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 looking down rogue Neans plotting to take over the world. Suppose replicants in Blade Runner. Nevertheless, as a substitute of reworking 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 take 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 House Battleship Yamato 2199) and options character designs by Toshihiro Kawamoto (character designer from Cowboy Bebop. Try 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 nicely” as a result of my first impression about Metallic Rouge was “spot on.”

“[However] Metallic Rouge is an unique work that’s primarily based on a very completely different world than something [else] that you just’ve seen, together with these different works that you just’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 appears 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 fundamental workers, 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 similar time Cowboy Bebop, that fashion was very closely influenced by the opinion of that director [Shinichiro Watanabe]. [Metallic Rouge] has a special director and can also be very completely different from [Cowboy Bebop] as nicely.”

Whereas it will be straightforward 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.

“In case you take a look at the promotional video clip, you’ll most likely 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, at the very least 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 fashionable and futuristic applied sciences have advanced, which is able to even contact on how in-universe sci-fi inventive works have impacted the world of Metallic Rouge.

Metallic Rouge is slated to launch in January 2024.

Kotaku is overlaying every little thing at Anime Expo 2023, together with massive bulletins at panels and unique one-on-one interviews with the trade’s greatest creators. Whether or not you’re a seasoned anime fan or a beginner, you may sustain with all issues Anime Expo 2023 right here.