Key the Metal Idol

To be frank, Key the Metal Idol isn't a great anime, nor does it get anywhere close. Conceptually speaking, it definitely had potential, but this would go largely unrealised. Given the fact that Key's final two episodes are each an hour and a half long, it's possible that scheduling and/or finances are the reason/s for this squandered potential.

Key's story is a fairly obvious criticism of the idol industry in Japan. As a Western viewer, it's hard to deconstruct this aspect of the story in any meaningful way since idols (in this context) are a cultural phenomenon exclusive to Japan. That being said, it is interesting ... in the way it depicts idols as robots/puppets, and how a human's life force is drained controlling these idols. Having the titular protagonist Key struggle with the ambiguity of her being either a human or a robot also gives at least some reason to watch through to the end. Her naïvety also leads her into some...interesting situations, to say the least. The tense moments towards the end, as well as the painfully long build-up, make the ending satisfying enough in the moment, but certainly not worth the slog that precedes it - especially episode 14, which just dumps a bunch of information on the viewer.

The characters are bland. They mainly act as a medium for the story - each serves their purpose, but you probably won't end up caring for any of them, even if the Japanese voice acting is decent. I doubt many people would get excited seeing any of these characters in another story, or as merchandise.

Whilst the art is OK, the animation is terrible. In almost every situation the bare minimum is done to make it watchable. At one point, they don't even bother to properly animate a group of people sitting down, they sort of just awkwardly fade downwards. A lot of people put this down to its age, but there were plenty of anime at the time that looked leagues better. Key is far below average. As expected, the exception to this is the opening, which looks cool, if a bit awkward at times. The ED is just credits on a black background. Unfortunately, these issues with the visuals are compounded by the poor DVD quality of the anime. Anime DVDs looked bad in the 90s. This isn't a problem for the more popular ones (see: Evangelion, Cowboy Bebop), since they got Blu-Ray releases. It's definitely a problem for Key, which didn't receive nearly enough attention to warrant a Blu-Ray version. The footage is jittery, a bit unclear, and the subtitles are a bright yellow, which would have helped legibility when watched on the CRT TVs it was designed for, but is a complete eyesore nowadays. (Oh, and I counted 11 typos/mistakes in the subs- but I'd be interested to see if anyone could find more.) Come to think of it, it's probably not a good sign when the part of an anime you feel the most strongly about is the visuals.

Sound-wise, it isn't anything to write home about. The opening song is good, but nothing else - not sound effect nor song - sticks out as good. Or bad, for that matter, so it at least doesn't actively harm the experience. That being said, I like how they used the full version of the opening song to start the final episode off, combined with footage from previous episodes - an early AMV of sorts.

Overall, Key the Metal Idol aimed fairly high, but ended up an unimpressive bore - one fated for obscurity.

I am making no exaggeration when I say that the best part of this anime is the intro. Absolutely beautiful singing, and the singer even has two versions, an English and Japanese one, if I'm not mistaken. The story starts off somewhat interesting and proceeds to fall off as it goes on. The art is good for when it was made, but no big deal now. Same with sound design. Most of the characters are one-note. If you really MUST watch this show, either stop after the 13th episode to maintain the mystery (if that's your thing) or only watch the intros. Better yet, just ... look it up on YouTube: In The Night Key by Kijima Sario.