Key the Metal Idol

Tokiko Mima, nicknamed "Key," is a 17-year-old girl living in the Japanese countryside who, despite her human-like appearance, is a robot. When Key's grandfather Dr. Murao Mima passes away, he leaves her a dying message, telling her that she can become a real girl if she is able to make thirty thousand friends. Thus, Key moves from the quiet Mamio Valley to the busy streets of Tokyo, where she soon runs into her childhood friend Sakura Kuriyagawa.

Key quickly becomes enamored with idol singer Miho Utsuse and wonders if becoming a singer will allow her to make the amount of friends needed for her to become human. But Miho carries a ominous secret: she is connected to Jinsaku Ajou, an old rival of Dr. Mima trying to make new a breakthrough in robotic weaponry. As Key works to become a real girl, Ajou sets a dangerous plan into action, and it turns out there's much more to Key than meets the eye.

[Written by MAL Rewrite]

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Background

Key the Metal Idol won the Packaged Work Award at the 1996 Animation Kobe Awards.

Episode Videos

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Characters & Voice Actors

Mima, Tokiko

Main

Iwao, Junko
Japanese

Kuriyagawa, Sakura

Main

Nagasawa, Miki
Japanese

Mima, Murao

Main

Kitamura, Kouichi
Japanese

Sergei

Supporting

Kosugi, Juurouta
Japanese

Tsurugi, Hikaru

Supporting

Miki, Shinichiro
Japanese

Ajou, Jinsaku

Supporting

Hayami, Show
Japanese

Tsukiyama

Supporting

Horimoto, Hitoshi
Japanese

Wakagi, Tomoyo

Supporting

Yanaka, Hiroshi
Japanese

Utsuse, Miho

Supporting

Shibahara, Chiyako
Japanese

Komoda, Aoi

Supporting

Ootsuka, Akio
Japanese

More staff

Staff

Sato, Hiroaki

Director, Episode Director, Storyboard, Original Creator, Screenplay

Fujiyama, Fusanobu

Sound Director

Watanabe, Takashi

Episode Director, Storyboard

Abe, Masashi

Episode Director

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Opening Theme

"In the Night" by Sario Kijima

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Ending Theme

	1: "Watashi ga Soba ni Iru" by Sario Kijima (eps 1-13)
	2: "Passenger" by Tamiya Terashima (eps 14)
	3: "Galaxy in my Hands" by Junko Iwao (eps 15)

Reviews

Mar 4, 2022

robddoo

Recommended

Is she, or isn't she?

Key: the Metal Idol is the story of a young girl, or more accurately a robot, named Mima Tokiko, or as most people refer to her, Key, in her quest to become "human". This mission is given to her by her Grandfather Doctor Mima on his deathbed, recorded on a tape as his last will with the simple instructions to "make 30,000 friends" and humanity will be hers. With such a vague explanation and so little restrictions given, how would you go about fulfilling this request? Attempt to make 30,000 individual friends? Maybe start a cult and gather 30,000 ... followers? Or would you possibly become an idol and gain 30,000 fans? It's with these dying words that Key is spurned on to move from her home in the quiet rural village of Mamio Valley to the city of Tokyo, searching for her humanity and unaware of the numerous trials awaiting her, as while she makes her way toward the city, a rival from her Grandfather's past who's enamored with the warfare potential of robotics, Ajo Jinsaku, sets a deadly plan in motion.

To quote one of the best scenes from the series itself, "It's still too early for spoilers", so I'm going to try avoid giving too many specific details on the plot, as I found that one line to encapsulate the series as a whole perfectly. The premise sounds unique yet simple, and I certainly haven't done it justice with my short description, but it's the type of anime that's best appreciated going in with a blank slate, and the increasingly cryptic story takes almost the full run of 15 episodes for all the mysteries to unravel and secrets to come to light. Huge comparisons can be drawn to well known and beloved series like Serial Experiments Lain and Boogiepop Phantom in terms of story-telling and cinematography, with Watanabe Takashi having worked on both the latter and this series, and while some people may find it a little ways off measuring up to either of those series, I believe it still manages to hold its own and cement itself as an original story with something to tell. Its the type of series where the more I thought about it after finishing it, the more I was recognizing recurring themes and ideas that were prevalent from start to finish, with more minor focus on some ideas such as the iron mask almost of all of us live behind, showing our best face to the world, while concealing our true one, and also the more majorly explored ideas such as man creating machine in his image as God created man, and the potential consequences, not to mention how great a cost that may come at, or the pursuit, and eventually obsession, with perfection and likewise what would be required of you and to what fate would you eventually be resigned. Arguably though, I would say the most obvious overarching theme is the commentary of Japan's idol culture as a whole, and the depiction of the idols as nothing more than puppets on strings that could be cut at any given time if they don't dance to their owner's tune is all over this series.

To comment on the animation, the series was released through the mid 90's, so a portion of the animation looks a little dated now and some character designs can be a tad bland, but there are several noticeably higher quality scenes, particularly the fight scenes, which are few and far between but when they appear, the word graphic isn't exactly apt, the violence is more-so simply brutal. Crowds always look detailed, costume design was good particularly for the idols and Sakura, and the majority of environments and backgrounds still have a touch of quality and are highly varied, but where it truly excels is in it's robots. Not only is each robot as a whole superbly designed, from the Terminator style mechs of Ajo Heavy Industries to the collection of oddities and prototypes designed by Doctor Mima, the close up shots and the deep delves into the inner-workings of these machines themselves, showing their ticking gears, firing pistons and swirling liquids are always mesmerizing when they burst onto the screen. Speaking of mesmerizing, the intro sequence; a perfectly ominous string of shots, alluding to events to come, and events long passed too. Key's gentle prancing down an endless checkered corridor, her exiting through a pool of liquid as her human exterior is washed away to reveal her cold, steel interior, and the night-time city depicted as massive, churning cogs, as it's shadow is cast down on a lonesome Key and she steps between each of the cogs spokes, very reminiscent of Steins;Gate's OP, are all so simple yet so eye-catching to see at the beginning of each episode, accompanied by a haunting and melancholic song of loneliness and wishing to be found, to connect. This show is chock full of simple to interpretive imagery right up to it's final moments, but even without trying to discern the messages within, you can easily appreciate how pretty the image is in itself regardless.

I did say that the show was lacking a little in character design, but the one stand out by far in terms of design is key herself, which is a bit of a double-edged sword. She's as robotic as they come, with the most deadpan expression and monotone voice you could imagine. Her hair is frizzy and bordering on grey, her skin is near-translucent and frame is excruciatingly thin, and her eyes are glassy and unwavering. She truly stands out as memorable visually, but like I said, it's a double-edged sword. She's so deadpan and robotic in every single scene that she ends up overshadowed by the majority of the other cast in terms of likability, but even when it comes to screen time, most of the other characters are put in the limelight far more often than Key to push the story forward. What does keep you interested in her as a character and her journey though, and the reason I put that question at the very top, is that you find out pretty early on... that nobody believes Key is a robot at all. Even though she's the very definition of a robot and introduces herself as a robot to anybody and everybody, even her best friend Sakura thinks she's just delusional. Everyone else would be forgiven for not believing her, since the general population believes robots to be no more than a concept in their world, and nobody is aware of who Key's Grandfather is either, except Sakura knows full well who he is, since she also grew up in Mamio Valley. The evidence for vastly outweighs the evidence against, yet Key is treated as a child with some form of trauma or potentially autism, despite clearly being more than a regular teenage girl. This is just one of the mysteries that keeps you embroiled in her character and the story as a whole, as you even start to doubt yourself as to whether or not the robot is a robot, or just a confused little girl.

When I saw this series was titled "the Metal Idol" and had the music tag, I was expecting a lot more songs than there actually was, but thankfully it turned out not to be such a bad thing, as the songs that were included were of exceptional quality. There was plenty of pretty good background music in each episode, but as for the main songs the highlights by far were Key's "Lullaby" by Shibahara Chiyako, Miho's "Memories of Sand", also by Shibara Chiyako, and my personal favourite, the OP mentioned above, "In The Night" by Kijima Sario. None of these three songs are at all what at least I would expect when I hear the term "idol music". They're tragic, heartfelt and beautifully sung, and to be honest I've had them playing on repeat constantly, even while writing this review, and I can still vividly recall each piece of the series they're attached to as they're playing. The sound design was pretty good over the course of the series in other aspects too, particularly again when it comes to the robotic aspect. Hearing the sound fade out as the gears crunching in Key's head get louder and louder, before they're abruptly cut off by a static crackle or a blast of steam being exerted always sounds so satisfying, and as each episode ends we're inevitably given another close up of Key's iron mask accompanied by the swelling, foreboding tones of the series ED, "I'm Standing By You" by Kijima Sario.

The only true issue I think I had with this series was the pacing. While I was thoroughly engaged in the story and everything it was bringing to the table, some episodes really did crawl by at a snails pace, with scene after scene of dialogue and very little of it being of real substance besides maybe adding more mystique, and the biggest criminal for this was episode 14. I'd have finished this series about three days ago and typed up my review, but for better and for worse, when I sat down to watch the final two episodes, I realised they're both an hour and 40 minutes long, each. While every other episode is the average 24~ minutes, the final two are about the length of a regular film. At first I was delighted to have so much extra content, but episode 14, to put it bluntly, is 100 minutes of exposition. No exaggeration, almost the entirety of it is split between two scenes, going back and forth, of characters laying out the entirety of the history, background, and the answers to near enough to every riddle laid out during the previous 13 episodes, and while it was incredibly informative and cohesive, it honestly came across as lazy to reveal so much in a gigantic info dump in the penultimate episode. The cohesion and how well every single dot was connected were what kept me sitting there for the entire duration, albeit a little annoyed, but the saving grace, when we've finally reached the climax of the series, is the explosive final moments of this second-to-last episode, leading into the finale. While I was more than a little wary going into the last episode, I enjoyed it to the point that I actually watched it twice, with a grand ending more fitting than I could have hoped for. Episodes 14 and 15 are like night and day, and while I understand the necessity for 14 to be dialogue heavy if they want to tie-up the copious amounts of plot-lines and give 15 the true ending it deserves, I can't forgive it for how much it dragged on, no matter how good the pay off.

I really didn't think my review would go on so long, but there was so much I wanted to talk about, and so much I loved, that even while trying not to go into plot developments I just kept typing and typing. I had initially even planned to give it a 7 upon first typing this up, but decided I'd re-watch the finale, rewrite this a tad and bump up the score to a well deserved 8. It can be slow and a little dated, but it's a series that has something to say, with solid art, and enough lurking in the shadows to keep you coming back for more each time. Severely underrated and not even 4,500 people have it completed.

It has to be at least 30,000.

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Nov 28, 2020

BlackFlamesMimi

Recommended

I'll have to say that anime pacing is a lot to go through. Some parts are jerky while some parts were well connected. Other than that, I will lie to say that I didn't thoroughly enjoy this anime.

The story: As seen in the description of the anime, it may seem like this is a generic anime about a robot girl just trying to be human again. However, this anime is more than that. What we see in the story is the main character, Key, is going through obstacles that test her emotions and mind of the state. This is also seen in the people around ...

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Mar 9, 2022

Linkped

Not Recommended

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 ...

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Poll: Key the Metal Idol Episode 14 Discussion RafaelDeJongh - May 16, 2014	20 replies	by Ryan_the_Bread »» Mar 19, 10:22 PM
Poll: Key the Metal Idol Episode 7 Discussion thisiodfkln - Jul 16, 2011	7 replies	by SilverCrono »» Sep 5, 2023 9:04 PM
Worth Watching? dustinator1991 - Jun 24, 2022	3 replies	by Itzmespooky »» Jun 15, 2023 7:27 AM
Poll: Key the Metal Idol Episode 10 Discussion thisiodfkln - Jul 18, 2011	6 replies	by Quintessence »» Apr 23, 2023 9:54 AM
Poll: Key the Metal Idol Episode 11 Discussion RafaelDeJongh - May 16, 2014	6 replies	by Unleashed_SM »» Jul 12, 2022 10:24 PM

Key the Metal Idol

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Characters & Voice Actors

Mima, Tokiko

Kuriyagawa, Sakura

Mima, Murao

Sergei

Tsurugi, Hikaru

Ajou, Jinsaku

Tsukiyama

Wakagi, Tomoyo

Utsuse, Miho

Komoda, Aoi

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Key the Metal Idol

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