Key: The Metal Idol. Written and directed by Hiroaki Satō. Produced by Shigehiro Suzuki and Atsushi Tanuma. Music by Tamiya Terashima. Studio Pierrot, 1994-1996. 13 episodes and 2 movies. Rated 16+.
Available on Crunchyroll.
This is an amazingly good show with haunting imagery, a brilliant story line, a satisfying conclusion, and one of the best soundtracks I’ve heard in an anime. It’s not perfect, and the need to rush what was supposed to be its final half was nearly a disaster, but in spite of that, Satō and his obviously very capable crew of animators managed to pull this off.
What’s most amazing to me about this, now that I’ve watched it, is that it’s not better known. It was overshadowed by other anime that came after it and that, in my humble opinion, were equally ambitious but not nearly as good—and certainly not nearly as intelligible. It is perhaps particularly astounding that they accomplished all that they did when the show was released specifically as an “experimental” title and sold extra-cheap. It was made with no faith that it could succeed.
Although it doesn’t look so strange nowadays when grimdark is the rule, we may guess some reasons why it was a risk at the time: Key takes some beloved tropes from Japanese culture head-on. It pulls apart Japan’s love of mecha and idols and robot girls. It deliberately makes all of these things look sick.
As a side note, for the teaser image of this post, I used what is probably the most iconic moment in Key: This image of her bursting nude from a robot’s body was reinterpreted in cover art and was subsequently reproduced in miniatures. This is basically an image of a young girl ripping a robot apart with her bare hands, an image that’s unquestionably striking and might have been stirring to its target audience of Nineties otaku.
Because this blog attempts to be halfway family-friendly, I had to clip the bottom part of the image; similarly, Pioneer had to censor the box art when releasing the original English dub:
The grand finale, a movie-length “episode,” begins with an impatience-creating build-up. First, it opens with some of the most bizarre imagery from the series displayed under an extended version of the opening theme song. Then the screen goes black for almost half a minute while tense music plays and the opening credits start. So it takes its sweet time getting going.
Once it’s finished playing around like that, though, it cranks into high gear and doesn’t let up until it’s done.
Having kidnapped Sakura, Ajo begins sucking gel out of her and releasing it on a regular basis to attract Key. Driven by her human side’s need for Sakura, Key assaults Ajo’s tower. With her magic power, and the help of Kagami and Tataki, she fights to get Sakura out.
Meanwhile, Ajo has plans for his massive stadium, the Megalodome, which which is actually an engine designed to suck out people’s souls. This is, apparently, why he has been financing idols in addition to building fighting robots: He plans to use the idols’ fans as a gel-generating machine. Miho’s pilot, who has been dying, is giving a final farewell concert that will attract 50,000 fans.
Key’s allies make plans to crash the concert in the hopes that Key will be able to absorb the fans’ energy and revert to her human self—and destroy Ajo’s engine in the process.
I see no reason to go into all the details. Likable characters die bloody deaths, bizarre things happen, and Key finally makes what we may call her debut.
And if you sit through until after the end credits, there is a final scene that is deeply satisfying.
On the whole, this is great. There are of course things that don’t get proper development, especially the crazy old man who talks to himself, who I mentioned previously: he ends up serving very little point except as an excuse for exposition. Ajo’s motivations are also somewhat unclear by the time it’s over, and there’s no denying that some of the choices he and his minions made, such as walking robots around in the street with trench coats on, are nothing short of stupid.
The whole reason for using idols is also not well explained, though there is a certain logic to it (as mentioned above) by the time it’s over.
Another thing that gets short shrift, unfortunately, is Key’s relationship with Akane. Key apparently sees Akane as a substitute for her dead mother; Key spends almost the entire first movie (“episode” 14) sleeping in Akane’s arms, and Akane even comments afterwards that Key had called her mother. Akane speaks at one point of what first drew her to Key, and Key in the final episode alludes to why Akane ran away to Tokyo, but this is a subplot that doesn’t get the attention it deserves. This is particularly unfortunate because Key’s love for Akane is the primary motivation for what she does during the climax.
However, this is in the end a show that manages to find a balance many other anime from the Nineties couldn’t find, the sweet spot between artsyness and unintelligibility.
There’s a lot of weird imagery in Key, but the show never falls into incoherence. Even during bizarre dream sequences, the viewer can always tell what’s going on. Most everything, with maybe a few minor exceptions, gets explained in the end. It’s definitely got some weird parts, and the ending is bittersweet, but this is a great anime series.
I’m surprised to hear myself say that because Key herself is a sort of character that, frankly, I usually hate, what TV Tropes calls the “Emotionless Girl,” a popular moe type that’s baffling to me. This is apparently a cultural barrier, as I’m made to understand it’s an extreme version of the “Yamato Nadeshiko,” but seriously, who wants to watch a girl walk around acting like a robot?
One answer to that question is, I do, at least if it’s Key. They handle the concept incredibly well here. She shows emotion exactly when she needs to, or else other characters are on hand to carry things when she can’t.
