I have heard very good things for quite some time about mangaka Inio Asano’s work – and I’ve also heard it’s tremendously bleak to the point of absolute nihilism, so for a while, I’ve been hesitant to read his stuff. When I learned his manga Dead Dead Demon’s DeDeDeDe Destruction (henceforth DeDeDeDe) was getting an anime adaptation and that it was one of his more… approachable works, I figured I would give the show a watch. The resulting show is interesting and messy – messy in some intentional ways, and some ways that may not be (and if those other ways are intentional it doesn’t reflect well on him).

Metallic Rouge is Studio Bones celebrating its 10th anniversary by going back to its routes with an original anime series, with an action show about a pair of ambiguously lesbian characters going on a journey – in this case a science fiction trip through various planets in the solar system, in the process uncovering several mysteries about the world. The problem is that the series, at 12 episodes, doesn’t quite have the time to really do justice to all the themes that they want to cover.

Spoilers below the cut.