Big Order – 04
HAPPY MOTHER’S DAY
Welp, this sure is some good/bad timing. If Iyo actually gave birth this week then I’d be impressed that they aligned it with mother’s day. That would take a lot of planning! |
Continuing with the horrible pregnancy subplot, Eiji takes Iyo to a hospital where a group of nurses take care of her. They also tease Eiji and make him go through an intense inner monologue about suddenly becoming a father. All of a sudden he has to think about what it means to take responsibility for his child. It’s nothing short of ridiculous, largely because Eiji is having a completely serious reaction to a girl having a baby just from having her hair ribbon touched. I still can’t tell if I enjoyed how bad it was or not.
After Eiji goes through a midlife crisis despite still being a teenager, things get more action-packed. It’s still ridiculous, but it’s another brand of ridiculous. I particularly liked the way they had Rin almost conspire with Kagekiyo, only to turn her back because she was pissed off at her g-string (okay, I know it was because of her personality but I feel like the g-string played a large role here). While Yuno from Mirai Nikki was both smart and driven by emotions, Rin has the same intense emotions ruling over her but none of the brains to back it up. As a result, she makes stupid decisions. Many, many stupid decisions. It’s not a flattering character trait, but it’s one that makes her interesting and gives some reasoning behind her inconsistent actions. It’s also amusing to have a girl who literally chews on rocks and thinks a good solution to things is just blowing up an entire city call another girl stupid. That’s just how bad Rin is.
Even Rin can’t believe Kagekiyo’s horrible character design
The whole nuke thing was a cute attempt on Big Order’s behalf to show some behind-the-scenes political maneuvering. It ultimately ends up falling flat because there’s nothing that new about Hiiragi fucking Eiji over and then saving him at the last second. It’s not horrible, I’ll give them that, but it presents itself as being the best thing since sliced bread which is an unwarranted level of narcissism. Dramatic, full-blown, jazzy numbers accompany paint-by-the-numbers shounen battle drama, much like putting a magnificent gold-plated frame on a kindergartener’s macaroni art. It tries so hard to sell the face-off between Eiji and Kagekiyo as this huge, complicated grudge. The fight isn’t really bad, per se, it just falls short of expectations on several levels.
Basically, Kagekiyo wished to avenge the deaths of those killed in the “accident” Eiji caused, allowing her to control a golem of tombstones. Both her and her community have been seething with resentment ever since, to the point where a nurse that was helping Eiji moments ago immediately stabs him with a scalpel once she learns who he is. This gives a good motive for them to kill Eiji, although the whole “kill everything else in the process” method was definitely overkill. However, this level of overkill is addressed when Kagekiyo sees Eiji desperately fight to save random bystanders from an impending nuclear explosion. Kagekiyo hated Eiji so much that she was willing to sacrifice her home and her fellow citizens (and herself) just to achieve that…meanwhile Eiji was saving them all even though he had nothing to gain from it.
It’s cliche, but functional. This sets up Eiji as having no one to trust but the 10 people who kidnapped him. Everyone else is his enemy…and even those within these 10 people are not to be fully trusted. It’s a tough position because Eiji really has to watch who he sides with. Some may be playing nice now just to stab him in the back later, while others are genuinely becoming fond of him (such as Mari, who is not-so-secretly grateful that Eiji saved her family). It’s a great set-up for lots of back-stabbing twists, hidden allies, and Rin doing a constant flip from helping to hindering. In the hands of a better writer, this could be an exciting series of mind games as Eiji slowly tests out who he can really trust.
Unfortunately, this is Big Order, so things are obvious. For example, we could have stewed over who the spy was leaking information about Eiji’s mission for a few episodes. Instead, they reveal him immediately…and then further quell our doubts by revealing that he’s a double spy and was stringing the UN along all this time. That gets rid of any tension we could have felt guessing who the mole was. I also feel like the way the Order system works, there is too much we don’t know about how the powers can manifest.
I COMMAND YOU TO KEEP WATCHING
Basically, Orders are much too vague. Eiji’s power is to “dominate” things that enter a moderately sized bubble around him. I understand that this means he can give orders to people – any order he wants. That’s already a huge amount of power, but I’m willing to accept it since it has a range limitation to sort of make up for it. However, I didn’t realize he could give an order to the LAWS OF THE GRAVITY. That’s…that’s not a thing you can dominate. That’s a rule of physics. This makes me think that further down the road, Eiji’s will use this power to do all sorts of conveniently-timed asspulls. If he can control air pressure at will, what else wouldn’t he be able to do? Tell fire to burn more? Make water flow slower? Hijack a car by ordering it to start? His power description is so open to interpretation that he can basically get his way out of any situation using his Order. And for situations where he’s not strong enough for whatever reason, a Naruto reject character will jump out of the sky and save his ass. If it’s not one deus ex machina, it’s another. I originally really liked the concept of Orders, but now they seem far too powerful. I mean, Benkei can destroy things on an atomic level. COME ON! It’s like everyone brought a group of their all-powerful Mary Sues they invented in 6th grade together into one show.
All in all, Big Order continues to be messy and absurd…but this episode had the decency to not be a trainwreck. It felt more like a regular shounen battle with the “villain” monologuing like crazy once they realized the error of their ways. I mean, I can’t be too mad at watching a golem try and deflect a missile. I just can’t. While the show still fails to make sense if you stop and think too hard for more than a few milliseconds, it is still has that entertainment factor that keeps me watching. You never know what Big Order will do next. Best example? We still have to find out what the actual fuck is going to happen when Iyo gives birth.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Yeah, the Big Order powers are far to ill defined to be used in such a fashion; they can either be these big arch stroytelling devices or they become big arch sources of asspull…and I think asspull is the underlying theme this episode especially.
But how else are they going to have a graveyard golem catch a nuke? I just don’t know!!!!
But I think they were going for something along the lines of, “Well, dipstick is responsible for so much lose of life lets make him appreciate having a new life to be responsible for…” I feel a better written show could have made that more powerful instead of the rinky dink we got…
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I like when superpowers have limitations, because then the user has to put some thought into how they use it instead of just powering through everything. Eiji basically has a get out of jail free card for every situation now. Definitely lots of asspulls this episode…
That’s the thing. I feel like Big Order has a decent premise, it’s just executed horribly.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
I love how Superman could basically do all the stuff he could already do AND whatever he hadn’t tried to do yet. It wasn’t long before his comics didn’t sell cause no one could really take the character seriously, not even kids; he once shot little doll clones of himself out of his palms for reasons? But in the mid-80’s DC revamped him and made him more down to Earth, so to speak, a huge reboot; this was after the first Crisis on Infinite Earths. He sold really well until people got nostalgic for when he was that Superman.
Anyway, long story short a couple of years ago a Superboy version of Superman “punched” new continuities into existence. I can’t take the character even remotely seriously any longer.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I admittedly haven’t read/seen much Superman but it really does seem like there’s nothing he can’t do…which can get boring. :/
Ahahaha they made a character so they would be able to make alternate timelines? Wowww
POWUH: Meta Resident and LN Informant with 1529 comments
Rock powers + rock-hard nipples…
Somehow it fits thematically, although I do question what exactly was going on in the mangaka’s head at the time.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Sometimes you find inspiration in just normal stuff. I would think that just expanding how far and how powerful the kami of a grave vs. the whole mass of local grave kami into something like a golem isn’t that far fetched. Actually the first thing I thought of was a monster that was in a D&D book back in 2007 that was pretty much like the monster in this show.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I hope that monster also had the nipples to back it up
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
Some tales you just have to live OC…
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
The mangaka was likely just trying out some ideas.
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
There’s no way I can watch this show now. Your posts have got to be way better than the actual program.
POWUH: and LOLi Defender with 10998 comments
You should watch this one at least…
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
I’m honestly surprised you made it this far lol. This show definitely gives me a lot to write about, that’s for sure…
POWUH: Meta Team and Spammy Tamer with 7115 comments
Oh, I haven’t made it past the second episode. I just read your posts about it. They’re much better than the show.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Aww thanks! I’ll keep you updated on Iyo’s baby ;D
POWUH: Metanorn Regular with 83 comments
Your problem lies in you treating this show in a way too serious manner. Remember, this is a ride.
POWUH: and Vampire Lover with 11746 comments
Hating one person enough to condone erasing an entire city off the map just to kill him. A payload of 200 kilotons. Man, that’s some intense resentment.
While still insanely ridiculous, the curiosity is gnawing at me wanting to know just what Iyo’s going to birth to from her split second impregnation.
This may sound shallow but apart from her motivation, Kagekiyo is mainly serving as erotic eye candy to me. Her design is so distracting.
Well, given the kind of situation Eiji is in, he can’t afford to be picky. Making due with what’s at his disposal was the only option. Naturally, we should expect he won’t be thanked and in the worst case scenario, people will still try to kill him.
What I’m getting from his efforts is as long as it’s in his domain, everything, even the laws of physics bend to his will. So his power is almost godlike. Tell me if a power like that wouldn’t corrupt the user.
POWUH: Meta Team and The Mad Scientist with 5525 comments
Yeah, you have to really hate someone to want to blow them up along with your entire city (and probably all the surrounding cities as well).
Eiji can control everything, which really is an incredibly powerful ability. I think I recall Daisy saying she even limited his range so he wouldn’t accidentally destroy the world again, so technically it can be even stronger. Yikes.