Drive safely and enjoy your ride!
Milky☆Highway is a 3D Japanese animated short by Yohei Kameyama that was released in 2022 as a graduation project from art school.
Far away in the galaxy, there is an interplanetary road called Milky☆Highway. To kill time during a weekend, two friends, the Robot Girl Makina and cute alien Chiharu, decide to go for a drive, but what was supposed to be a fun little trip doesn't go as either of them planned.
The original short can be seen here
(without subtitles) on Kameyama's Youtube channel, as well as a version with English and Chinese subtitles. The song featured in the short, "Tokimeki★Meteor Strike" can also be heard on his channel as well.
Milky☆Highway contains the following tropes
- Arm Cannon: Of the hand variety. Makina sports a laser cannon in her left hand.
- Attack Drone: The police drone that chases the girls eventually pulls out a gun and fires at them. The gun is a revolver with a laser ball attached to the front.
- Big "WHAT?!": Chiharu gives out a big "Eeehhhhh?" when Makina tells her they have five hours until they reach the next planet.
- Cool Car: Makina drives what appears to be a classic car with large engines attached to the sides, allowing it to hover and move at high speeds.
- Cyberpunk: It does feature a troublesome robot girl driving a classic car out in space with a police drone on her tail, and with pop music playing no less.
- Disproportionate Retribution: How the girls react when the police drone that's chasing them pulls a gun on them.Chiharu: It's gonna shoot us!Makina: Seriously!?
- Downer Ending: The short ends with both girls having their mugshots taken.
- Epic Fail: The police drone chasing both girls fires at them when they don't stop, but each shot hits the barriers separating them.Chiharu and Makina: You suck!
- Gamer Chick: Makina complains that she could've been at home instead playing some Super Nintendo.
- Girlish Pigtails: Makina wears her hair in this style.
- Hot Pursuit: When Makina gets distracted and gets caught speeding, they're immediately pursued by a police drone. Instead of pulling over, Makina shifts into high gear and the chase pursues.
- Humanoid Aliens: Chiharu has magenta skin, long ears and antenna, but has normal arms and legs.
- Irony: Chiharu appears to be the more troublesome one at first, making Makina seem like the more mature one by comparison, but it's Makina's actions that end up getting them both arrested.
- Machine Monotone: Downplayed with Makina. She has a deep voice, sounds more deadpan and emotionless than anything, giving her something of a similar vibe. Not that it stops her from singing when one of her favorite songs comes on. Granted, she's not exactly in the best mood herself.
- Never My Fault: Despite the fact that it was her actions that got them into trouble, Makina blames Chiharu for everything that happened.Makina: I'm never going for a ride with you ever again, Chi.
- Punny Name: Makina's name is clearly based on the word "machine". In Spanish, "machina" is the word for machine.
- Robot Girl: Makina. She also carries something of an expressionless demeanor because of it, having Dreary Half-Lidded Eyes and speaks in a Machine Monotone for the most part. She'd also rather listen to the traffic report than listen to music.
- Theme Tune: "Tokimeki★Meteor Strike", which plays on the radio. Once it starts playing, the girls not only start singing to it, but much of the action matches the beat of the song. A chiptuned version plays over the credits.
- Those Two Girls: Makina and Chiharu are two friends who seem to be no stranger to trouble.
- TV Head Robot: Makina's entire face is a monitor and all of her facial features are completely digital. When Chihara asks her how much longer they have, her face briefly turns into an hourglass as she calculates the distance.
