Key the Metal Idol

Aired: 1994 - 1997

A cult OVA written and directed by Hiroaki Sato, released intermittently across 15 volumes beginning in December 1994, with animation by Studio Pierrot and production by Pony Canyon and Fuji TV. Seventeen-year-old Tokiko Mima, nicknamed Key, has been raised in a mountain village believing she is a robot. Following her grandfather's final words that collecting 30,000 friends will let her become human, she travels to Tokyo, reunites with a childhood friend and aims to debut as an idol, only to be drawn into mysterious incidents and a corporate conspiracy. Blending robots, idols, social satire and the occult into a distinctive vision, it became one of the decade's most unusual OVAs.