Month: June 2019

Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episodes 5 and 6

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.

Key and Snake-eye sit in a temple
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.

Close-up of Miho in bed with breathing mask
Miho’s in a bad way.

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.

Sakura deactivates a robot by stabbing its eye
Sakura takes out a robot.

They need to do something about these machines so that damaging one optic sensor doesn’t deactivate the whole thing.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episodes 5 and 6”

‘Rag & Muffin’ Progress Update

My next book, Rag & Muffin, is coming along well. I didn’t make the goal (big surprise) I had of finishing it last weekend, mostly because some of the action sequences at the climax are in heavy need of rewriting.

The rooftop chase scene with the cannnibal cyborg only needed light rewriting, and the sword battle with the demon-possessed robot armed with giant chainsaw-scissors was mostly okay, as was the wire-fu knife fight—but the running gun battle with the robot soldiers of the Chinese mafia is a complete mess.

As some of you know, I was working on Rag & Muffin even before I wrote Jake and the Dynamo. The stories bear some similarities in that both are about fourteen-year-old boys tagging along after violent, superpowered girls, but Rag & Muffin is considerably more bloody and brutal, and less funny.

So what took me so dang long to get this ready to publish? There are several reasons including some I don’t divulge to strangers on the internet, but the least private reason is that I needed to develop and polish some writing skills before the book could even be in a condition to publish.

Now that I have one novel out and another off to the publisher and coming out in a few months, finishing Rag & Muffin feels easy. Yes, it needs some work, but finishing it is no longer the insurmountable difficulty it once appeared to be.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Revising
Due:5 years ago
75%

Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol’, Episode 4

Key: The Metal Idol, episode 4, “Access.” 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.

A harrowing episode, “Access” shows us what the show is capable of when it’s at its best. It can be a good thriller when it wants.

Let me get you up to speed and mention a few points I didn’t bother to discuss or got wrong in our essays previous. First, when Key went to Miho’s concert, she met up with Tataki, the guy who is close friends with Akane and also, apparently, president of Miho’s fan club. After Key prematurely ends the concert by killing Miho’s robot avatar, Key and Tataki wind up at a rooftop restaurant.

And we have to appreciate Tataki’s financial shrewdness here, taking Key to a restaurant: Key is undoubtedly a cheap date since she doesn’t eat.

Key and Tataki look on in panic
Key and Tataki.

Meanwhile, Sergei is hunting for Key. We now know that he’s the one who killed Key’s grandfather, and to find Key, he sends a robot after the sleazy photographer, Seiichi Tamari. First killing Tamari’s bodyguard, he confronts Tamari on a high tower that just happens—another unlikely coincidence—to overlook the rooftop restaurant where Key and Tataki are.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol’, Episode 4”

Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episodes 2 and 3

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.

Key holds a bouquet and lies on a park bench
Key being 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.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episodes 2 and 3”

Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episode 1

Key: The Metal Idol, episode 1, “Startup.” 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 Amazon Prime.

A bizarre OVA that appeared from 1994 to 1996, this is a series I have wanted to see for a long, long time. I noted some time back that it was out on Blu-Ray, but after that it fell off my radar.

In the meanwhile, it has appeared on streaming services. Amazon has added the English dub, but Crunchyroll has the Japanese original. I only discovered the sub while writing this post—so I watched the first episode in the dub, but will watch the Japanese version from now on.

It is a noirish version of Pinocchio, the story of a girl robot on a quest to become human—a quest that draws her into both an international conspiracy and the seedy underbelly of Japan’s idol industry.

Coming as it does from the early Nineties, when a lot of Japanese anime creators thought unintelligibility equaled depth and when both Blade Runner and Neuromancer were casting long shadows across Japanese pop culture, this show is famously weird. It’s weird perhaps most of all because of its mysterious director, Hiroaki Satō, who as far as I know has no other credits to his name. He crept onto the scene, made a competently directed anime skewering the world of Japanese idols, and then crept away again.

Key's new body
Key examines her new body.

I am really excited to finally watch this series, so I am going to review it one episode at a time. I have not seen it previously, so my comments here are off the cuff. Any criticisms I make come with the caveat that they may be satisfactorily answered by later episodes.

Continue reading “Review: ‘Key: The Metal Idol,’ Episode 1”

‘Pretty Cure’ Holds a World Record

This is kind of old, but it escaped my notice at the time. Apparently, the film Hug! Pretty Cure, Futari Wa Pretty Cure the Movie, now holds the Guinness World Record for most magical girl warriors in a single film, as reported on the Guinness site.

They accomplished this by stuffing every single Cure into the movie, a total of fifty-five. To acknowledge the record, Guinness arbitrarily required that each girl had to have dialogue and participate in combat.

This is such an oddball record, it’s unlikely that any other movie will beat it—unless it’s another Pretty Cure Film.

Update

In other news, I have decided I am going to make a more ambitious goal for the completion of the revision phase of Rag & Muffin. I believe it is possible to have it done by the end of this weekend.

I just finished revising chapter ten. There are twenty chapters. From here on, the book will need more work, but that’s still only five chapters a day.

Once I finish this, I can send it out the door to my editor and get to work on the research and outlining phase of Son of Hel, which I’m quite looking forward to.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Revising
Due:5 years ago
54%

‘Rag & Muffin’ Now Underway!

I am now revising the draft of Rag & Muffin, the next novel on my list. The early chapters need the least work, so it will go quickly for a while, but will become slower later on.

I’m giving myself two months to have a workable draft followed by a month each for editing and proofing. The final proofing will be after my editor sees it, so that self-appointed deadline will have to be flexible.

Anyway, a highly optimistic date for final proofing and submission will be about the beginning of November.

Rag & Muffin
Phase:Revising
Due:5 years ago
13%

‘Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites’ Submitted!

I have just finished the final edits (on my end) of Dead to Rites, the second volume of Jake and the Dynamo.

As usual, the process took me (embarrassingly) longer than I predicted. Although this phase was supposed to be just proofreading for final edits, I ended up deleting a scene, fixing some minor inconsistencies, shuffling a few other scenes around … you know how it goes.

Nonetheless, this book required less extensive reworking than the previous one did, which means I was able to dedicate most of this time to the nitty-gritty points of grammar and style—and that means a better experience for the reader.

If the publishing process is the same as last time, the galley will appear on my desk just once more, asking for my approval after it goes through a final round of someone else’s edits. Then my work on it is done.

I’m jumping from this straight into my next project, which is producing the final, submission-worthy draft of Rag & Muffin. I previously intended to work on my Christmas novel Son of Hel first, but after I realized how much research it will require, I decided to finalize this other novel that’s already written instead.

If things go as planned, I will have two books out this year and two out next year. That’s not exactly pulp speed, admittedly, but it is at least better than average.

Jake and the Dynamo: Dead to Rites
Phase:Proofing
100%

Roffles Lowell is also working on the illustrations. I couldn’t resist, in the header, showing this detail from one of the pictures he’s sent me (I will have to struggle to resist showing them all before the book is published). This is not the first time he’s drawn Dana Volt in her non-magical form, but I think it’s the first time he’s drawn her as such for a book illustration, and I love it.