Anime Review: METALLIC ROUGE episode 8 hits all the wrong notes

WARNING MAJOR SPOILERS for METALLIC ROUGE

Metallic Rouge Episode 8 recap “Nowhere House” (⭐️⭐️ out of ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️) 

Director: Masamitsu Abe
Writer: Noboru Takagi
Storyboard Artists: Masamitsu Abe, Yasushi Muraki

One of the frustrations of watching Metallic Rouge over the last seven episodes is the building and building of mysteries with little payoff. Creator Yutaka Izubuchi and his writing team seem content leaving the viewers dangling rather salivating for these answers.

A lot of questions finally get answered in episode 8 “Nowhere House” and the plot looks like it’s picking up. Unfortunately there’s a few missteps along the way to prevent this from being a really satisfying episode.

THIS IS MY HOLE!!

Last episode ended with Rouge escaping Ochrona and staying with Investigator Ash and Noid 262. There were any number of possibilities where this episode could go. However, if anyone thought Rouge, with her new friends, would meet up with Gene and walk into a basement, give yourself a chocolate bar. The basement houses a massive data library of Roy Junghardt’s memories.

This should be a big moment but is one of the big stumbles of this episode. Roy Junghardt has been more of a subplot than an actual character in this show. In fact, this is the first episode to even give something to do other than stand in the background. Now the audience is asked to care about what might be in his memories.

Rouge gets upset when his memories reveal that her “father” may have used her as data for an experiment. This reveal would have emotional impact except the audience has never seen Roy Junghardt do anything with Rouge. There’s no shared history with him or anything to give context to this anger. It ends up being an empty moment in the show.  

That said digging around Roy’s memories brings up one of his assistant, Dr. Eve Cristella revealed as the cocreator of Neans. Dr. Cristella laments the Asimov Code and how it robbed Neans of free will. Then she begins discussing Code Eve. Remember the phrase Code Eve mentioned by The Puppetmaster in episode 5? Finally Code Eve gets revealed as the means to eliminate the Asimov Code.

What are we going to do about the Neans?

The reveal of Code Eve and what it does is the episode’s most satisfying solution ties so beautifully into the themes of the show. So much of Metallic Rouge is about free will, about whether people make decisions for themselves and the fight for self determination. Code Eve being a means for the Neans self actualizing, and thankfully not being a savior character, gives the characters some much needed purpose.

This also brings up the most interesting discussion in the whole episode. If they find Code Eve, do they free the Neans from the Asimov Code? Rouge asks if it really is if the Neans can now make choices for themselves. Gene’s response is a surprisingly nuanced one. If the Neans had this freedom, would they know how to use it? Would the sudden introduction cause chaos? Gene isn’t against it but he’s in favor of slowly introducing it to the Nean population.

So where exactly is Code Eve? Remember all that talk about Ids? How when someone looks for the corpse of an Immortal Nine member they mention something called an Id? Code Eve has been spread out amongst the Alters or Proto-Neans. What exactly an Id is isn’t explained. More than likely it’s a memory core or the Nean equivalent of a brain. 

Again, the mention of Ids throughout the series were probably meant to be far more important. Instead, they’ve been such a throw away detail randomly mentioned in episodes. Again, another subplot answered in perfunctory manner without any weight to it. 

The Immortal Nine declare war

The rest of the episode is dedicated to an assault on Ochrona’s headquarters. Jill and the Immortal Nine show up to steal the Ids of their four dead comrades. We get a good look at the latest member Graufon, who to has gravity powers. He gets to use them in some pretty gnarly ways. Mr. Tyzik from Kids in the Hall would be proud. The Immortal Nine declare war on humanity.

Rouge confronts Jill declaring that she’s now dedicated to protecting both humans and Neans. This is meant to be a character defining moment, and Rouge’s American and Japanese voice actors Monica Flatley and Yume Miyamoto do their best, but Rouge has been such a non-entity in her show. The series that she stars in barely dedicated any real time in episodes to her developing a moral core or wrestling with her choices. A moment the audience should cheer for their lead is again one where they go “okay, that happened.”

The other issue in this fight, Jill decides that if Rouge won’t accept her generous offer to join her then going to have to kill Rouge for her id. Alright, killing her for her Id makes sense since the Immortal Nine know Code Eve lies in the Ids of the Proto-Neans. Except if Rouge had accepted their offer, how were they going to get her Id? At least, Rouge has the smarts to point out the flaw in this plan.  

In all of this fighting is the most pointless death on the show so far. If you had Noid 262 getting killed and Investigator Ash getting confronted with his hatred of Neans on your Metallic Rouge bingo card, give yourself another chocolate bar. Ash and Noid 262 have mostly been comic relief or a Greek chorus. Hanging a major emotional moment on two characters in such a predictable cliche is just another bad choice made in this episode.

This section of the episodes frustrates. It’s all action and screaming. A character with barely any impact on the story gets killed while another dies to expose another’s faults. With the revelations in the first half and then this all action section, this is disjointed storytelling. IMDB has Metallic Rouge listed for 12 episodes. This may not be reliable but if the show is only 12 episodes it might explain why this all feels so rushed and undercooked. 

This episode doesn’t really have an ending or even a cliffhanger. Eden, the Nean tomb raider from the Puppetmaster episodes, and Aes/Alice show up to save Rouge. Rouge’s sister Cyan gets introduced earlier in the episodes wanting to kill her for reasons. Then she shows up at the very end of the episode and looks ominously. It’s not an ending or even anything narratively satisfying. 

Metallic Rouge Episode 8: Conclusions

VERDICT: “Nowhere House” buckles down on the many flaws of Metallic Rouge. The answers to mysteries are plot oriented rather than character or thematically based. The reveals elicit with a shrugs instead of gasps. It feels like two different episodes smashed together to make one deeply unsatisfying episode. If the show is in nearing its conclusion, this episode is not a good sign.

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Metallic Rouge is currently streaming on Crunchyroll. New episodes air every Wednesday.