Anime Orbit is an irregular column where I summarize a stop along my journey through anime, manga, and the related spheres of popular culture over the past week.

Expect spoilers for covered material, where relevant.

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There are a lot of things that Metallic Rouge is not; it isn’t Serial Experiments Lain, it isn’t Ergo Proxy, etc.. But in its cyberpunk themes and non-linear storytelling, it has kinship with those anime and anime like them. This makes it rather unique in the present anime landscape, and it’s why I’ve been rooting so hard for the series despite not always being able to discern what it was trying to do with all its decidedly charged imagery and androids-as-minorities symbol politics.

Indeed, that’s been my sticking point with the show; pulling off actual, meaningful commentary on the contemporary political landscape is difficult, and most shows that try end up with their foots firmly in their mouths. For its first episode, I was willing to give it some grace. Since then, I’ve gone back and forth on how I feel about the series’ use of androids as a distinct social class. There’s a lot to be said about the show’s use of the charged imagery of police brutality and violence visited upon minorities, particularly people of color, how the characters being subjected to this imagery are androids that just look like people of color, and the bizarre worldbuilding choices that make this all the worse. The kindest possible interpretation—which many people will, understandably, not be inclined to take—is that this is a blunt-force tool wielded, somewhat clumsily, by a show that may have its heart in the right place but seems to not really understand entirely what it’s doing. (At the very least, Metallic Rouge seems to understand that things like police brutality and segregation are bad.) Thus, roughly, is my read on the series’ first four episodes.

Episode 5, though, is something else entirely, and I think if the series more solidly finds its footing, it will be off the strength of material like this rather than in political material that it seems unsure of how to handle. For episode 5, we largely (though not entirely) put aside the brewing conflicts in the series’ world. Instead, Rouge finds herself aboard a space-travelling circus, where she’s sedated by the decidedly creepy troupe leader, a character who identifies himself only as The Puppetmaster [Hiroshi Yanaka].

In his decidedly sketchy care, Rouge is plunged into the world of her own memories, and we’re treated to a warped, kaleidoscopic walk through her life story. Doing this instead of giving it to us straight is brilliant. It immediately makes this the most engaging episode of Metallic Rouge so far, and it gives us plausible room to doubt what we’re seeing. It gets us guessing. Are the strange visions Rouge witnesses reasonable reconstructions of actual events, symbolic codes that map to actual events, or just made up entirely, the result of the Puppetmaster rooting around in her mind, looking for the mysterious ‘Eve Code’, as he helpfully tells us he’s doing?

Memories of Rouge’s childhood—such as it was—blend together with conversations with her ‘brother’ Jean [Shunsuke Takeuchi], where vengeance is sworn upon the Nine Immortals who killed the pair’s father. Rouge’s first meeting with Sarah Fitzgerald is inextricably entangled with that of her death, of the blood on Rouge’s own hands. Gene plays a somber song on the piano; a bird drops from the sky into it and dies. A caterpillar crawls up the strut of the piano lid and morphs into a butterfly. People swap in and out freely, to Rouge’s apparent ignorance. The Puppetmaster looks on, trying to coerce what he needs out of Rouge’s subconscious mind.

It’s almost disappointing when the episode snaps back to reality later on, even though it means we get a pretty great fight scene involving a gothic lolita character who I really hope comes back.

It’s too late by then anyway, the Puppetmaster has what he wants, and Rouge cannot remember her ordeal when Naomi finds her again. Metallic Rouge may never get back here, but that it was here at all matters. Sitting alone in his throne room of sorts, the Puppetmaster says that Rouge will find him again when she’s truly free. We are left to wonder if such a thing is possible for Rouge. And here, at the end of what is easily Metallic Rouge’s best episode thus far, it flags in the wind, unanswered.

I don’t want to paint a picture where I say that Metallic Rouge‘s attempts at political commentary are worthless. They’re not, in a landscape where the bar is, unfortunately, often very low, even trying at all counts for something. But it’s definitely thin on the ground. I think what this episode delves into, a more psychological and personal approach to its characters, (along with some of the more genre-y sci fi stuff that I’ve not discussed here, which has been a strength of the series since its first episode) could really benefit the series in the long run as it approaches its halfway mark.

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