Ah, Paradigm City, a place shrouded in mystery. Something happened 40 years before the story takes place that removed everyone’s memories. People live in domes with no idea what happened, but Roger Smith makes it his job to protect the city at all costs.

This series is basically Japanese Batman, with giant robots. If that doesn’t sound awesome to you, then don’t keep reading.

Roger the Negotiator, his butler, Norman and R. Dorothy Wayneright are the main characters in this series. Dorothy is an android who helps Roger.

The main plot of the series is that people are slowly discovering the old memories from 40 years ago and building giant robots for evil. Roger comes in with his giant robot, called Big O and destroys them. He wants to get to the bottom of what happened so long ago, so he also tries to piece together the puzzle that is 40 years of memories.

Unfortunately, because this show did very poorly in Japan, there originally was only 13 episodes. Thanks to additional funding from Cartoon Network and other places, a second set of 13 episodes were released. This ran on Adult Swim for a long time. That’s how I initially found it, and then later, somehow got lucky enough to afford the DVDs. They are out of print and very hard to find now.

I won’t watch the series subbed because it’s meant to be more of a western feel, plus, the cast of the dub is more than perfect. I can’t even think of a word for it! The whole cast didn’t stick with both seasons. For example, in season 1, Roger was played by David Lucas, and then in season 2, played by Steve Blum, both who are the same person. He did an incredible job and I love hearing what he brought to the character. Wendee Lee, Crispin Freeman and other big names also are included in the cast list. More names can be found here: http://www.animenewsnetwork.com/encyclopedia/anime.php?id=231.

I can only imagine if the series did well in Japan, we may have had another season or two, which would have been awesome. Everything about this series is just perfect. You really get attached to the characters and really get engrossed in the series.

Rose Rappaport

I have been an anime fan for over 20 years, I have my BA in Japanese language and culture and I cosplay.

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