Key: The Metal Idol, episodes 2–3, “Cursor,” Parts 1 and 2. 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.
Critics of Key: The Metal Idol often complain that it is a slow-moving show, and they’re not wrong. We’re already three episodes in (episodes 2 and 3 are a two-parter, sort of), and the story line still hasn’t taken off. However, the visuals are arresting, and there are enough intriguing details that it doesn’t feel sluggish.
Sakura, the best friend Key improbably ran into while in Tokyo, has taken Key into her apartment. What brought Sakura to Tokyo in the first place, we aren’t told, but she survives there by working numerous part-time jobs. After an evening of pizza delivery, she works all night at a video rental.
The sleazy pornographer we met in the first episode comes after her, though less aggressively than the first episode’s cliffhanger implied he would. As it turns out, he not only photographs naked children in his bedroom, but also works for a corporation that produces music idols. He wants Sakura to sign on and is willing to harass her until she agrees. Although tempted by the money, she turns him down, and she has a male orbiter named Tataki with a knowledge of martial arts who’s able to drive the sleazeball off.
Synopsis
The same company that the creeper works for is apparently in the business of producing military robots. They have a new, experimental design that could allow a single soldier to control dozens of killing machines. We are introduced to a character named Sergei, who is a pilot of these robots.
For reasons unclear, his bosses are ordering him to release numerous of the machines, barely disguised in trench coats, into the Tokyo streets. This sounds like an incredibly bad idea all around, but we can hope there will be some rationale for this given later.
Meanwhile, Key has become fascinated with an idol named Miho—an idol who of course works for this same company. With her never-changing anxious facial expression, like someone just ate the ice cream she was saving, Key stares at Miho on the TV screen and has apparently already formulated the idea that becoming an idol may be the best way to get the 30,000 friends she needs to become human.
There are strong hints that Miho is herself a robot. Behind the scenes is a pilot apparently controlling her, and that pilot is either sickly or just extremely overworked, because she’s near collapse and tries to cancel a show, but the company pressures her into performing anyway.
Getting All Symbolic and Stuff
Key attends the show, and exactly what happens next isn’t exactly clear, though we can guess. Key brings with her a bouquet of flowers and appears to throw one of them like a dart, piercing Miho’s heart and causing her collapse. Most likely, the rose-throwing is symbolic rather than literal; what probably happened in this scene is that Key again manifested her power to either control robots or make them go haywire (it isn’t clear which).
Speaking of symbolism, there’s also something going on with Key’s hair color. It changes back and forth from silver to brown. Presumably, it’s brown—a more natural color—when she is behaving more human-like. It’s already been hinted that Key is not really a robot, though she clearly thinks she is. The color change likely represents the temporary weakening of whatever power or compulsion she’s under.
Although she’s likely human in some sense, she apparently doesn’t eat or sleep, at least in the normal fashion. In the third episode, we see a brief scene in which she attaches some gadget to her arm that appears to be reading her vital functions before dispensing a few pills that she swallows. This appears to be how she gets her sustenance.
Since Miho’s pilot is collapsing from exhaustion, Key’s ability to go without sleep might be a real advantage if she ever actually gets around to becoming an idol.
Conclusion
I’m definitely enjoying the series so far, but I also think it’s kind of try-hard. It wants very much to be artsy and edgy. The artsiness comes in the form of bizarre imagery that helps set the mood and so far is not impenetrable. The edginess, on the other hand, is mostly in the form of gratuitous nudity—requiring me to take back what I said previously about the absence of fan service—and occasional graphic violence. The violence mostly fits the show well, and some of the nudity does too, but some of it is apparently thrown in just because they could, such as an unnecessary scene of Sakura in the shower.
