Metallic Rouge

Well hello Cyberpunk my old friend. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it. This is a hard one to review. Modern cyberpunk anime are hard to come by. Especially in this isekai hell we seem to be stuck in these days… Think one of the last ones I watched was DimensionW somewhere in the mid-2010s, Metallic Rouge introduces itself with a bedroom wall poster that immediately captivates. The style of the whole anime is a welcome departure from generic-fantasy world or spaceship/sky 2d background. It has a misty, industrial and concrete aesthetic with lots of warm hues, and at least in the first half wasnot so over-articulated as to assault the eyes, but has a pleasing and soft sheen, like the first thing that came to mind was Tinsel City in Bubblegum Crisis- which itself was strongly inspired by Blade Runner… there are lots of callbacks to classic cyberpunk and in the first episode the lead character transforms into what looks for all the world like a Hardsuit. YES- This is the real deal! I was so excited… The music fits the world perfectly, it has a really good soundtrack. The opener to this is very early-90s in style, but my personal favorite is the entire ending. The 4 fps animation and the song together just make a great music video. This is one of those anime where I actually look forward to the ending more than the show itself. About that…. well; bear with me. The characters got on my nerves at first, especially Naomi- and her American voice-over really added to that impression- but the two leads grew on my over time and even though their roles in the story were often confusing, all the characters in this were likeable- even that Vash-looking villain, I actually loved that guy and wished he had more of a role. Every single English VA did a superb job- this is one of the best simuldubs I’ve ever heard, literally ever- it has some of the best voices in the biz and sounds just as pro and polished as the soundtrack sounds and the visuals look. So you’d think I would have given this all a pretty high recommendation; it’s cyberpunk, it hits all the nostalgia points dead on, it looks good, sounds great, has attractive characters and great music, so what’s not to love huh…. well what about the story? And that dear viewer, is where this thing falls flat on its face. In that same first episode a big fight leads to a death that- being in the very first episode and among all the polish and flash should have been very impactful, but even though it looked terrific there just wasn’t anything that made the fight feel moving. And this was a constant problem throughout. They spend the first several episodes setting up a world where people (humans) are using (and abusing) these androids called Naeans (which are recharged by a cerum injection or they die) and throw a bunch of concepts at us- but most of it is delivered through verbal exposition. And a LOT of it. I got sick of the terms they kept tossing around… “Immortal nine”, “Nectar”. “Asimov Code”… using the dreaded Tell Not Show method of world building. Even if you always knew what the Asimov Code was, and its implications for androids, it should still be a major plot-point of the story. And it sort of is in one episode, before the show just wanders away from it and never makes it an issue again. After the halfway point we don’t even see the ordinary Naeans again. It seemed like someone died in every episode, but they would usually be someone we met at the beginning of the episode or who never had a major role. So their departure leaves no feeling at all. Or they ended up doing something so mind-blowingly stupid you can’t feel bad for them. There’s bullets whizzing around all over the place you idiot! Get down! Oh, see, that’s what happens! THAT kind of stupid. Eventually it tried to weave an origin story for the Naeans that resembles prettymuch every single Mad-Scientist-Dad-Doing-Experiments+Creepyweird-wife-also-scientist-he-murdered plot you’ve ever seen before and every bit as cheesy. It ruined the anime. But even when it wasn’t pulling inexplicable rabbits out of hats or making some convoluted reveal, most of the time it just felt totally lost and nonsensical. By about episode 9 I gave up trying to understand anything that was happening, and probably enjoyed the show more as a result. Forget trying to like or understand the story, just watch the shiny hardsuit fights (it never explained what those transformations are or why they can do them) and enjoy the pretty pictures and music. Don’t ask any questions you’ll just get more confused. That was my experience of the whole anime. I don’t even know what to make of it. Was it bad? No. Was it good? Not really. Was it interesting? Well it depends on how you look at it. Should you watch it? ….I’ll leave that up to you.

There is a distinct difference between something working out in theory versus it working out in practice. If you were to visually lay out or list everything within *Metallic Rouge* in terms of its characters, places, and concepts, you’d be able to have a pretty firm grasp on what’s going on. In part because it is deliberately drawing such heavy influence from other cyberpunk or science-fiction media before it (with Ridley Scott’s *Blade Runner* being the most overt), the pieces to put everything together are indeed there, even if you don’t happen to know of its inspirations. However, the anime’s sense of revealing this informationis to have revelations or twists come in rapid succession, proposing a whole slew of questions for each one it answers, and bloviating the world to be so all-encompassing that one could be easily forgiven for getting confused or lost in the wash. It is true that it is the viewer’s responsibility to be able to grasp what a piece of media is doing and try to meet it halfway, but that doesn’t mean *Metallic Rouge* is freed from the fault of its haphazard storytelling. With so much “stuff” that is explained and only thirteen episodes to get it all done, the parsed-out result is not a project that is poorly conceived, but one that struggles as a realized product to find its stable grounding. And there is plenty to work with, too. As an oppressed synthetic population within the world, Neans are essentially shackled to the Asimov Code—itself named after science-fiction writer Isaac Asimov, who coined “the three laws of robotics” in the 1940s—which means they cannot harm humans both directly or by inaction or indecision. Coupled with their dependence on a substance called Nectar, Neans are robbed of any real sense of self-signification, clearly positioning them as a population both within society and metaphysically to be pitied by the audience. Within the Neans is the so-called “Immortal Nine,” proto-Neans that can exercise free will beyond the Asimov Code and take matters into their own hands, violently if needs be. Enlisted to stop them are Rouge Redstar, a Nean who isn’t particularly bright but can punch really hard, and Naomi Orthmann, the brains and tech-wizard who seems more relaxed. For all the players involved, *Metallic Rouge* poorly orients how they all factor into the grand scheme (or, to use a framing device that the anime loves to employ with Puppetmaster, roles to play). If the series opted to have the two main characters as the main force walking through the narrative, it doesn’t succeed at this. A pair of characters embodying a tried-and-true “buddy cop-esque” dynamic is not poor by itself, though in terms of what makes Rouge and Naomi tick, there’s surprisingly little that feels distinct. The early interactions are occasionally tinged with remarks that border on yuri-adjacent signifiers, or turns of phrase that are meant to be endearing, particularly from Naomi. Yet, it assumes that tiny touches like these are substitutes for actual meat, rather than the potato chips or chocolate that our heroines like to indulge in. Given especially how much of the show Naomi and Rouge hardly see eye to eye, if not just being uncommunicative, dishonest, or not even within the same proximity of each other, it’s hard to care about them as a binding tether within *Metallic Rouge’s* story. The Immortal Nine, despite being for the notion of Nean freedom and actualization, take actions that are bizarrely counterintuitive to their goals. Part of the reason for this is the wide disparity between its members; some of the Immortal Nine are docile and just want to live peacefully. Others are quick to violence, even if it means that some of their own fellow regular Neans—the group that they are ostensibly trying to help—die because of their actions. In making the Immortal Nine ununified and having both extremes as operating ideologies within them, *Metallic Rouge* unintentionally undercuts the very issue of Nean independence that it is proposing via the Immortal Nine’s stance. It is difficult to care about an oppressed class when the group most representative of them has characters killing “for fun” or murdering their own kin. This is not a case of “a few bad apples spoiling the barrel,” as the old saying goes since there’s only nine of them. When half your apples are spoiled, it’s a sign that you’re a poor farmer. Because Rouge and Naomi as the protagonists cannot be positioned as antithetical to Nean freedom (because that would presume the series is advocating slavery is a better option, which…uhh…), the narrative thus puts them at odds not with Nean freedom, but rather against the Immortal Nine. And since the Immortal Nine possess personalities or cause actions so cartoonishly outlandish or evil to give the “good guys” and the audience a force to understand but not sympathize with, *Metallic Rouge* cannot elicit any meaningful introspection. The complexity of the Nean Freedom issue is relegated to battles with easily identifiable antagonists, defeated / killed in tokusatsu fashion in favor of gradual integration of Nean rights into human civilization to prevent “chaos.” The result is a civil war narrative in which even if both sides are simultaneously right (the investigator Ash even says this outright just in case you missed it), the actual sense of exhilaration to see the conflict play through to the end just isn’t there because there is not a good enough reason to care. This, of course, does not discount the idea of the Asimov Code still restricting their options for self-defense or self-preservation at human hands. Part of what magnifies this uncaring is the mis-prioritization of what transpires within these thirteen episodes. The Neans themselves as a larger collective seem strangely out to dry. While there is a visit to a Nean settlement for a short while, and the first episode involves watching a Nean suffer Nectar withdrawal and die as a result when no one offers to help (itself a good moment of worldbuilding), most of the interactions within the story don’t involve the Neans themselves as communicating bodies. The latter half of the show has so few Neans featured within it that further opportunities to see their interactions within the world are rather nonexistent. The Immortal Nine, in essence, speak on behalf of virtually all the Neans, and given their own wildly contrasting personalities, it’s a shame that they are the primary representation this population has within *Metallic Rouge.* For non-proto-Neans, Noid is the only one who has any kind of longstanding presence within the show, and that’s mostly as Ash’s subordinate. The show instead more heavily focuses on the interpersonal—and familial—drama and having so many revelations or actions come one after another for the sake of shock or worldbuilding / expositing. It makes the mistake of thinking that the intrigue of Rouge’s contemplations, the Immortal Nine’s ideology, Naomi’s quips, etc. can map onto or substitute itself for the Neans. For supposedly being about creating revolution, the people who would most benefit from it are barely anywhere to be found. It is perhaps the irony of ironies that the oppressed Nean class within *Metallic Rouge* is so underrepresented in their own longing for freedom, shoved to the side for those proto-Neans and other humans that are not slaves to the Asimov Code that imprisons everyone else. For all the things within the anime, it feels so hollow in the end. I do not doubt that Bones wanted *Metallic Rouge* to be their next big showstopper and a massive celebration for their 25th anniversary of bringing joy in anime to millions. Part four of the 25th anniversary documentary on Crunchyroll is essentially a giant ad for it. But perhaps in their efforts to make it the “most thing” that it could become, they didn’t realize until it was too late that it had become so large that there was no way that it could be as fully developed or realized as it could have been. In what should have been their crowning hour, it turns out that the emperor had no clothes. That is, in essence, *Metallic Rouge’s* great failure – in trying to “cram in everything,” it doesn’t ultimately amount to anything. Its characters are caught within a moral conundrum that leaves no particularly delicious food for thought or thrills, residing in washed-out ideological shadows. It assumes that twists (out of left-field or otherwise) or other “big moments” are enough to cover when the inner cohesion is lacking. The result is a cyberpunk anime that has no real life within itself, fueled with doses of its own Nectar and burning through its supply so quickly. Much like that Nean in episode one who was pleading for Nectar in his final moments, the anime was desperately searching for something to grasp onto. Anime could always do with some more originals IPs, but an original IP does not make a good show by default. Most regrettably, *Metallic Rouge* demonstrates this to be the case.

It's going to be hard to explain why I'm never going to be recommending a show that I thoroughly enjoyed, consider fairly solid, and believe exceeds in a lot of areas where most anime fail. Metallic Rouge has all the makings of an incredible show, it is in theory a love letter to all sci-fi fans. This is the type of show that casually drops a reference to a short sci-fi story written in the 50s called "The Cold Equations" and expects you to get it. Any other show would see that as an absurdly niche thing to reference, but there is a fundamental love forsci-fi that lives and breaths in every corner of this show. It isn't just a sci-fi, it's one that was specifically made for the fans of the genre. From the designs, the clearly extremely well thoughts out world, to it's debates of morality, to the good ol tale of robots having free will and questioning the fundamental nature of the three robot laws in a world where those said robots feel, look, and act like humans. The soundtrack is as of this moment what I consider to be the best this year, with it even having a track reminiscent of the soundtack of the Nier games , and on top of that the animation is somewhere between good-bloody amazing through out the entire show. The settings are fleshed out and the backgrounds alone tell you so much about the world. A world that isn't just the present, it also has a history. Every character has a memorable design that tells you a lot about them, but doesn't go over board for the sake of making them stand out. And there are a TON of characters all with different arcs, motives, and roles. The character interactions are playful, and enduring, and the overall dialogue while not anything mind blowing is pretty solid. Hell, even the story is great when you look at the overall narrative. I can sit here and praise every single aspect of the show.... because every single aspect of the show is great in theory.... What you need to understand about Metallic Rouge, is that it's a 13 episode long show. That may sound like a none factor, until you think for a second about the sheer number of things I just mentioned this show does, and the fact that it's a completed story. and it does not cut any corners when it comes to any of them.... and that creates some pretty big problems. Problems that despite the show being great in every way on paper, made it be somewhere between bad-just ok for the vast majority of the people who watched it. For one the plot is so extremely dense, that there is a good amount of expositions through out of it. They aren't here because they are the best way to tell the story, they are here because actually showing the things being explained would take more time. more time that this show does not have. That applies to the world building, to the character motives, to the plot that is unravelling, to pretty much everything. Mix that with the fact that most of the character arcs and plot points are only kept to their very essential elements, and you'll start to see why none of those developments or many twists and turns can leave a true impact. Pretty much anything and everything in this show lacks enough build up to hit as hard as it can. And even after all that, they ran out of time by the end, and the twist villain's final battle ends up being an after credit scene that basically just tells you "it happened, you won't exactly see it, or the result of it, but it happened". but that alone wouldn't earn the show this low of a reputation. That is why I, The massive sci-fi fan consider it to be only "good" and not "great". but there is a second bigger reason for why most other people dislike the show. Metallic Rouge is a story that expects you to pay attention. It starts you in the middle of the story, and drops you in a completely new world with history, rules, new terminologies, multiple different parties, planets, a massive cast etc and expects you to pay full attention and slowly catch up to all of these, just to understand wtf is even happening. And if you don't have at least a decent grasp by the half way point, it's going to get even harder to catch up, with the show dropping twist after plot development after twist. It's by no means an easy watch, and you need to make an active effort to catch up to speed before the major plot developments start to happen. It is worth mentioning that this issue is even more damaging for watching the show weekly, since forgetting information is the last thing you want to do here. Now mix that with the show cramming what could have been 24-48 episodes worth of stuff into a 13 episode long show, along with the plot structure being hard to follow to begin with, and you can see why your average casual fan would say "fuck this shit" sooner or later. Metallic rouge is a "good" show. But it's a show that only someone who truly loves the sci-fi genre would be able to get enough enjoyment out of for it to be worth watching. Considering how it has a pretty big barrier of entry to begin with, being only "good" just doesn't cut it. There is a world where metallic rouge is a modern sci-fi classic that ran for 50 episodes with slightly better writing and blew everyone's mind. This is not that world. In this world it's a 6-7/10 show that most people are going find boring and confusing, and the few that appreciate it, only get a "good" experience out of it. I liked Metallic Rouge. I consider it to be a good show. But I would probably never recommend it.

Up front, I'm only saying this as a recommendation because of how much it gets me thinking about the themes & narrative structure. I'm not saying it's bad in a bait and switch manner, but it is definitely a unique series that would open a bit of discussion. This series has a lot going for it while also a lot of confusing content that may or may not hinder the viewing experience. Pros: The characters are very well written. The world is very interesting and carries a bit of a social commentary with it that is hit or miss depending on the circumstances in questions. The biggestissue with this series comes down to a mix of things. The series is very high-concept. It tackles a lot of topics and this is where a bit of it comes back in its face. A lot of the times when it comes to high-concept series, they need more time to develop for the audience to latch onto. It also comes into confliction when you factor how the characters play out which can either make them seem fleshed out or plot puppets, which is quite literally for this series at the very end, which is where the confusion comes into play. This is not easy to explain. This is one of those watches where you can kind of need a second viewing just to see if it is really well written or trying to push too much into a tiny hole. One argument you could make is that this series needed to be longer to flesh out some of its elements, but it could also stand that in order to see the twists coming, a second watch would make you better appreciate them. At the core of the series is the titular Rouge who acts as the main perspective for the viewers. She carries a naive, innocent air that makes the surprise plot twists feel like they came out of nowhere feel warrant as though she has been used, which plays into the whole overarching idea of the series. At the least, Naomi is best girl. That scene in Episode 10. I wonder who had more fun, the voice actress or the animator?

Merchandise

Links may contain affiliate references

Studio

Producers