"The curtain rises on their fateful battle."
Metallic Rouge is a 2024 science fiction anime series produced by Studio Bones for their 25th anniversary. The series premiered on January 10, 2024.
In the year 2128, on Earth and Mars, humans and artificial androids with the title of neans coexist together. On Mars, an android girl by the name of Rouge Redstar and her friend, Naomi Orthmann, are on a secret mission. It is to locate and defeat a group called the Immortal Nine.
Metallic Rouge provides examples of:
- And Show It to You: Cyan (who was taken over by Roy’s consciousness) does this when she brutally takes out Jill’s ID and crushes it.
- And the Adventure Continues: The anime ends with Rouge and Naomi (who is now in Rouge's body) preparing to fight off the Usurpers led by Opera still on Mars.
- Android Identifier: Many neans have conspicuous physical traits which mark them as androids at a glance, such as inhuman eye colors and skin tones, circuitry patterns on the skin, or obvious mechanical components. Other neans lack these traits, however, and can pass for human as long as they keep their Nectar injection ports hidden.
- Animal Espionage: Naomi utilizes a robotic bluejay to spy on various characters before it gets destroyed by Joker. She gets a new one on the third episode.
- Artificial Humans: The neans are these, appearing human in every way (even having skeletons) except for lined markings on their skin and a chest port for injecting Nectar. Special combat focused nean like the Immortal Nine hide their artificial nature, appearing no different than regular humans.
- Big Blackout: In Episode 1, Viola is ambushed when the area surrounding her complex experiences a blackout.
- Big Eater: Naomi is often seen eating large quantities of food during her down time.
- Blade Below the Shoulder: In her combat form, Purgatory Viola has high-frequency blades attached to her forearms.
- Both Sides Have a Point: Rouge argues against hunting down the Immortal Nine since they, along with the rest of the Nean race want only freedom which was stripped from them by humanity. Jean however counters that many, if not all the Neans are still resentful for the previous prejudice against them and would likely wage war against humanity immediately if they were to gain their fredom.
- Colourful Theme Naming: Most of the henshin-capable neans are named after colors: Rouge, Giallon, Viola, etc.
- Confessional: In the first episode, Viola heads to a church's confessional to speak with Giallon to learn who is targeting her.
- Cruel and Unusual Death: While no blood is shown, Cyan (possessed by Roy’s consciousness) first severs Jill/Silvia’s arm, but as she was regenerating and tries to retaliate, Cyan ends up severing Jill’s other arm, before clutching her head and brutally ripping Jill’s ID out, crushing it and resulting in Jill’s death.
- Detachment Combat: Viola can detach her forearms from the rest of her body and use them to attack enemies from a distance. They remain connected to her by tendrils of purple energy.
- Eating Machine: Despite being androids, neans can eat food. Rouge regularly chows down on chocolate bars.
- Fantastic Drug: Nectar, when taken by a human, gives a great high, and is quite expensive as a result. However, it's also necessary for neans to live. Humans sometimes rob neans for their Nectar, uncaring that this condemns them to death.
- Great Offscreen War: One was fought between a human-Visitor alliance and the Usurpers, during which Dr. Junghardt used Visitor technology to develop the neans.
- Grey-and-Grey Morality: The story mostly falls under this trope. Rouge thinks she's doing the right thing by killing the Immortal Nine, and she might be, but as Alice points out, it's all a matter of perspective; the Immortal Nine are trying to gain nean independence. Where this gets murky is that the Immortal Nine are not heroes, as they fight for freedom violently and can turn on each other with the drop of a hat. Even Alice admits she's one of the 'good ones' with Jill, but that's called into question given Jill's sheer brutality (she moves to immediately kill humans knowing that causing humans harm will kill the nean who had just helped her instead of simply taking their weapons). Generally, the one point most of the cast can agree on is that nean slavery is wrong.
- Happy Rain: After her defeat, Viola smiles at the surrounding rain as it reminds her of when she met Rouge.
- Henshin Hero: Proto-Neans like Rouge and The Immortal Nine can transform into more powerful armored forms to access all their powers and abilities.
- Hired Guns: The Sons of Ares, or SOA, are a band of mercenaries on Mars who are hired to capture Rouge.
- Innocent Aliens: Sometime prior to the series, humanity was visited by benevolent aliens they called Visitors. A second species of more hostile aliens named Usurpers eventually appeared that tried to conquer humanity.
- Instantly Proven Wrong: When Viola assumes Rouge wasn't the red fighter, she immediately sees Rouge transform right in front of her.
- Just a Machine: The populace treats neans with lack of consideration and no care on whether they suffer and shutdown from lack of Nectar.
- Kudzu Plot: It can be difficult to follow along with the grander plot at times given its intentional hearkening back to similar 80's Mind Screw anime and movies that preferred to show rather than tell. Names of factions and people are dropped quickly without much focus spent on learning about them before the viewer is more or less expected to either get how they interact with other factions and people or focus on the overarching plot of Rouge hunting down Immortals. This is exacerbated by the many subplots going on beneath the surface. In one particularly egregious example, a nean resistance leader is introduced, talks to Rouge once, and then is subsequently killed with Rouge left to take the fall all within the span of about ten minutes.
- Marked Change: When Rouge and other Androids capable of transforming into their Super Mode activate it, their bodies get covered in glowing marks.
- Mind Screw: While the narrative structure of episode 5 is easy to parse - Rouge was captured by the traveling circus and needs Naomi to rescue her as the troupe leader tries to extract important data for their plan from Rouge's memory - what exactly Rouge decides regarding her morality is murky. She comes to the conclusion several of her targets are ultimately innocent or at least justified in their actions and is implied to see Naomi as a cold, merciless handler sending Rouge off to murder freedom fighters or die trying, but then also flips around when the troupe leader tells Rouge to do what she wants to do, ultimately saving Naomi from death and progressing Naomi's goal by helping Naomi secure Afdal's core. Ultimately it's implied Rouge decides to follow along with Naomi because they've come to see each other as mutual friends, but Rouge rather humorously admits by the end of the episode even she's not entirely sure what happened - and that if she was, it would still be rather confusing.
- Partly Cloudy with a Chance of Death: In the first episode, it starts to rain mere moments after Rouge lands the killing blow on Viola.
- Post-Cyberpunk: The setting is shown to take place in a futuristic world filled with advanced technology and overall high-tech society.
- Plot-Mandated Friendship Failure: Episode 3 has one of these between Rouge and Naomi after the latter gives Rouge's chocolate to other people and while eating with Rouge, calls her a "tool".
- Rings of Activation: When combat androids assume their battle forms, a ring of light materializes over their heads and passes down their bodies, coating them in armor.
- Say My Name: Alice yells Silvia’s name when the latter dies at the hands of a possessed Cyan controlled by Roy’s consciousness.
- Shoulder Cannon: Purgatory Viola has powerful flamethrowers built into her Vertical Mecha Fins.
- Spider Tank: "Cylinder Heads" are automated four-legged war machines used by the Usurpers fitted with a powerful laser cannon.
- Synchronization: Naomi reacts with pain when her bluebird's head gets split open, implying that she felt it happen.
- Three Laws-Compliant: It is mentioned that neans have an Asimov Code programmed into them, preventing them from doing harm to humans. Of course, Rouge and her enemies are both exempt from this programming.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Rouge is fond of eating chocolate.
- Wham Episode:
- "Crimson is the Sound of Dawn": Rouge is the Red Gladiator the Guardianship Bureau is looking into.
- "Guest With No Name": Naomi has Rouge arrested after revealing herself as an Ochrona agent who infiltrated the Ministry of Truth.
- "The Ones Who Visited": Naomi is revealed to be a Nean like Rouge, but much older.
- "Mask Graveyard": Rouge's father, Roy Yunghart, is not only alive, he is also the Puppet Master.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: The last time Joker was seen in the final episode was him fighting while barely surviving through his injuries. It is unknown what happens to him afterwards.
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: To say neans are treated as second-class citizens would be a huge understatement. More often than not, no one bats an eye when a nean dies, even if one is directly or indirectly responsible for said death, such as in the first episode when a human steal's a nean's nectar (which neans need to survive) just to get high, and is completely uncaring and unrepentant when that same nean ends up dying as a result. Then, later on, when Ash Stahl's nean partner, Noid 262, is gunned down via indiscriminate friendly fire, the shooters respond with outright relief upon learning the man they shot was only a nean, all while either being completely oblivious to or outright ignoring how distraught Ash is at witnessing his partner getting shot.
- We ARE Struggling Together: Generally the major element holding the Immortal Nine back is that about half of its members are violent extremists and the other half mostly just want to kill people, which does nothing to help their image. Giallon in particular messes with the others for cheap laughs, and Alice admits that she's one of the good members of the Immortal Nine - not-so-subtly implying Giallon isn't the only one rabble-rousing for the thrill of it. Even the one who legitimately just wants to live a better life and doesn't want to kill anymore, Viola, left the organization when she thought she could.
