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List of allusions in The Big O
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This article provides a list of allusions in The Big O anime series. According to the series creators, The Big O is filled with "inside jokes" and homages to other anime, manga and tokusatsu series as well as western works. Thus, such allusions make up a crucial aspect of the show and reveal much about the show's meaning and influences.
First Season
From Act:03 onward, the first season opening featured the Queen-inspired song "Big-O!" composed by Rui Nagai. The title sequence was an homage to the Ultraseven TV series, featuring black silhouettes of the eponymous Big O and his operator, among others.
Roger The Negotiator
* Dorothy 1 looks very much like the Ultraman monster, Baltan.
Dorothy Dorothy
*The character of R. Dorothy is compared to The Nightingale of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale.
* The 'R.' prefix to R. Dorothy's name is a reference to the naming convention for humaniform robots in Isaac Asimov's Robot/Foundation Series.
Electric City
Underground Terror
Bring Back My Ghost
A Legacy of Amadeus
*R. Instro teaches R. Dorothy how to play Chopin's "Prelude No. 15 (D-flat major, Sostenuto)".
*Gieseng's profile consists of a biography of Nikola Tesla.
The Call From The Past
* Chiaki Konaka is known to add references to the Cthulhu Mythos in his works. 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.
*Dagon is really just a megadeus. In its first appearance, it did look like a creature from the outside.
Missing Cat
*R. Dorothy's questioning of her ability to remember a melody ("Whose Memory do you think this song belongs to? This song inside me?") strongly echoes that of Blade Runner's Rachael. ("I didn't know if I could play. I remember lessons... I don't know if it's me, or Tyrell's niece.")
Beck Comes Back
Winter Night Phantom
Daemonseed
*The license plate on Norman's motorcycle reads "".
===Enemy Is Another Big!===
*Big Duo is the air megadeus, analogue to Giant Robos GR-3.
*The battle between Big O and Big Duo contains scenes similar to those seen in two of the Angel battles in Neon Genesis Evangelion. Big Duo grabs Big O's head in a manner similar to Sachiel grabbing Eva-01's head, and Big O assaults Big Duo in a manner similar to Eva-01 attacking Eva-03/Bardiel.
R.D.
* Roger mentions the R.D. cannot harm humans in this episode. It seems that androids follow Asimov's 3 Robotic Fundamentals. Unfortunately, R.D. seems to defy these laws.
Second Season
For its second season, the show sported a brand-new opening sequence, this one an homage to Gerry Anderson's UFO, right down to the song "Respect" composed by Toshihiko Sahashi.For the American broadcast, the original opening was used.
Roger The Wanderer
**As Roger wanders the alternate Paradigm City as a homeless man, he looks up at a pair of gargoyles perched on the side of a building. These two statues closely resemble Brooklyn and Broadway, two gargoyles of the series Disney's Gargoyles.
Negotiation with the Dead
The pillars in Roger's sitting room have a pattern consisting of repeated upper-case W's followed by lower-case O's, forming WoWoW, possibly a reference to one of the show's networks.
Day of the Advent
Leviathan
* Schwarzwald's leaflet is printed on the back of a copy of William Blake's Behemoth and Leviathan.
* Schwarzwald's quote "Imagination and memory are but one thing, which for diverse considerations have diverse names" is lifted from Thomas Hobbes' Leviathan.
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.
* Roger's use of the O Thunder to quickly and anti-climatically end the battle is a probable homage to a similar scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
Eyewitness
* While Roger is walking through a parking complex, the nose of a vehicle sticks out from behind a support beam--the design of the front is of the Batmobile from Batman: The Animated Series, albeit purple instead of jet black.
Stripes
The Third Big
* Big Fau's name was probably derived from the name Faust.
* Big Fau is the sea megadeus, analogue to Giant Robos GR-2.
Hydra
*The three-headed electrical Hydra is probably based on Godzilla's King Ghidorah. Its name could also be a reference to mythological Lernaean Hydra.
Twisted Memories
The Big Fight
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 sources of all activity; but the chains are the cunning of weak and tame minds, which have power to resist energy."
*The character of Gordon Rosewater paraphrases 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?"
The Show Must Go On
*Big O, Big Duo, and Big Fau represent the legendary creatures Behemoth, Ziz, and Leviathan. In Jewish belief, there is a legend that the Behemoth and Levithan will have a battle at the end of the world, which is enacted by the fight between Big O and Big Fau.
*Big Fau may have a reference to Frankenstein's monster, due to its long head, the objects on the sides of its head that resemble the bolts on the head of Frankenstein's monster, and the nature of its reconstruction.
Musical Allusions
In an interview with AnimePlay, designer Keiichi Sato said "Yes, some songs go beyond the realm of 'showing respect.' I asked Mr. Sahashi to create a musical score that integrated musical homages that can be recognized by viewers over the age of thirty. We chose Mr. Sahashi because he has a frightening amount of musical knowledge about TV dramas overseas."
One of the main battle themes, Stand a Chance is a reworking of Vangelis' end titles theme for the movie Blade Runner, with a more orchestral sound, while the bombastic and brassy False has more than a hint of John Barry's James Bond work to it, and the eerie and spectral Touch betrays a Twilight Zone influence.
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