Looping the Big Order OVA for 7 Hours Straight

Happy Groundhog Day! In anime, the most famous experiment in presenting a time loop story uniquely is without a doubt the Endless Eight from Haruhi Suzumiya, but it’s not the only one. What better way to celebrate this day that has become eponymous with time loops than experiencing, documenting and possibly torturing myself with a lesser known one?

The OVA for Big Order is a menacing beast that requires a flowchart to explain properly. It promises a never-ending experience which will eternally loop itself and yet always be different, taking advantage of randomization features you never even knew blu-rays had.

Originally bundled with volume 8 of the manga, the “Random Order OVA” is made of many segments that are picked at random and eventually loops back into itself following a specific logic illustrated by Discotek Media’s diagram below.

This map they made for their disc release and shared on Twitter is enough to spark fascination. It definitely seems like a creative idea, and I had to see for myself what the experience was like.

Throughout this post I’ll refer to the four static segments at the beginning of the episode that don’t get randomized as the “A-part” through “D-part” based on the flowchart above.

“Big Order”…?

Big Order is a manga by Sakae Esuno that began in 2011 following the end of his most famous work, Mirai Nikki. It continued for 10 volumes until 2016, the same year it got a TV anime adaptation. The OVA shares its staff with the show but actually predates it, having come out in 2015.

The story follows users of a power called “Order”, granted to them based on their wishes by a supernatural being named Daisy. The protagonist, Hoshimiya Eiji, is believed to have caused a great catastrophe 10 years ago when he made his wish. His main motivation is the safety of his little sister, Hoshimiya Sena.

I did watch the anime when it aired nearly a decade ago and it sucked pretty bad. However, with only 10 episodes to cover the entire story, it probably doesn’t represent the manga very well. I considered reading it before starting the OVA, as the way it was released suggests it’s for fans of the original, but jumping into it with only hazy memories of the rushed anime also felt appropriate somehow. So let’s begin.

Is the order a groundhog?

Loop 1

“What would you do if you could have any wish granted?” The A-part begins with protagonist Hoshimiya Eiji waking up and monologuing about that as he walks through a perfectly normal town to school. In class, he’s instantly charmed by the new transfer student Kurenai Rin, who despite some ominous framing, quickly comes onto him on the way back home and they start dating.

As things progress, Eiji starts feeling a strong sense of déjà vu. Part of the school is very destroyed in a way that at first feels unfamiliar to him but then feels normal. In one moment, Rin tasers him, revealing herself to be an assassin sent to kill Eiji. In the next, he wakes up naked in bed next to her as if that had been just a dream he can’t quite recall.

Things grow even more erratic, like we’re seeing him get pulled through multiple realities. Eiji is together with Iyo, a miko, in her shrine. They’re pulling fortunes together and it’s implied they’re romantic partners. He tries to touch the ribbon on her head and it cuts away. Now he’s on a bench with Iyo and Rin, when his little sister Sena comes leaping towards him with a hug.

Eiji wakes up with tears in his eyes in a mysterious space, some sort of one-table restaurant where Daisy, a supernatural being that’s currently dressed as a waitress, asks for his order. The menu lists things like “Denial of this world”, “I want to obtain a miracle”, “I want to be the strongest in the world”, etc. He asks to wait for his sister to come and order, greatly amusing Daisy.

One more glimpse at a reality where Sena is safe and sound is all it takes for him to definitively realize something is off, though. That reality vanishes, and he’s back into the mysterious space with a floating Daisy. She explains that he hadn’t been in an illusionary world, but instead in Eiji’s “current self’s own world”, then asks for his current self’s wish.

The B-part begins the same way as the A-part, except now the town looks completely destroyed. There’s a lot of jumps here too but none of the realities presented are peaceful or romantic. Rather than coming onto him, Rin tasers and attacks him with her katana as soon as he’s distracted, revealing she wants revenge for the death of her parents 10 years ago. He’s able to teleport her katana into her somehow and escape, dripping blood as he runs.

As the scenes shift, Eiji gets attacked in all sorts of manners by different enemies. A zombie chase scene gets interrupted by the appearance of his dad, the apparent big bad, who asks Eiji to join him so he can be with Sena forever. We cut away to him getting backed into a corner by the zombies.

All throughout the B-part, a crystal is being reformed. As the zombies approach, he tries to summon his Order, to no effect. Then, following an Eva “Congratulations”-style scene where everyone he knows calls his name and claps, the crystal is completed and his Order manifests. It stabs through all the zombies, who transform into his friends. Eiji screams as the whole world breaks down.

Back in that mysterious space he remembers he is Hoshimiya Eiji and his mission: destroying the world and conquering it. Daisy asks for his current self’s wish.

The short C-part begins the same as the previous one, but is only as long as his ‘wishes’ monologue. The even shorter D-part has him waking up in the restaurant-like space as he tries to recall what he had been doing.

Then, the randomized scenes begin! First, we get one of eleven possible scenes symbolized as purple circles in Discotek’s flowchart.

Eiji is in his room and chastises Daisy for creating more Orders. She replies that’s her job and tells Eiji that he’s misremembering what happened ten years ago: he did not wish for world destruction.

We cut to Rin waking up in the mysterious space as she tries to recall what she had been doing.

That was one of four possible transitions. It take us to another one of the “purple circle” scenes, of which there are twelve possibilities now, as one of them can only get chosen as the second random scene.

Cut away to Eiji trying to touch Iyo’s ribbon. She promptly dodges, claiming that touching her ribbon will get her pregnant. (Side note: as absurd and sheltered as that sounds, it’s actually completely true, as shown in the weirdest, most memorable scene of the whole TV show.) Her father told her a miko will bear a child if touched by a man, and she fears she’ll lose her “Star Seeker” precognition power that she wished so much for if she got pregnant.

Eiji then comes to in that space, feeling like he’s forgetting something important. He has a lot of flashbacks, some that are to scenes I have seen before, and others that aren’t (including one where Iyo is completely naked in a cave) and the “short credits” start rolling. We’re back to the C-part.

Ten out of the twelve possible “purple circle” scenes lead to this ending. Being taken back to the brief C-part rather than the start means we jump back into the randomized segments right away, so I’ll be referring to this ending as the “quick end“.

Since we aren’t looping all the way back, I’ll also be referring to the next loop as “1A”, and reserve “Loop 2” for when we start over from the beginning.

Loop 1A

Sena, with a very serious demeanor, is talking down to some guy named Abraham Louis Franc, who has the power to stop time because he wished to delay the deaths of his family. She pretends she’ll bite her tongue off because she’ll die in less than 6 months anyway and it means less trouble for her brother, but then lol jk’s and gives a speech about seizing instead of wishing. She recruits Abraham as her knight because she wants to protect her brother herself.

We have Eiji waking up in that space without being able to remember as the transition this time.

The next scene features Tairano Kagekiyo, an ex-graveyard keeper who controls a golem made of the gravestones of those who died hating Eiji. She’s telling a crowd she that wants to capture Eiji, as he’s the Order that destroyed the world 10 years ago. It ends with Eiji getting stabbed on the side by a random mother whose child he supposedly killed in the great disaster. A lot of this scene was actually shown in the main episode’s B-part.

Quick end!

Loop 1B

Eiji and Iyo are alone in a cave, she strips down naked and tells him to look at her. She cries about how she’s just a loser who had been dreaming of her future husband her whole life despite being a miko. Now that she’s finally met him, she’s in love with him.

The Eiji transition happens again, into the scene where Eiji chastises Daisy about creating more Orders. Quick end. 

Loop 1C

We start with the Kagekiyo scene that ends with Eiji getting stabbed. I start feeling like I’ll get bored fast at this rate.

The transition this time is Sena waking up in that space and trying to remember what she was doing.

We cut to little Eiji, inspired by a fictional hero, telling Daisy his wish is to dominate the world…

…and we loop all the way back to the start of the OVA! No credits or anything. This must be the purple circle denominated as “12” in the flowchart.

Loop 2

In this loop I noticed some small foreshadowing better, like how in the A-part there were green splotches on the floor specifically where Eiji’s blood drips in the B-part when he’s running away from getting attacked by Rin.

It does feel like the A-part is designed with the idea that you’ll rewatch it at least once after the B-part, so that’s pretty neat.

Arriving at the randomized parts, I watch the scene where Eiji tries to touch Iyo’s ribbon, into the Eiji transition, and then the ribbon scene again. Quick end.

Loop 2A

We get a scene where Eiji’s dad, who I think was the big bad, is holding up Sena. Eiji, who has lost his arm, is screaming at him not to say Sena will die. She tells her brother to run away because she’s already given up on what’s left of her life and Eiji faints. Rin transition, Iyo’s cave scene, quick end.

This is a bit like trying to figure out the flags to the true end in a visual novel, except the flags are just throwing dice really well.

Loop 2B

I noticed that whenever Eiji wakes up at the start of any loop, you can see his sister briefly reflected in his eye.

Bath scene with Rin and Sena. Rin is telling Sena that her brother is responsible for destroying the world 10 years ago. She tells her about Abraham, and how he was promised the revival of his family if he turns Sena in. Rin tells her that Eiji needs to be killed.

Appropriately, for the transition, we get the one with Sena.

Then, we get a flashback where Sena is commenting on how Eiji doesn’t call his new step-mother, Sena’s mom, “mom”. He’s worried that it might not work out and he’ll feel sad. She understands, but is really happy to have a new older brother, and hopes these days will last forever.

No quick end here. We instead cut to a scene where current-day Sena is in Daisy’s space, and she comments with a serious tone that her brother is an idiot. Cue, for the first time, the full credits!

Once the full credits end, it loops us back to the very start of the OVA. This was one of three possible special endings that the flowchart represents as a green diamond and can only be reached from the “purple circle” assigned as “11”. I thought of these as “true ends”.

This felt like the perfect loop as every randomized scene fit a consistent theme. I was a bit disappointed at how short something I was envisioning as one of three “true ends” was, though.

Loop 3

The first four static parts play in full again. Once the randomized parts begin, we get the one where Eiji is screaming at his evil dad again. Then we get Rin’s transition into a new scene:

Picking up from a scene in the B-part where Eiji gets ambushed by Rin and shot off the roof by a helicopter, Eiji is falling to his death. Rin never learned what his Order was but it doesn’t matter anyway. Yet, for some reason, she starts healing Sena. Eiji, who was actually safe on the roof, used his power that puts others into his domination. He exclaims he will dominate the world. Quick end.

Loop 3A

For the first time we got Iyo waking up in that mysterious space for the transition! The rest was just the scene of Daisy getting chastised for making new Orders into the scene with Kagekiyo again. Quick end.

Loop 3B

Rin and Sena’s bath scene followed by the Rin and Sena bath scene. Is this like pulling two SSRs in one multi? The transition in between was Eiji. Quick end. 

Loop 3C

Bath scene again. Nevermind the previous analogy, is this all it’s gonna be now? Iyo transition into the Kagekiyo scene. Quick end.

Loop 3D

New scene! Rin is playing on her PlayStation Vita. She’s having a hard time and presses the left trigger on accident, causing it to start beeping, which is a problem. I don’t know if this scene is a reference to a specific game I’m not familiar with, but it’s somehow the scene I understand the least out of all of them. Vita means life, though.

Sena transition into the scene where she recruits Abraham. It makes more sense now after having seen the bath scene where Rin explained who Abraham was and how he was after Sena. Quick end.

Loop 3E

Daisy getting chastised into Sena transition into Iyo’s ribbon-dodge. At this point I’ve become savvy enough about the format of the OVA to know this means another quick end. I think I only have to see one more unique scene of the “purple circle” category.

Loops 3F, 3G, 3H

Ribbon dodge. Rin transition. Bath scene. Quick end. Rooftop scene. Iyo transition. Kagekiyo scene. Quick end. Bath scene. Sena transition. Little Eiji’s wish… loop all the way back.

Loop 4

If I was extremely lucky I would only have had to do a full loop four times, but since I just got the same ending twice, that won’t be the case.

Big Order is scored by Evan Call, his music is easily one of the best parts of the whole thing, if not the best.

I kinda let this first half segment play while I figured out food. I didn’t want to cheat by skipping ahead or fast forwarding but I figured I didn’t need to watch every second of it in full for a 4th time.

Onto the randomized scenes. PS Vita, followed by Iyo transition, then the scene where she’s talking to Abraham again. Quick end.

Loop 4A

LITTLE EIJI WISHES TO DOMINATE THE WORLD RIGHT AWAY LOOPING ME BACK TO THE START AGAINNNNN

Loop 5

As this loop started I got curious if pirate streaming sites had this OVA and how they presented it. Apparently it’s just the A-part through D-part. So I guess a lot of people have probably watched part of this OVA thinking it’s the whole thing and without understanding its true nature.

Anyway, onto the randomized pa-

I GOT SENT IMMEDIATELY BACK, THIS ONE DIDN’T EVEN LOOP INTO ITSELF ONCE, ARE YOU KIDDING ME

In loops like this, if you decided to stop after getting sent back by little Eiji, it’s not like only watching the first 22 minutes on a pirate streaming site would have been that different of an experience.

Loop 6

The wordplay between the show’s title and “May I take your order?” was the most memorable thing about the anime’s ending to me but the same joke is done a lot during the long segment of this OVA. I wonder if it was ever done in the manga and when. 

Random segments: Scene with the dad, Rin transition, scene with the dad. Another dupe loop! Quick end.

Loop 6A

Kagekiyo’s scene followed by Eiji transition into… the childhood scene between Eiji and Sena! This is it, the gacha for a new ending…

And I got it! Eiji wakes up in that space, very similar to how the “quick end” is presented, so it gave me a scare. Instead, he asks where Sena is. Daisy replies that she isn’t there. He’s very indignant, but slowly drifts back asleep.

Full ending theme again! It’s a great song, by the way. “Geki” by Yousei Teikoku. We loop back to the start.

Loop 7

Only 2 paths from the flowchart left to see… can I make it?

For some reason I feel like this might sort of be what playing pachinko for the story is like, aside from all the missing bells and whistles. But who knows.

Oh, the randomized segments are about to begi–

STRAIGHT INTO MINI EIJI’S WISH. WE’RE GOING ALL THE WAY BACK RIGHT AWAY AGAIN. FUCK.

Loop 8

At this point I wonder if rewatching Haruhi Suzumiya’s Endless Eight wouldn’t have been more productive.

But, well, bless having two monitors.

Vita scene into Eiji transition and –

Holy shit. This is the feeling you get when you’re pulling in a gacha and everything glows gold. Sena is happy to have an older brother and hopes that these days will last forever. Fingers crossed…

I GOT THE LAST OF THE THREE “TRUE ENDS”! Daisy leaves a sleeping Eiji behind in that space. She rides a carousel into the light while commenting how endlessly interesting Eiji is, unlike other Orders.

It pans through some interesting dreamlike landscape outside of her domain and we’re taken to the full credits. Back to the start of the OVA!

Loop 9, 9A, 9B

I thought the three “green diamonds” in the flowchart, which I have been referring to as the “true ends” would be the hardest to watch all of, but what I was left missing was one of the purple circles instead.

Ribbon dodge, Sena, dad scene, quick end. Daisy chastised, Eiji, Daisy chastised again, quick end. Lil’ Eiji’s wish… back to the start.

Loop 10

Ironically at this point I could’ve already rewatched the full anime instead! Not that I have any desire to do that.

NOT THE LITTLE EIJI WISH AGAIN, COME ON.

Loop 11

It kinda doesn’t help that the B-part repeats enough lines and structure of the A-part that before I get into the random segments again it feels like I repeated the intro twice rather than once.

I could skip ahead but where’s the fun in that. At that point I could’ve just dug into the files and seen every segment by itself too. More variety in each experience would’ve been nice though.

Father’s holding Sena, Sena, Sena’s being held by father, quick end.

Loop 11A

Eiji is chastising Daisy about creating more Orders, we go into Iyo’s transition scene, and then…

EIJI AND IYO EATING NOODLES

WE DID IT. 100% COMPLETION!

And hold on. They order more soup! What a beautifully fitting final loop to finish all of this with.

Big Thoughts, Random Thoughts

After 7 hours and 29 total loops, I managed to watch every scene in the Big Order OVA the way it was programmed! So, was it worth it?

I think they definitely had an interesting concept here. However, I would like to see it applied more thoughtfully. What if the 22-minute segment were broken down into smaller parts with alternatives that were also randomized, hopefully in a way that was always cohesive? It feels like that’s the allure the flowchart gave off but isn’t really what you get with how short the random scenes are.

Maybe the idea behind 22 unchanging minutes was that you would be able to fast-forward through them without fear of missing anything new, though. In which case, I only have myself to blame for obtusely refusing to do so. 

I enjoyed how it started feeling like a game of chance, but I don’t know if my “binge” approach was how they expected most people to do it. They might’ve just wanted to give people a somewhat different experience every time they popped the OVA in for some rewatching.

Even still, the endings could’ve had more substance to them. I can imagine a movie using the randomization gimmick to give you a genuine alternate ending. I think this format could be nice for adaptations of visual novels that already feature branching storylines, too.

While most of the randomized scenes at first kinda felt arbitrary, like they might’ve just picked moments from the manga out of a hat to animate, they eventually seemed to form some kind of continuity with at least one of the other scenes. There were some interesting situations where a scene would start making more sense the next time I got it because of a different scene, making it chance-based non-chronological storytelling.

It was pretty cool when I got a loop where the pieces matched each other and formed a consistent narrative, rare as it was.

So, after all that, do I even understand the plot of the OVA? I think the characters are stuck in some sort of “human instrumentality” and we’re seeing the individual worlds born from their wishes as they somehow cross each other. They briefly become aware of their situation and wake up, but then fall back asleep and the cycle restarts.

I’m curious to read the manga and think back on the OVA to see if I understand it more. I do think jumping in semi-blind was the right choice because it gave me room to speculate and match information across the repetitive loops, rather than just recognize what might be scenes taken from the manga.

I also wonder how lucky or unlucky my “run” was. What’s the average amount of loops someone is expected to go through before seeing every branch? It definitely feels lucky that I got the three unique endings without repeating any of them. I feel like there’s some interesting math someone could do about this.

But for now, I’ll take the check please.