk. Of course, CN execs didn't listen to reason, so he proceeded to throw everyone for a loop by both ending it and leaving it open at the same time.

>>15485056
Grounded as in simple. Meaning that the story doesn't go into existentialism, and stays within the boundaries of its setting.

>>15485095
>Grounded as in simple.
Then why didn't you just say simple? >>

>>15485185
Not him but I guess he expected you not to be illiterate.

>>15485196
What do you mean by illiterate?

>>15485196
There's a big difference between grounded and simple senpai

>>15484922
It's simple: Tomatoes

>>15485196
Loosen that fedora senpai, its cutting off the blood to your brain.

>>15484933
I hope this and Twin Peaks teaches future directors that if they wanna make a show without ever planning on to reveal the mystery to at least have one planned ahead of time just for when the network decides to ruin everything.

>>15484922
The characters in the show realized that they were in a show, so the network rebooted it and retconned that ending. The end.

>>15488832
It should also make us appreciate creators like Straczynski more. I'd much rather have the semi-filler of Babylon 5's fifth season than an abrupt cutoff to the story.

>>15488892
Babylon 5 is actually really impressive considering that he had the general arc of it planned out from beginning, but he also had contingencies in place for every possible cast member leaving and he was even able to work around some people leaving and coming back while still (mostly) making it look like it was all part of the plan.

He's kind of like a real-life David Xanatos, except he writes fiction instead of cosplaying as his mortal enemy. Actually, I don't know that. JMS may cosplay as his mortal enemy in his spare time, I can't confirm that he doesn't. We shouldn't judge him for it, though.

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There's the real ending: all the world's a stage and the actors play their parts. Angel causes the memory wipes as Big Venus, with the city preserved once by Rosewater, the second time Roger negotiates to let people keep their memories. Like every other anon said, it was dreamed up as a serial, so whatever. From here I'm just going to slap down happenings and theories.

I've always liked the lead in setting and background. In the opening of season two Rosewater sums up the past events pretty well as "The world destroyed by a cataclysm. The power of god wielded by man. Giant robots run a muck. Everything is a lie." The final events before people lost their memories were the wars fought by the Megadeus armies, and Big Venus ending the event. It seems the Bigs were one faction piloted by bred (and likely cloned) tomatoes; the monster-of-the-week styled episodes show numerous other megadeus styled machines, which is the only hint there were actual factions and not just humanity terrorizing itself. The foreigner union seemed to live off the scraps of the old world and dug up some of their own robots and memories, and were attracted to Paradigm as the last (known) metropolis. The union runs a cadre of operatives that seems to want one of two things: instigate third impact I mean Big Venus (Angel, whom is under their influence) for their own purposes, or two, it's some cyclic mechanism of Big Venus to bring itself about. Big Venus is the actual power of god made metal and flesh here. Angel doesn't recall it. It's impossible to tell if Angel made up the union and their fabrication of her past, or if the union came across memories that led them to a young Angel to manipulate. A bit interesting. In the final moments of 40 years ago most of the Megadeus army, men and machines, seem to disappear and the known world is set on a massive stage / dome. Even Paradigm isn't intact, surrounded by cold desert and sea with ruins all around. (cont)

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Seemingly random bits survive the event. Enough for one of each Big, other megadeus and memories along with the core city. The most interesting are the memories. The show pummels you with the word and everyone knows they've lost them. But they manifest in many strange ways. My favorite have been the memories in machine. It's been a hot minute since I could watch it, even longer for season one, but the old world had advanced androids and giant mecha. Roger's informant, the android pianist, and most of the megadeus all had their own wills and often memories of their own. Angel seemed to recognize Roger early on and began their shindig. Wayneright lost his daughter in the event and afterwards build Dorothy. Wayneright either knew a lot more than he let on or worked on the usually form of memory we get: subconscious knowledge. Schwarzwald leaves his life in the domes as he learns about the past and digs into the literal underground. Schwarzwald unlocks a skeletal megadeus and becomes what we know him as, but can't control it. He even boasts piloting a megadeus is an easy feat if you have the memory. It's like to think he wasn't coming across his own memories, but unraveled the conspiracy around the true past and found others' memories from there. Roger even has a more direct mirror in the episode with the megadeus that projects a ghostly hologram in fog, a rich man that seemed to know exactly how to pilot his megadeus and found it well equipped. MP Cheif Dastun has an episode with a killer on the loose after city officials; at one point he's watching a movie, see himself in the movie, and lives out it's finale as he confront the real world killer. Everyone seems to be on equal footing with the audience on the nature of memories.

Last bit of this word burger. The time skip has always bothered me. 40 years are said to have past, and they are quite a few old photos to be found, but hardly anyone seems to have aged.

>>15489197
>>15489275

Used an ancient analysis that goes way more in depth than my attention span at 2000 characters at a time.
https://kiserai.net/bigo/

>>15484922
Trueman show

>>15484922
Think about it.

>>15488958
Man, the 5th season sucked and the spin-offs mostly sucked.
>muh demons trapped on Earth
>muh Earth is now dying due to some virus/plague that was unleashed on it and is now quarantined, find the cure
I liked the time skips at the end of S4 and the send off with the security chief was the perfect ending. The only problem was that we missed the telepath war and other things that were hinted at.

>>15491346
The 4th season was hastily wrapped-up, since the show was supposed to get cancelled, so any former plans that were originally spread over season 5 wound up in season 4. Things went differently than expected.

>>15489320
Trueman show within a trueman show

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>>15484922
>>15484922
Someone post that screenshot about big O being metaphor for bowl moments like how cockpit resembled a toilet cover.

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>>15484976

>>15484922
Characters realised they were part of fictional story.
Angel was author's self-projection and attempted to wipe out the whole fictional world with everyone in it, but Roger managed to convince her to give them another shot at "making the story"

Big O is probably the best anime ever and a peak of visual storytelling in any animation. Most of its head-scratching stuff is either pretty clear when you pay attention to details or at least strongly alluded to.
For example, you can see even author's arc in the show (her/his own self-desperation and unfulfilling with her life via her/his fictional work. As an amateur writer myself I can sympathise), despite show never ever explaining what is she/he or is she/he ever exists.
But once you see Big O's scale and narrative, you can understand just how great this show really is.