East Vs West: Character Battle #6

Out of the many genres out there, the Giant Robot genre is one of the least favorite for me. Guys in suits saving the planet, just doesn’t feel right with me. But there have been ones that I do like. G Gundam for one and the next two especially…

Coop Cooplowski (in the Megas) Vs Roger Smith (in the Big O)

Big O is about the many adventures of Roger Smith, Paradigm City's top Negotiator. In the city of Paradigm, 40 years before the series, a mysterious event happened that made everyone lose their memory of anything passed that day. While season 1 follows various individuals and how they continue living, season 2 tries to answer the Million Dollar Question, what made this all happen?

Megas XLR is a story about a guy who purchases a big robot that came from the future and fixed it up to his standards. Since it is needed to save the future, Kiva remains in the past to train Coop to defeat the Glorft. While not as deep in storyline, it makes up for it in sheer amounts of action, where a different giant battle takes place. Besides, who needs a deep plot when you got a giant robot? Chicks dig giant robots.

These two are so different, that the only real connection they have with each other is that they have giant robot and happen to be one of the few mecha cartoons I like (Transformers don’t count). Since this is more of a robot battle then a character battle, don’t expect them to get out of these things except for a few rounds.

Round One: Location

This doesn’t matter where it is located, they’re in giant robots. When two giant robots fight each other, especially in the case of Coop, wherever it is located at it will be leveled. There’s not much room for strategy on using your surroundings in giant robots, especially in the cities both live in.

WINNER: Draw

Round Two: Workmanship

Big O is an unknown factor. Created before the planet wide mind wipe, the Big O may hold the secrets about why it all happened in the first place. Though simplicity is in question as to how a guy who can’t remember 40 years prior be able to ride a machine this complicated, it is implied that the Megadeus chooses Roger Smith to be its pilot. For a sluggish machine compared to the Gundams, it’s pretty sophisticated.

Megas is a modification of a prototype giant robot designed by the Glorft. Considering the Glorft has dominated a war against Earth, it is a safe bet this machine is high quality in design. Coop also added other modifications to it and made it so that only he (and anyone gamer enough) could ride it. You would think having a person from the past fix a giant robot would decrease its efficiency, but it alone can handle pretty much anything the Glorft or anything throws in its way.

Both of these machines are beautifully crafted, but for a design point of view, a car for a head (Hot Rod or not) does not fit well for a Robot Body. So simply by looks the Big O wins.

WINNER: Big O

Round Three: Capabilities.

The Big O has some of the basics in fighting. With pistons on both of his arms, he can create one of the best looking punch in Animation, capable of blowing holes in almost anything. It also has various other weapons including gatling guns, grappling hooks, missiles, and lasers. In Season 2, three additional attacks were discovered, being the O Thunder, the Plasma Gimmick and the Final Stage.

Megas seems to have more firepower then “Obviously Compensating For Something Man” (see “Jailhouse Blues” by Ramnesis to see who he is), so in terms of firepower Megas has Big O out gunned. Megas also has the ability to fly, through space. Big O had a hard time fighting Big Duo because it can just fly. So pick here is Megas.

WINNER: Megas

Round Four: The Pilots

Behind every Giant Mech, there is a man (or woman) driving it. For the Big O, it is Roger Smith, a Negotiator. Being a Negotiator, he has the ability to handle himself with hand to hand when things get out of hand. For the Megas, the driver is Coop Cooplowski, a Gamer for most of his life. He possesses pretty good strength, but his stamina is very low, unable to play DDR for an hour or so.

Take these two out of the mechs, and Smith has this in the bag.

WINNER: Big O

Round Five: Besides the Giant Robots…

Besides the Big O, Roger Smith has his car, the Griffon, ready to be use in action. This car comes equipped with armor for the wheels and windows, missile launchers, a communications station, Browning machine guns, electro chromatic camouflage, and a police scanner. This is the closest thing anyone has to the Batmobile.

Roger Smith also has with him a wristwatch that works as a remote control to the Griffon and includes a grappling cable, a laser cutter and a two-way communicator. Also with the wristwatch, he can summon the Big O from almost anywhere with that thing. Heck, the only thing it can’t do is tell time.

Coop pretty much has two generations old videogame systems. While fun, it’s just not functional elsewhere. Another win for Roger Smith.

WINNER: Big O

Round Six: Allies

Coop has two allies that usually hang with him. Those two are Kiva and Jamie. Kiva comes from the same future as Megas and comes with many skills. She’s good when in a big robot and also excellent in hand to hand combat. She provides the brains and strategy for Coop and pretty much the only motivation to make Coop do something good. Jamie, well, just comes along for the ride…

Roger Smith also has two allies. Norman Burg, his butler, who is also the Caretaker of the Big O, and R. Dorothy Wayneright, his assistant/robot. Dorothy has shown great strength and also various other abilities to make her a strong ally. Another thing is her connection to the Megadeuses, being able to sense their thoughts and emotions.

Of this situation, it’s two on two. While Kiva’s engineering abilities could keep Dorothy at bay, Norman has been known to go into battle, which Jamie doesn’t do willingly. So it is safe to believe Roger Smith wins this round.

WINNER: Big O

Round Seven: The Enemies

The Big O’s main opponents are other Megadeuses. Almost each episode has him facing one of the many giant robots. A few of them are even other Bigs like the Big O. Each one is of a various style ranging from fellow land mechs, aquatic robots, and flying machines. Heck, he even fought a Power Ranger Rip-off…

Megas also faced similar opponents, but in a larger scale. Literally armies of other robots tend to face him of all shapes and styles. His greatest opponent would be his future self, who made him skinny and evil. While I’m not exactly sure the numbers of robots Big O fought at once, I doubt he can handle the same numbers that Megas have dealt with.

WINNER: Megas

Round Eight: Irreplaceability

The Big O is part of a four piece set of Bigs. These are the Big O, the Big Duo, the Big Fau, and the Big Venus. Each piece is one of a kind and if damaged, the owners of said Bigs try to repair them, which Big O has been a couple of times.

Megas is originally one of a kind. That is until a trip to the future destroyed the original Megas and been replaced by the Megas the Evil Coop abandoned long ago. Seeing how Coop finds a replacement for Megas, even if it is thanks to a time distortion, Big O is truly irreplaceable.

WINNER: Big O

Round Nine: Property Damage

Big O does some hefty damage to the city; it pales in comparison to the destruction Mega pulls. Every battle has wherever he is located reduced to a pile of rubble. For a slow and bulky machine, Big O is the paper trained of the two, which gives this to Big O.

WINNER: Big O

OVERAL: Big O: 6 – Megas: 2

Despite the cool theme song, Megas loses to Big O. But as all things, stats do not always equal definite victory. For when the story is told, will these points come into play?

Round Ten: The Story

In the Present, or Kiva’s past, she was working on the time drive as Coop and Jamie were busy playing with their new DSs. “You know, instead of playing with those things, maybe you should work on Megas,” Kiva scolded, “Once this time drive works, we will be needing Megas to save the future.”

“I just got to beat Jamie in this game. It’s called Super Robot Battles. You play as a giant robot and battle other giant robots! It is the reason I got a DS!” Coop explained. “You fight in a giant robot daily,” Kiva stated, “why play a game when you experience the live thing daily?” Jamie answered “Because it has online and wireless play.”

Kiva gets annoyed and tells them “If you had as much dedication to save the future as you have with these games, then I wouldn’t have to scold you as much.” “Hey Jamie,” Coop begins to say, “Want to go at it one more time?” “Okay Coop, but I get to host it this time,” Jamie replied.

As Jamie clicked the wireless connection, he noticed there’s a question mark along with Coop’s name. Hoping an additional opponent would throw him off his game, he selects both names and press okay. At that moment, the time drive begins to spark. And a few minutes later, the three of them, along with Megas, disappear from this time.

In the future, a bright flash fills Paradigm City. And once the light died down, a Blue Robot with Flames painted on was moving in the city. Megas was off balanced and was about to fall as Coop begins to take control. After crashing into three buildings, he finally gets Megas to grab a hold of another building. Once back in control, he lets go of the building. A few minutes later, that building falls down.

“Where are we?” Coop asked, seeing the landscape being warned down and old looking. “According to the time drive, we’re…” Kiva explained as a shot outside of Megas is shown with a crowd of police surrounding it, “Into the future!” “Aw man! My DS is fried!” Jamie complained as he looked at his once white DS.

Meanwhile, a man in a tuxedo was reading a newspaper when a butler showed up. “Sir, there is a phone call for you”, Norman said. Roger Smith picks up the phone and hears the Chief of the Military Police, Dan Dastun. “There seems to be another Megadeus here. Our weaponry doesn’t have any effect on it! We need the Big O!” The Negotiator continues the discussion despite its urgency.

Back with the visitors from the past, Kiva soon figures out the reason why the time drive sent them to the future. “It seems when you went wireless to play, the time drive connected to Jamie’s DS and sent us to the future your game is based on.” Jamie complained “Great, sent back to the future with a busted DS.” “Maybe if I use Coop’s DS to connect to the time drive, we can return to your present. Maybe even to when the Megas was supposed to be sent to!”

“No way!” Coop disagreed, “We’re not messing up my DS! It took me months to save up to get one of these!” “This is the fate of humanity we’re talking about,” Kiva scolded, “One device isn’t something to put over your future.” Jamie responded “Are you sure you want Coop to go to that time now?” He points outside and shows her the destruction Megas is causing simply by walking forward.

“Okay, so he isn’t ready for that,” Kiva admits. “Tell you what Coop, if you let me use the DS, I’ll promise to get you a new one when we get back.” “That, and a Double Mega Burger,” Coop added. Kiva sighed as she agreed. A few blocks away, a lone man stands before the machine. He lifts his wrist to his mouth and says “Big O. Showtime!”

Megas continues walking until another giant robot rises in front of them. It was the Big O. Coop was wondering about what it was when the first punch was thrown by the Big O. It shook up the guys in the Megas and made it swagger, but it still stands. “You want some of this?” Coop says, “Well here it comes!” Coop presses a button.

Soon Megas fired a barrage of missiles towards the Big O. All it could do was block with his big shields he calls arms. After the barrage, the Big O still stands. He soon fires his Chromebuster as a retaliation, which pushes Megas and knocks him down. He lands on a building which happens to be named “4Kids”, destroying it all. The kids watching from the sidelines cheered.

Megas soon got back up. “You got to keep him busy long enough so I can set up the time drive” Kiva instructed. Coop thought for a while and got an idea. The Megas rushed towards the Big O. It threw a punch but Megas ducked under it to get behind the Big O. The Megas wraps its arms around Big O’s and then locked his hands together. It was in a full nelson.

“Alright!” Coop celebrated, “No one can escape from the Masterlock!” Inside the Big O, Roger Smith struggles to break free. The Big O continues to struggle, unable to break free, until it begins to use the pistons to attack. The Pistons continue to smash itself on the head of Megas, shaking everyone in it.

After a couple more shots from the piston, Megas finally let’s go of the Big O. Once free, the Big O quickly turns and delivers a right to the head of the Megas and sends it swaggering back. Megas falls on its back as the Big O prepares for his O Thunder.

Now being pouring on by bullets, Coop struggles to get back up. “Megas can’t take anymore of this,” Kiva explained, “If you don’t do something, we won’t be able to go back in time.” “Not to mention you won’t get your DS back,” Jamie added.

“Alright, buddy! You made me come to the future, beat up my ride, and are keeping me from getting a new DS! It’s go time!” “You do know none of that was this thing’s fault,” Kiva asked. He ignored Kiva’s comment as he made Megas charge towards the Big O.

Soon the two giant robots exchanged blows like if it was some overgrown boxing match. Kiva tries to use the DS to connect to the time drive as Jamie tries to hold his lunch in. Hours pass by as the two machines continue fighting, despite being damaged. “It’s ready!” Kiva shouts, finally getting the DS to control the time drive.

Despite that, Coop didn’t listen as he went to deliver one last punch. The Big O stood still; moving its right arm back and having the piston shoot out. The two collided with each other, Megas punching to the face and Big O to the chest. A flash of light happened and Megas was gone. The Big O was knocked down.

Slowly, the Big O returned to its standing position. Roger Smith comes out and looks towards the dome. He begins to wonder if what he faced was really there. Back in the present, the three are back to where they were before. “We’re finally home!” Jamie shouted!

“Well,” Coop said, “Looks like you owe me a DS.” “Fine,” Kiva shrugged, “Take me to that store and I’ll pick it up now.” Coop turns the keys but couldn’t start Megas. He couldn’t even hear the starter. “What’s wrong?” Coop wondered as he looked out of the window.

When he looked down, he saw a gaping hole in the chest of Megas, clean through. Kiva and Jamie looked out to see the damage. “You can forget about that DS now” Kiva stated, “We have to all save up to repair Megas.” “No, NO!” Coop complained as he banged his head to the steering wheel.

WINNER: The Big O

And with that, Big O pulls a win against the faster and lighter model! Sometimes the only heavy artillery you need is your fists, and the Big O is a prime example of that. Now if only they had a crossover between the Big O and Gundam.

Like the outcome? Want to give your opinion of the events? Want to make suggestions? Then give a reply. The next match will be a rubber match.