The Big O/Episodes

The Big O is directed by Kazuyoshi Katayama and animated by the Japanese animation studio Sunrise. The series follows Roger Smith, Paradigm City's top Negotiator. The first season of the series premiered on October 13, 1999 on WOWOW with the episode "Roger the Negotiator" and concluded with "R.D." on January 19, 2000.

Starting on April 2, 2001, The first season of The Big O aired simultaneously on Cartoon Network's Toonami block during the afternoon and on The Midnight Run at night. The 12:30 AM showing was the premiere and the more publicized 5:30 PM showing a rerun. Even at it's late hour, The Big O was shown in edited form. In 2003 in anticipation of the premiere of The Big O: Season Two, the first thirteen episodes of the series were re-aired, completely un-cut, on the Adult Swim block. Season two premiered on Adult Swim on August 3, 2003.

Originally a twenty six-episode series, the series was cut to just half that number due to low ratings in Japan. Luckily, positive international fan response resulted in a second season co-produced by Cartoon Network, Sunrise, and Bandai Visual. The Big O: Season Two premiered on January 2, 2003 on SUN-TV in Japan with the episode "Roger the Wanderer" and concluded with "The Show Must Go On" on March 27, 2003. The American premiere of season 2 took place seven months later. On the night the final episode was to air, October 26th, the viewers were treated to a rerun of episode 20, "Stripes". This resulted in the Adult Swim message boards being flooded with complaints by fans. After an apology from Kim Manning, programming director for Adult Swim, the final episode of The Big O was aired on 2 November at 11:00 PM.

Both seasons of The Big O have been released in the U.S. on DVD by Bandai Entertainment, but said releases went out of print when Bandai halted DVD production. The rights to the show now belong to Sentai Filmworks.