Throughout Anime Expo 2023, Studio Bones launched a brand-new trailer for its upcoming cyberpunk anime, Metallic Rouge. Its lush futuristic cityscape, in tandem with its ingenious cybernetic character design for its main protag, hopes to wow followers with an affinity for sturdy feminine leads with magical lady transformations.
Metallic Rouge follows Rouge, a Nean (android) lady tasked with searching down rogue Neans plotting to take over the world. Suppose replicants in Blade Runner. Nonetheless, as a substitute of remodeling right into a sailor scout like in different magical lady anime like Sailor Moon, Rouge transforms right into a cybernetic bug-like creature akin to the heroes within the cult-classic tokusatsu sequence, Kamen Rider, whereas battling her fellow Neans.
Not like its teaser trailer, which featured lush jazz music by Taisei Iwasaki (Blood Blockade Battlefront), its new trailer reveals off the lavish world Rouge inhabits, introduces her plucky human sidekick, Naomi, and offers followers a greater have a look at her cool cyberpunk magical lady transformation sequence. Metallic Rouge is directed by Motonobu Hori (Carole and Tuesday) and Yutaka Izubuchi (the mechanical designer of Cell Police Patlabor and director of Area Battleship Yamato 2199) and options character designs by Toshihiro Kawamoto (character designer from Cowboy Bebop. Take a look at the brand new trailer:
Chatting with Studio Bones about Metallic Rouge
In an Anime Expo interview, I spoke with Masahiko Minami, the president of Studio Bones, and character designer Kawamoto about what it was wish to work on Metallic Rouge because the studio celebrates its twenty fifth anniversary. When requested whether or not the present would really feel like a mix of Blade Runner meets Kamen Rider, Kawamoto responded saying my instincts have “served me properly” as a result of my first impression about Metallic Rouge was “spot on.”
“[However] Metallic Rouge is an authentic work that’s primarily based on a totally completely different world than something [else] that you simply’ve seen, together with these different works that you simply’ve simply talked about,” Kawamoto stated, including that he couldn’t disclose something extra concerning the anime’s story than what’s proven in its second trailer.
When designing the seems of Rouge and the remainder of the solid, Kawamoto stated he took into consideration the enter of Hori and Minami and the anime’s different foremost employees, whereas loosely basing them on a few of his previous initiatives.
“If we’re speaking about which of these [past projects Metallic Rouge] is leaning towards, I assume we will say that it’s type of leaning towards Cowboy Bebop,” Kawamoto stated. “However on the identical time Cowboy Bebop, that fashion was very closely influenced by the opinion of that director [Shinichiro Watanabe]. [Metallic Rouge] has a distinct director and can also be very completely different from [Cowboy Bebop] as properly.”
Whereas it might be simple to categorise the anime as a sci-fi present going off its futuristic aesthetic, Kawamoto stated he wasn’t going for a sci-fi really feel when designing the streetwear of Metallic Rouge’s characters.
“For those who have a look at the promotional video clip, you’ll in all probability see that the clothes that they’re utilizing is slightly bit extra of a contemporary informal really feel,” Kawamoto stated. “There was no intention to make it sci-fi-esque in fashion, you realize, a minimum of when it comes to the clothes. I imply, there’s nothing actually sci-fi-esque about that.”
Be that as it could, Minami says Metallic Rouge will sort out how humanity and its dependence on trendy and futuristic applied sciences have developed, which is able to even contact on how in-universe sci-fi artistic works have impacted the world of Metallic Rouge.
Metallic Rouge is slated to launch in January 2024.
Kotaku is masking all the pieces at Anime Expo 2023, together with huge bulletins at panels and unique one-on-one interviews with the business’s largest creators. Whether or not you’re a seasoned anime fan or a beginner, you may sustain with all issues Anime Expo 2023 right here.