Our story takes place in the grungy, noir-ish cityscape of Mars, where humans and robotic persons live side-by-side in a setting that simultaneously evokes 1920 and something more like what we’d imagine of 2420. If that doesn’t immediately catch your interest, you might not be the audience for this kind of Scifi.
Though, I will admit, the story in episode 1 here is pretty fragmentary. They seem to be doing the technique where they want to show something cool right at the start in order to hook audiences, at the cost of not doing critical setup for things like emotions and motivations at the immediate start. If they go back and fill in some of the blanks in the next couple of episodes, we’re gold, but for now everything is a bit disjointed. I will do my best to put it together here and see what I can do to fill in.
Our main character is Rouge. Rouge is a robot-type person (called a Nean), but unlike most Neans she is capable both of passing for human and assuming a badass mecha combat form. Rouge starts out working for and investigating a woman known as Sarah Fitzgerald, who Rouge’s handler Naomi suspects of secretly being one of the “Immortal Nine” known as Purgatory Viola.
On the other side, we have some crime intrigue surrounding an individual known as Jaron (depending on the localizer; the subs on CR use Giallon). Jaron is an eccentric over-the-top loon who uses a Joker as his calling card and lives up to it, and as of Episode 1 is my favorite character in this thing despite being our clear recurring antagonist. We see him hijack a shipment of (possibly smuggled) Nectar, a substance that demands a high price, that Neans need to live (a couple of grunts assassinate their Nean coworker by stealing his next dose) and that is supposedly a hell of a drug to authentic humans.
Eventually it’s revealed that Sarah is, in fact, the dangerous bot. Like Rouge, she can change her form, and uniquely (though possibly also like Rouge) she isn’t bound to the Three Laws logic that otherwise seems to apply to Neans.
For those who don’t know, “Asimov code” is briefly mentioned as a reason why Neans can’t threaten humans, an obvious reference to Isaac Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, core instructions that in Asimov’s stories are meant to prevent robots from acting out. The classic Three Laws are 1) A robot is not permitted to harm a human or by inaction allow a human to come to harm; 2) A robot must obey orders given to it by a human except where this conflicts with the first law; and 3) A robot must preserve its own existence except where this would conflict with the first two laws.
I get the feeling that if you don’t have at least enough Scifi background to recite that off the top of your head like I can, Metallic Rouge might not be particularly kind to you as a viewer. With that background knowledge, a single line does a lot of work to tell you about what kind of setting we’re in, as well as what the conflict between Sarah and Rouge ends up being about, what makes them (and Jaron and presumably the other Immortal Nine) special, and so on: it’s strongly implied that Sarah has killed people in the past, even if her present goal is to disappear from that life and just be a singer, and pretty much confirmed that Jaron can kill as much as he wants, so they’re not bound by the Three Laws and could thus probably be considered an existential threat to an integrated human/robot society built on the assumption that robots obey Three Laws logic.
But none of that is actually explained. Rouge and Sarah confront each other, Jaron (who has ties to Sarah) briefly shows up but then departs to let Sarah handle the fight seeing as the other baddies suspected her of betraying them. Sarah doesn’t understand why Rouge is trying to kill her and evidently rubbed out two of her comrades before the start of the show, and Rouge doesn’t do much to answer. She does win the fight, though, ripping some sort of core out of Sarah and presumably reducing our remaining “Immortal Nine” hit list to six for the rest of the show.
So, first impressions? This show looks awesome and sounds awesome and is an absolute love letter to classic Science Fiction both in terms of anime (it is Studio Bones’ 25th anniversary project after all) and western media, with a lot clearly owed to Blade Runner as well as to Asimov’s stories that get their direct reference. The animation is smooth, stylish, and traditionally beautiful. If there was significant use of CGI in this, it wasn’t obvious, and when you think of what CGI rigging does for mechanical designs, to the extent that it’s been expected to blend in for mechs for some years now, that’s pretty impressive. It’s clear that a lot of talent and a lot of effort went into this show, and the voices and music are on a high level as well.
What’s not is the writing. So far. I said at the start and I will emphasize again, I think they’re opening this way to get a strong hook, fighting one of the marks on Rouge’s hit list in episode 1 so that we can see the action straight away. But there’s a very limited window of tolerance for that. Mystery is nice, but we do need at least some basic motives. What are the Immortal Nine, or at least what do Rouge and Naomi think they are, and why is Rouge hunting them? We don’t need clear or true answers, but we do need a basic “Why do we care?” sort of answer and we need it sooner rather than later.
Assuming Metallic Rouge makes that point, though, it’s looking like it’s going to be a hell of a ride.