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Tokiko "Key" Mima is a robot shaped like a pubescent girl who wants to become human. In a deathbed message, her "grandfather," a brilliant scientist, told her that the love of 30,000 friends could somehow change her into a human girl. Key leaves her small village for Tokyo to recruit the necessary friends. In the city, she encounters a slimy pornographer and his muscle-bound assistant. She's saved from their clutches by Sakura, a friend from junior high school, which sets a pattern. The alternately bitchy and loving Sakura, the dashing young Tataki, and Tamayo, a self-styled bodyguard from her native village, take turns rescuing Key. Her grandfather's ultimate creation, Key contains components that the sinister president of Ajo Heavy Industries needs to perfect his unreliable cyborgs. As the president's icy henchman stalks her, Key reveals she possesses superhuman strength, the ability to levitate, and the power to blow up Ajo warrior robots. These adventures are played against the search for 30,000 friends, which leads Key to a concert by rock star Miho (another cyborg controlled by Ajo) and a cult that worships a snake god. Key's waif-like appearance recalls Yasuomi Umetsu's "Presence" segment of the 1987 feature Robot Carnival, but her monotone voice and habit of referring to herself in the third person ("Key understands") quickly cloy. The tone of the adventures seesaws between wistful yearning and sinister violence. Unrated; graphic violence, nudity, profanity, and sexual situations are unsuitable for children. --Charles Solomon
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