List of allusions in The Big O

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Below is the list of allusions in The Big O anime series. According to the series creators,[1][2] The Big O is filled with "inside jokes" and homages to other anime, manga and tokusatsu series as well as western works.

Contents

[edit] First Season

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Roger The Negotiator

[edit] Dorothy Dorothy

[edit] Electric City

[edit] Underground Terror

[edit] Bring Back My Ghost

[edit] A Legacy of Amadeus

  • R. Instro teaches R. Dorothy how to play Chopin's Prelude No. 15 (D-flat major, Sostenuto)
  • The profile of Gieseng that Daston shows Roger consists of a biography of (appropriately enough, given the content of the episode) Nikola Tesla.

[edit] The Call From The Past

The Titan's servants
The Titan's servants

Chiaki Konaka is known to add references to the Cthulhu Mythos in his works.[4][5] This episode references H.P. Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth. Dagon, the Sea Titan, is named after the deity of Lovecraft's novella and its "servants" are inspired by the Deep Ones, the frog-men worshippers of Dagon.

[edit] Missing Cat

[edit] Beck Comes Back

[edit] Winter Night Phantom

[edit] Daemonseed

  • As Norman rides out to pick up Roger's Heaven's Day present for Dorothy, the license plate on his motorcycle can be seen to read "M*A*S*H".

[edit] Enemy Is Another Big!

[edit] R.D.

[edit] Second Season

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

[edit] Roger The Wanderer

[edit] Negotiation with the Dead

[edit] Day of the Advent

[edit] Leviathan

[edit] The Greatest Villain

  • The color of the suits Beck and his henchmen wear - yellow, red, and greenish blue - are likely (made much more clear during the RX-3 scene) a reference to the classic Super Sentai colors.
  • In this episode, the series pays homage to several classic mecha series with the introduction of the RX-3 robot. Piloted by Beck and his two henchmen, a group of vehicles combine into a giant robot in a sequence parodying several classic sequences. The combination command Final Together (in the Japanese version) is a tribute to both GaoGaiGar (Final Fusion) and Voltes V (V Together). The sequence itself is somewhat manual for a standard mecha combination - the yellow vehicle consisting the top half must pull itself up onto the blue lower half, something that is uncommon in anime - and so in this respect it is closer to a sentai robo. (Specifically, the blue vehicle's bootleg turn to form the legs and waist resemble that of RV Robo from Gekisou Sentai Carranger, and the yellow vehicle's use of its arms to pull itself up resembles Victory Robo from Kyuukyuu Sentai GoGo-V.) The actual use of two vehicles to combine into a single robot of the simple Body - Legs type is also uncommon, and shows up most memorably in the Bio Robo from Choudenshi Bioman and Xabungle from Combat Mecha Xabungle - in fact, the coloring of the legs is similar to Xabungle's. The exact design of RX-3 pulls from several mecha as well, with the ornate "B" on its chest notably resembling the chest design of MightGaine from Brave Express MightGaine. And in a notable homage to the first Super Robot, Mazinger Z, Beck himself flies his yellow car into the head of the RX-3, completing it much like the Pilder completed Mazinger. The pose and head turn RX-3 makes at the end of its sequence is a typical kabuki pose.

And of course, Roger's use of the Sudden Thunder to quickly and anti-climatically end the battle is a probable homage to a similar scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[edit] Eyewitness

[edit] Stripes

[edit] The Third Big

[edit] Hydra

[edit] Twisted Memories

[edit] The Big Fight

[edit] The War of Paradigm City

  • Schwarzwald quotes William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell (Plate 16) when he says "The Giants who formed this world into its sensual existence, and now seem to live in it in chains, are in truth the causes of its life & the souces of all activity; but the chains are the cunning of weak and tame minds, which have power to resist energy."[8][9]
  • The character of Gordon Rosewater paraphrases Jaques' monologue from William Shakespeare's As You Like It when he says "if it's true about this world, if it's one enormous stage, then we're just merely actors playing out our roles on it. We don't need to have any memories. But I've always wondered why can't there be those who can change their roles?"[8]

[edit] The Show Must Go On

[edit] References

  1. ^ Chiaki J. Konaka Interview (Archive). Anime Jump (2001).
  2. ^ Shimura, Shinichi. (2004). Anime rebel with a cause: The Big O's Keiichi Sato. AnimePlay, 5, 22-26.
  3. ^ Roger Smith (voice-over, while R. Dorothy sings): Later on, I heard the old story of the nightingale from somebody who knew it. The tale was a fable about an emperor of some ancient country who loved the song of a mechanical bird.
  4. ^ Digimon Tamers Trivia. Anime News Network.
  5. ^ Chiaki Konaka. Asian Horror Encyclopedia.
  6. ^ Leviathan Leaflet. The Big O Encyclopedia.
  7. ^ Episode 17 Transcript: "Leviathan". Paradigm City.
  8. ^ a b Episode 25 Transcript: "The War of Paradigm City". Paradigm City.
  9. ^ William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell. The Blake Page.
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