Key is first and foremost a very unique and rewarding experience. When youre first watching it you will probably be confused as hell you wont know if you missed something or if itll all make sense later Key makes no attempt at holding the viewers hand and honestly the only point I can dock from it is that it can be a biit too subtle at times which makes figuring out if X is what the show is trying to say hard. But by the time youre done with it and after giving it a few days to sink in Key proves itself to be a fantastic story about the naturalization of violence and misogyny about how lucky men have it that they can really easily avert their eyes to this and live on their lives and yet it also represents a great hope that theres enough good in even the worst persons except Ajou to eventually realize their wrongdoings and do the right thing Almost every character in Key represents some different version of welp thats just the status quo nothing you can do about it which only makes thinking about it all the more interesting First you have somebody like Tataki a wellmeaning but kinda stupid guy I think he represents the peak of Keys the shows hopefulness as once he learns everything that went on with Miho and the idol industry and everything he quit it Dr Mima is another character that stuck with me strongly he represents how not doing anything wrong by status quo standards can still result in people getting hurt. He takes his wife away from her family none of them complain she gets pregnant at 15 her daughter gets pregnant at 17 nobody minds this thats just how it is women can be turned into basically a currency and if you bash that idea into societys head enough everyone will just accept it Following on that idea Mimas daugher Tomiko while never explicitly stated I doubt she would have told her dad the truth about geist and his research if it wasnt for her moms death perhaps this is the moment where common sense and/or empathy takes over the accepted norms and makes someone rightfully go hey what the fuck are we doing But what happens when a victim just accepts their victimhood as natural? You get Beniko another side character that stuck with me greatly because she represents something equally as dangerous as a patriarchal society: The same society but with women that accept it as is. Beniko gets quite literally beaten to submission gets nigh lobotomized every time she has to operate the robot idol and just accepts it as is. Is the promise of fame and fortune great enough for one to accept being turned into an object? No of course not And about objects we also get Miho and the idol industry in general. Miho is quite literally an idol a loose idea of someone to obsess over with music attached to it. Ajou takes full advantage of this Mihos fans are happy just praising her the idol manager guy is just doing his job and is privileged enough to not have to think about it And finally we have the idol manager guy and the cult leader and the detective and the pimp and basically every man Key the girl interacted with. None of them upstanding citizens most of them just doing their jobs not having to worry about who their actions have hurt or are hurting either money of male privilege blinds them. And yet when push comes to shove and it is revealed just how horrible Ajous plan was they all end up teaming together And its this last bit that I consider crucial to Key the work as a whole. That slight hope that even if we live in a society where women have it infinitely worse than men where men can avert their eyes and live their entire lives in peace and where there 100 are men that profit in the suffering of women the average joe is stupid and not malicious and that it might take a little or it might take a lot but if you show them womens reality enough theyll try their best to correct themselves and other Im sorry if I came out a bit disjointed or badly worded in places. Key is an extremely interesting anomaly from the 90s and theres just so much to talk about it I get lost hell theres stuff I didnt even touch on like Tsurugi. If you havent watched Key and you watch it with the required respect and patience it demands/deserves you will not be disappointed