Spoiler free, this is technically the manga but I was lazy about getting the images. Honestly the source material is pretty much the same.
Heads up this week might be low on content, I usually binges series then over time write about them, sadly I am short on series.
In 2006 Esuno, Sakae started a series that will be forever hailed as one of the greatest yandere stories ever. A gory deathmatch that pitted 12 people against one another, the winner, becomes god. In 2011, he went back to the drawing board to yet do it again, to make a violent, fast and chaotic world equally full of death and despair. Instead of a death game, it was heavy in politics, instead of dairies there were special powers called “orders” and instead of being equally full of death and despair, there wasn’t any. I am of course talking about Big Order, a series I watched when the anime released and eventually got around to finishing the 55 chapter manga. So let’s talk about this, well, confusing take of a world.
To be blunt, I like The Future Dairy, I like Yuno and her over-the-top antics, I liked Kasugano, Tsubaki, and her whole shrine maiden bit, I like just how bat shit insane the whole world felt. It was unsettling, over the top, and full of characters matched with unique dairies that set an atmosphere where not even self-proclaimed allies could be trusted. Then we have Big Order, a rather, well, um, lacking tale.
Bir Order follows Eiji Hoshimiya, a high school student who also has great power, Bind Domination. In short, Eiji can claim any territory as his own, forcing everything within that territory to bind to his will, everything (and one) ultimately succumbing to his command. Which honestly, is a pretty dope power, I will say overall, Bir Order does have some interesting powers and how they interact with the world and others. But getting back on point very early on it is discovered Eiji was the cause of a global catastrophe that ended in a multitude of deaths. Two of the victims it turns out was the parents of Kurenai, Rin, a charming new transfer student to Eiji’s school.
Oh yeah, she is also an assassin sent there to kill him.
Attempting to carry out her plot she fails last second getting bound by Eiji’s order. Now forced to follow him and never attempt to kill him, she plays out the rest of the series as his de facto partner of sorts, she also can’t die which this series really tried to make a bit out of. Being somewhat like a phoenix, any time Rin dies there is a great flame that burns bringing her back to life, and my god she dies literally all the time.
She also looks like Rin, you know the one.
So now with the two mains paired up with this strange, but I guess sort of charming dynamic they set off to save Eiji’s step-sister Sena. Yeah, he was just fucking off in class two chapters ago but I guess this is the overarching reason behind everything he has been doing, I don’t get it either.
I’m not going to clown Big Order too much, honestly, it does enough of that on its own. The plot is a muddled mess the characters are awkward within the plot and the twists are whimsical if not just straight stupid. But even with all of that, I can say without a doubt that isn’t the worse part of Big Order. When the series has a conflict tension point, it hits, anytime Eiji or Rin is in dire situations I was worried, this is the same man that wrote Future Dairies, he isn’t afraid to do what is necessary to push a dark narrative.
Ah, if only that was the case.
Consequences seem nonexistent in Big Order. Rin just comes back to life, Eiji does some loop whole order command, or the “bad guys” turn out not to be bad at all. Almost at every angle, even in the ending after the “big twist” none of it seemed to matter. This is rather high on my “this is really annoying” list, there are many series I liked that have done this, Dreaming Girl comes to mind. But that is because there are a lot more positives within Dreaming Girl that made me overlook that fact, with Big Order, there is nothing for it to fall back on. It hits all negatives in storytelling, relationship building, character development, consequences, only having a small positive in “ok” world-building.
Saying I’m disappointed in this series is a bit of an understatement. Future Dairies had its issues, but I still had a lot of fun reading and watching it, and I mean, I’m a bit of a sucker for Yanderes. But none of the wanderlust that exists within Future Dairies carried over to Big Order, which is not only unfortunate but a rather big letdown. I may have had my expectations too high for the series when I picked it up years ago, though I’m not sure why. The anime is pretty much the same as the source material from what I can remember and the same feeling was there when that ended as well. If I had to give it a number I would give this series a 4 or so, it wasn’t a complete wash, Rin is cute and has her moments, the world overall is interesting enough, but in the end, the series bored me, and that is something I can’t look past.
As always thanks for the read!
Otaku Post 