Let me start with this, between Future Diary and Big order, with this series it's like characters that didn't make it into The future diary got their own spin-off thus Big order was born. Just watching the first episode, the similarities with the characters and to a certain degree the story are of course obvious. Certain characters resemble, and to a certain extent act/behave almost the way characters in Future Diary did. In all honesty, it's like he made the same story twice but (Obviously) tweaked little things in the story, plot, etc to try to give Big order its own unique individuality. For the most part I think that it works out pretty well. I'm not saying that Sakae is a bad writer, it's just that he needs to do a better job with making better distinctions with each of his works, that way it doesn't feel like the two shows are blending into each other. Unless of course he's doing this to make it seem like they take place in the same sort of universe however... we all (most of us) know how the universes in Future Dairy work out.. cough cough. That aside, I could not establish any type of commitment to the story [for the most part.] I will certainly say that it is not Esuno's best work however, I am roughly around 86.7% convinced that he can do a better job with creating an engaging and intensely dramatic story-line [along with plot] that's not only fun to watch but also really keeps viewers like me satisfied and engaged with what's going on. To me it seems like he purposely adds, or "tries too hard" to keep his work "dark" while trying to add fear into the factor and it just wasn't working for me. I mean, [and I'm going to try to stop bringing up the future dairy because again this is a different work] with the future dairy I was very satisfied with The story & plot. It was full of drama and the studio, producers, and director did a great job of adding mystery and a bit of action parts to the story. Which kept me engaged for a majority of the time.
Big order really felt like (and I hate to use this word) but laziness, pure laziness. Now things did pick up for me after episode 5. To me, this is the point where the show finally start getting somewhat serious in both dialogue and starting drama. I cannot spoil anything but I loved the intense amount of dramatic battles, fights between Eiji and his squad. I was glad that things started to pick up in Big order. Because there are only 10 episodes, if things didn't pick up around episode 5-6 I probably would've lost interest and dropped it. Il would probably had stuck to my guns and watched it anyway simply because once I start a show I make a commitment to see it through. Overall, I felt like dialogue between characters was dull, action scenes didn't really land a spark and it lacked an engaging story-line along with plot. I gave the 6.5 outta 10 because I didn't feel like Sakae had used his full potential.
The animation, special effects, and CGI used during the show were pretty good however nothing major stands out too much to me. When I'm watching battle scenes I often times felt like it was missing a certain charm. Perhaps they lacked intensity & replay value. I was expecting, "unless of course I missed some" Easter eggs or references of the future dairy, I mean I saw the ball that Kami-Musubi had looked like the same one Tsubaki in Future dairy owned however, as far as I saw, that is the limit to how far Easter eggs go. Now character designs, the resemblances, I felt like at the very least the producers could have at least adjusted Eiji, Tairano, Daisy, Rin, and so many other characters original designs to look much different. This is because they stand out too much and look like the future dairy cast. They appear as cheesy, uninspired rip offs. Sakae shouldn't draw Yukiteru and make him look more mature and call him "Eiji." He shouldn't draw Yuno make her look like a dolled up idol star and call her "Daisy." More importantly he should not! and I mean should not! have taken Yuno's infamous "Yandere archetype" and Minene's cold, tough girl attitude and gave it to Kurenai I just think that lacks a bit of creativity. Overall, despite all of this I'm still satisfied with the final results.
I disliked all the characters. I don't know how much I can go into so I'll just put it bluntly. Big order has the most dullest, and lackluster characters I have seen in some time. Each character lacked their own unique individuality. As I mentioned many times before, the characters, for the most part are just copy and pasted from Mirai Nikki albeit with some changes. Character growth and development wasn't exciting because Eiji literally has an OP gift "order." Although he does have this power he is often times beaten by other important characters but of course he cannot lose because you know, he's the main character. If I had to change anything from Esuno's work, I would make characters more appealing in terms of personality, uniqueness and how they appeal to the viewers. Creativity and most importantly memorable characters in big order isn't possible for me because again, all I saw was laziness. Overall I was beyond disappointed with the characters and this is the first time! This is perhaps the first and hopefully the last time I have to watch a show with a cast full of bad characters.
The soundtrack was pretty good but no too impressive. Music is not as powerful and dramatic as the future diary soundtrack however, there are still has a few good songs here to hear playing in the background here and there. Voice actors were pretty good so I don't have much to complain about in that department. Overall I didn't care too much about the soundtrack.
Let me just say that I wasn't exactly too fond of what I watched. I'm not going to say that it was completely bad because, as I mentioned earlier, the show does deliver lots of great moments however, in the long run, I felt like it was wasted potential. Overall I think it needed a lot of work in story and especially the characters department.
