Key: The Metal Idol, episodes 5–6, “Scroll,” 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.
We are six episodes into the show, and young Key still hasn’t got down to the business of becoming a music idol, though she is apparently convinced that is her only chance of getting 30,000 friends. In this two-parter, however, she manages to become a literal idol when she is taken in by a snake cult.
Miho, or rather, the pilot who operates Miho, is in the hospital and is extremely sick after her encounter with Key. Nonetheless, Ajo insists that she will be forced to perform again shortly.
We begin to get more details about Ajo and his robots. The machines are powered by some kind of material called “gel,” which must be kept at very cold temperatures.
We have no real details at this point, but it’s apparent that piloting the robots is a painful experience, as Sergei appears to be in great pain when he does it and Miho is actually dying from it.
At the same time, the robots are hilariously vulnerable for machines built for war. Akane encounters one outside her apartment and destroys it by stabbing its eye. Another goes out of control, apparently because Key is having an emotional moment again, and begins strangling Sergei—so he too destroys it by breaking its eye.
They need to do something about these machines so that damaging one optic sensor doesn’t deactivate the whole thing.
Synopsis
A man with the unlikely name of Prince Snake-eye observed Key when she used her power to save Tamari. Snake-eye soon after finds Key at Akane’s apartment while Akane is out. Although Key at first tries to turn him away, he mentions having 30,000 followers throughout the country, so she goes with him.
A cult leader, Snake-eye is depicted as clownish yet sympathetic. Some years ago, he was bitten by a snake and had a vision of a figure he believes to be God. He went on from there to found the Church of the Wondrous Golden-Snake Savior. Although we in the audience are invited to suppose that he was likely hallucinating during this experience, he is apparently sincere. However, cowardice has now got him in over his head.
Two of his followers have a sick son, but they refused the boy medicine so his potentially treatable condition has become fatal. Although Snake-eye had never told his followers not to use modern medicine, he nonetheless failed to admonish them for this foolishness and instead told them he would bring them his first disciple, who has miraculous power. He then sought out Key in the hopes that she could cure the boy’s illness.
Key has no memory of what happened on the rooftop and does not know how to use her power deliberately. The encouragement of the members of the snake cult, however, activates her power again so she can take the boy’s illness—though she thereafter immediately begins vomiting blood.
The joy over the boy’s healing is short-lived because Sergei appears and begins shooting people. Wakagi, Key’s long-time protector, comes to her rescue, but Sergei overpowers him.
Discussion
The esoteric imagery gets ramped up in this two-parter. Not only do we have the snake cult, which is itself pretty weird, but we are treated to a bizarre flashback (?) in which Ajo sees one of the robots, frozen and covered in ice, lying on a tray as in a morgue. He exclaims that this robot is his “son” even though it clearly has a female figure. He grabs hold of its breasts and his fingers stick. When he pulls his hands away, blood splatters over the robot’s face, and it opens its eyes.
This appears to be a flashback to the creation of Miho, since this robot resembles Miho in appearance.
When she heals the boy at the temple, Key once again exhibits normal human emotion as she begins crying over the boy’s plight. Shortly after that, she again has a vision of the clearing and the shrine maiden who first appeared in episode 4.
