English Dub Review: Metallic Rouge “Target Planet”

Overview

Rouge, Naomi and the rest of the team finally arrive on Venus for the final showdown with Immortal Nine. However, they all get split up along the way there… 

Our Take

One last set-up episode for the finale… Is what I would assume if this was a normal show. Turns out there’s going to be 13 episodes instead of the usual 12. It amazes me how Metallic Rouge still manages to retain it’s funky pacing until the end. By all means this feels like this should be the penultimate episode. So the fact that there’s two more episodes left has me a little curious, but mostly cautious. 

As the episode’s mostly set up, there’s not much to talk about. The goal is to set all the players and pieces into place: Rouge and Naomi against Giallon (and obviously Silvia right after), Eden vs Grauphon, and Cyan being taken away by the puppetmaster, this unfortunately leaves Detective Ash on his own. He’s grown on me these past few eps– even if he doesn’t get much to do. In fact I was worried about the show being cruel enough to kill him off since he had a few close calls. At this point I’m rooting more for the old man compared to everyone else in the cast.

Cyan’s addition to the team still continues to confuse me. Last episode she talks about “a voice in her head” telling her what to do– which is revealed to be the puppetmaster this episode. Rouge tells her to fight back against those urges and focus more on what she wants as a person. This moment is supposed to show Rouge’s growth as a protector to others and as a “big sister,” straightforward and predictable, but cute. They throw that all away though for the sake of a cliffhanger where Cyan willingly gives herself up to the puppetmaster. Part of me wants to believe that she did it on purpose to backstab him later, and another part of me believes that I’m giving the show too much credit.

With next week being the true-penultimate episode, I’m still left wondering about what the show has to say overall. It’s been so wishy-washy with all of its concepts for the majority of its run. My worst fear is that it has nothing meaningful to say at all because the show could never fully decide what it wanted to be: A buddy-cop sci-fi? A moody cyberpunk story? Instead of coming off as diverse and eclectic, it just comes off as aimless and indecisive. Will these next two episodes finally tie everything together? I don’t know. I want it to though.