Big Order

Episode 2

Well, you certainly can't fault Big Order for lacking ambition. Where it takes a lot of shows at least a handful of episodes for their wheels to start falling off, Big Order only needed two weeks to prove that it has absolutely no clue what it's doing. So in this respect at least, Big Order wins a gold star.

In every other respect, this was a dreadful episode to sit through.

What baffles me the most about this is that it feels like a completely different show from the Big Order we met last week. That first episode slapped together a bunch of half-formed characters and ideas and shaped them into something that was trying very hard to be “edgy” and “dark”. This week's Big Order might have almost been mistaken for any other generic shonen action-adventure, were it not for the presence of a weakly written protagonist and some genuinely nauseating relationship development.

It's really frustrating to see a character whose foundation is so ripe for interesting characterization get turned into the same kind of inconsistent blank-slate that we've seen a thousand times before. Last week, it seemed like Eiji was embracing the dark half of himself that wanted to dominate the world around him. When the first episode ended with his binding and apparently torturing Rin, I got the clear idea that he was reveling in the suffering he was causing her. Was it good writing? No, but at least it gave Eiji some kind of personality beyond being vaguely broody and haunted by his past.

This week though, Big Order completely backpedals, showing that he simply wanted to use his Dominating Order to make it so that Rin couldn't physically harm either himself or his sister. Late in the episode, he even explains that he's only using his Order on Rin because he can't be sure she wouldn't kill him. It's not his fault she's being mind-controlled! He's just afraid for his family's safety!

But the thing is, Rin is totally right to hate Eiji. Again, he killed millions of people, intentionally or not, and her desire for revenge is more than a little understandable. If this were the Eiji of the end of last week's episode, this kind of conflict could make for a possibly interesting story, a kind of anime Breaking Bad where we follow a man who has cast aside any pretense of heroism and embraced his own selfish and violent goals. This week's emphasis on slapstick and relationship shenanigans between Eiji and Rin downplays that whole idea completely and deflates much of the character building the first episode accomplished. The ridiculously inappropriate score from last week sticks out even more here, sounding like B-sides from Baccano! or Blood Blockade Battlefront's soundtracks. Is this show a dark parable on the dangers of wish fulfillment or a gorier-than-average action series with slapstick just thrown in for good measure? Is Eiji supposed to be a subversive reflection of more traditional roles or just another self-insert action hero? I have no idea, and I don't think the show does either.

Eiji's relationship with Rin is another big problem this week, especially since the show plays so much of it for cheap laughs. When Eiji made it so that Rin was no longer a physical threat, that was one thing. The atmosphere was suitably tense and uncomfortable, and the show made me feel a lot of sympathy for this clearly broken girl who lost everything because of one kid's bad decision. When he accidentally uses his powers to force Rin into some kind of marriage-bond though, things take an uncomfortable turn. What was only minutes before being played up as kind of horrific gets treated as a cheap gag for the remainder of the episode, and I really don't know how to feel about that. The whole relationship paradigm is off-putting, because it explicitly strips Rin of all agency to force her into the role of yandere love interest, and Eiji doesn't seem concerned about this one way or the other. He even seems to genuinely enjoy the prospect of them bonding, even though it's only happening because his Order powers are altering her personality and forcing her to care about him in some twisted way.

Though Rin has a few lines that try to show that she's still dedicated to killing Eiji, it's made very apparent that Rin's mind has already been altered in some way. It transforms her genuine (and understandable) disdain for our “hero” into some kind of weird hate-lust, and that's just a bit too much for me. If Eiji were clearly defined as an antihero or villain, that would be one thing, but he's so disaffected that the whole thing just comes across as slight. I can handle the general fetishistic undertones tones in Big Order's imagery, even if they're personally not my style. But this level of nonchalant emotional manipulation simply doesn't work, especially when the show is refusing to commit to any kind of consistent or cohesive tone. It comes across as crass and underdeveloped, making Eiji unlikable in a way I don't think the creators of Big Order intended.

Near the end of the episode, it's revealed that the Evil League of Evil from last week is actually a coalition of Orders dedicated to ushering in a new age of mankind, and they want Eiji to serve as their king. The leader of the group tells Eiji that he will simply be a puppet to their will, but Eiji then immediately Dominates all of them with his Order ability, so now I guess they're under his control? This show is taking so many narrative shortcuts in introducing and defining Order powers that it all kind of seems nonsensical.

The new group of Orders are keeping Eiji's terminally ill sister in stasis until he can possibly meet an Order that can cure her. If there's an Order who has the weirdly specific ability to "halt any aggressive actions", then I guess it makes sense that there would be an Order out there that has the ability to cure Sena's vague life-threatening sickness. It seems like Rin's powers have some kind of broad healing effect, so maybe it will end up being her. While I'm glad there's actually something of a plot to follow now, the complete lack of direction in this episode only worries me for what the future holds. I somehow care less about this story than I did before the episode started, and that's a really bad sign.

Let's hope things can only get better from here.

Rating: D

Big Order is currently streaming on Crunchyroll.

James is an English teacher who has loved anime his entire life, and he spends way too much time on Twitter.