City of Amnesia

Hi all, this is my first post, but I'm a pretty big fan of Big O, although i doubt i know as much about it as some of the people on this forum.  Anyways, I was watching the first season intro on youtube the other day, and I thought I would try to see if I could make out what some of the newspaper headlines said, I'm not sure if this has been discussed before or not, but I thought I would mention the three I was able to make out.

"Lester Young is Dead"  Lester Young was a Jazz Musician who died in 1959, and well 1958+40= 1999, so forty years after his death was the year big o was released, I thought that was pretty interesting.

"Art Blakey and the Jazz messengers"  Again Jazz Musicians, as if the name didn't give it away, the group was formed in 1959, again forty years before the show aired, although, technically the band existed before hand, but 59 was when Art Blakey took over and they started using that name.

"Newport Jazz Festival: Freebody Park"  A jazz Festival that is still around today, I did a little searching and found that Duke Ellington put out an album of the 1958 show, but after a little more searching there was a 1959 show album too.

Now, obviously I don't expect that these are gonna blow the cover off some huge Big o conspiracy, but I did think they were fairly interesting.  There are more headlines, but I cant really make them out because youtube has poor quality, some are in german, and others don't show full words(other papers cut off the headlines, some are easy to figure out, others aren't).  Now, I listened to a few of these guys, and it's pretty clear that their music was an influence on the music used in the series.  What I wonder is if, the writers or whatever powers that be, considered 1959 to be the pinnacle year of jazz, and that was why they used 40 years as the number of years since the event. It seems that some aspects of the show would work out a little better if the event had happened less than 40 years ago, such as Rogers age and how he lost memories too(I realize that people have theories behind how this is possible, but you can't deny it would be much simpler if it had happened 20 years ago instead of 40, since most of those theories are all speculative anyway)  Anyhow, if anyone has the dvd and screen capturing capabilities you could easily photoshop the headlines so that they are unblocked by and silhouettes on screen.  While I'm talking about the intro, I want ask if anyone else has ever wondered why in the credits Roger and Dorthy are sitting an hourglass, I wonder if that has anything to do with the fact that an hourglass has to be reset, physically and when you do reset it the grains of sand are never exactly the same as they were before, maybe that has something to do with the last episode, or maybe I'm just reading into too much.

Haha, awesome, I can't remember if this was ever posted on PCF, but since I don't remember I'll pretend it wasn't. Excellent find!

srry to burst ur bubble. but big o takes place in 2099.
but still that is interesting.

When and where the Hell is this mentioned?

I would rather like to know this as well.

Anyhoo, I do believe the point here is that we're discussing the headlines' relationship to when the series aired, not when the story takes place. And that said, yes, that's very interesting. I'd always wondered what was up with those myself. It's very... Cowboy Bebop of them. XD

Y'all would do better to ignore whatever Shadow-D types...

That's a cool find, fonzsolo. I dunno if this is evidence is solid enough to say that "The Event took place in 1959!" But I'm going to go out on a limb and believe it. Nice find.

I never thought that the newspaper clippings in Big O ever meant anything. I was jaded by all the other clippings. Have you read the Infamous Elevator Plaque (http://www.paradigm-city.com/images/ep11/sign.jpg) in Daemonseed? Or any of Big Ear's newspapers? (Not to mention the newspaper at the end of Eyewitness.) It's great Engrish.

THE INCICLEPIDA OF ANIME DAMN IT! IT WAS ALSO CONFIRMED BY THE CREATOR AND BANDAI!
Go to a book store or use the net and you'll see what i'm saying. not to mention wiki, swiki and a few other places all have articles comfirming the same. and look at the news papers Roger reads they say 2099 as the date.

Also, Wikipedia's The Big O page only mentions the word "year" in the context of '40 years ago', and that the series took seven years to produce, was costly and sold poorly.  No mention of the year 2099.  The number, "2099" doesn't appear in Wikipedia's article at all.

If you could produce proof, that'd be lovely.  Until then, I'm still fairly sure there's no evidence of any particular year, or strong evidence against the whole "ALL A DREAM/SIMULATION" theory that was kicked around years ago.

I remember "2099?" being scribbled somewhere in the artbook, which doesn't make it definite.

you neglect Bandai and the Creater.

I'm not consciously ignoring any information.  Mike's mention that the number apparently is in the art book is the second time I've heard of the number being associated with the show.  The first time being when you mentioned it in this topic.

Seconding this. When someone produces a definite, concrete, credible source for it I might change my tune, but until then...

You spelt ENCYCLOPEDIA wrong. (ignoring the fact I can't figure out the wierd a/e symbol)

Also, NEVER trust Wikipedia. EVER.


The earliest record of "Big O takes place in 2099" I found on PCF is right here (http://www.paradigm-city.com/forums/thread.php?threadid=1647). The only problem with this... is that I don't think 2099 was ever 100% confirmed, as there are apparently a few dates floating around.

Also apparently I believed it was 2099 at one point, but I don't really believe that now since we've got a couple of theories which cannot include that date.

Theory 1) The paradigm city we know and love is a simulation... so the date could be any time.
Theory 2) If we don't believe it's a simulation (which I like) how would Big Venus be able to reset space/time but only alter a certain bit of it? (the 40.5 + 40.5)
Theory 3) PC is not the Truman Show, and Big Venus used a wierd form of Time Travel.... so the date means squat. It could ressurect space separate of time... uhh yeah...

If we're to believe the 40.5 Year + 40.5 Year theory (as seen on PCF), then that means somehow Big Venus is a god. Which means Angel can't be Big Venus... or at least it's really awkward.

I was able to get a hold of a better copy of the intro, so when i get some free time, ill try to figure out some more headlines, but on another note, i was flipping through the channels just now, and big o is on adult swim, it's currently 12:47 central time zone. I would guess this means they plan on airing it for a while as it does not seem to be the first episode.

.....and the in the ruins where schwartzwald, or however it's spelled finds the old megaduece, the sign reads expo '04, so it's probably not set in 1999, but as several have pointed out, thats not what i was claiming in the first place.

That's true! Pretty much ruins the 1999-theory. Unless the theme of the expo was, "What will our World Look Like in 2004? Welcome to the Expo of the Future!" It sounds suitably cheesy for a retro industry expo. A stretch, yes, but sufficient for me.


Actually, you're the only one who's pointed that out so far.

he seemed to get that i was just talking about the fact that it was 40 years from when the event happend and 40 years since the event, and yes i do realize this isnt the several others i had promised.

Anyways to clarify what i meant earlier, so this part is just my thoughts, i was mearly pointing out that they were both a difference of 40 years, and that maybe, maybe since the headlines were about people who influenced some of the music of the show, that they decided to use 40 years as the number of years since the event as it had been 40 years since what they saw as a large musical event, if that makes sense, i was just thinking it maybe a source for the number 40, although it probably isn't, i just like to think out loud

I've only read the first post, but i think that was pretty great...

And I quote:

"There is, however, one more source that you can turn to for answers. The Official Companion Book is a very concise guide to the entire series. It includes concept art, staff interviews, episode summaries, biographies, and more, all written by the producers and staff of the show. The only problem: it's all in Japanese, and I'm having one hell of a time translating bits and pieces of it. One notable fact that I've pulled from it so far is that the Event occurred on Friday, April 13th, 2018 (bottom of page 33)." (Patrick Smith) 

Which would make the time in The Big O in the year 2058, which would also then make all of the events that were in the newspaper to a nice number of 100 years ago (assuming that we are still talking about 1958). But since we say that the Big O is a simulation and can't possibly have a date, this is just what time it would be then if they added 40 years to the date of the Event.

2099 seems improbable for the date that I found, and it is from a TRUSTED source.
Never mind, Burt made sense of it all with the 40.5+40.5 thing.

To quote an old Big O flunky from PCF...

And if we want to try and explain the "alternate peaceful Paradigm" in Roger the Wanderer... we can say that those are visions of pre-2018; 2019-> 2058 is when the War of 40 Yrs Ago happens; and that the current Paradigm City is after a 2nd Event resulting in a 40 year span from 2059 to 2099.

It's plausible, but like every flippin' thing in Big O it's a stretch.

What about the headlines in the paper that Roger has in that episode of Roger the Wanderer? That is just more evidence of the re-creation of Paradigm City.

I disagree.

Well, I do to. I was just giving an idea based on Burt's Theory 1, back about a couple of posts ago.