I’ve had my eye on Metallic Rouge for some time, simply because of studio Bones’ involvement. Bones is one of my favorite anime studios so anything they do piques my curiosity. Being an original anime, it’s hard to tell if Metallic Rouge will be any good or not but this anime is being produced to commemorate Bones’ 25th anniversary so one would hope that the studio will go big on this one.
Metallic Rouge takes place in a futuristic Martian city where humans co-exist with androids known as Neans. One particular Nean, Rouge (Yume Miyamoto), is tasked with hunting down nine rebellious Neans collectively known as the Immortal Nine. The story more or less begins in media res. Rouge meets her human assistant Naomi (Tomoyo Kurosawa) for the first time in-person during this episode but it’s implied that Naomi has helped Rouge for some time now. Also, Rouge has already killed two of her targets, Nius and Achillus. In this episode, she investigates her third target: a singer named Sara Fitzgerald, who Rogue discovers to be one of the Immortal Nine named Viola (Yu Shimamura).
I managed to get the gist of what’s going on but I was actually pretty confused for most of the episode. Because Metallic Rouge starts in media res, it takes a while for the puzzles pieces to line up. To be honest, some things are still unclear after this episode. Like, I know the Immortal Nine are the bad guys but the show isn’t explicit about why they’re wanted criminals. Sara/Viola is a pretty sympathetic character throughout this episode; she’s trying to move on from her criminal past to pursue an earnest career as a singer. We do see one member referred to as Joker (Hiroyuki Yoshino) attempt to steal a large shipment of Nectar, an energy supply Neans need to survive, but that’s about it. We also don’t know the exact reason as to why Rouge is hunting down the Immortal Nine, apart from the vague implication that it’s her job. I can it being intentional if Rouge has no personal stake in the matter, what with her being an android, but if she does have one, it’s not made clear in this premiere.
To play Devil’s advocate, I get the impression that this episode serves more to set the tone than to dump a bunch of lore on us. For what it’s worth, I’m digging the look and feel of this show. Cyberpunk is generally a very appealing aesthetic and that’s very much the case with the city Metallic Rouge primarily takes place in. It’s just a really cool looking area and it perfectly suits the seedy underbelly the characters occupy. One element that I’m curious about is the robotic armor Rouge and the Immortal Nine don when they duke it out. They seem more inspired by tokusatsu than cyberpunk and yet, they oddly don’t feel out of place from the rest of the show’s art. Rouge’s armor might take a while to grow on but I’ve liked the other ones that have appeared so far. I hope the show provides some superb action scenes with these suits. The duel between Rouge and Viola is fun but it’s a bit lacking in fight choreography and I think it’s largely elevated by the battle music (which, to its credit, sounds really epic).
For now, I’m cautiously optimistic about Metallic Rouge. There’s potential for a really cool show here but there also a couple things that I’d like to see get ironed out as time goes on such as the worldbuilding and the characterization. Pressure is admittedly a bit high here as Metallic Rouge has to be both a good show and a show worthy enough to commemorate its studio’s long and lucrative career.
Watch Metallic Rouge on Crunchyroll
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