Prima Doll is an cross media franchise produced by KeyVisualArts with an anime series animated by Bibury Animation Studio, released in the summer of 2022. Set in the aftermath of a massive war, automata once built for war now find new roles in society, in particular a group of five automata known as autonomous mechanical dolls work together in a little cafe Café Kuronekotei, where a they serve up their customers with a smile and work to find their place in a new world of peace.
The anime series is licensed in North America by Sentai Filmworks and is streaming on HIDIVE. A series of kinetic novels were announced in 2022 and were intended to release between 2023 (for the first three parts) and 2024 (for the fourth part). However, with the exception of the first part, they were all pushed to 2024 and further, with the dates for the last two parts currently being unknown. The website for the kinetic novels (albeit written in Japanese) can be found here
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- Volume 1: Fuyuzora Hanabi/Sekka Monyou, released on April 28, 2023.
- Volume 2: Mumei Tenrei, scheduled for a May 31, 2024 release.
- Volume 3: Kouto Tantei.
- Volume 4: Encore, the final part.
This show provides examples of:
- Anachronism Stew: Set in a fictional country that's like Japan and adopts a lot of period aesthetics of the late 19th and early 20th century but with advanced enough robotics to emulate lifelike androids. The official website states that Inaba were made during the same time as gramophones were, and that they were very popular despite being much more expensive.
- Cute Clumsy Girl: Haizakura fits the bill to a T. She's certainly cute, and continually messes up even the most basic of tasks, much to Karasuba's exasperation.
- Cute Mute: Hokiboshi is first introduced as being mute, only able to communicate through writing on pads of paper. She eventually regains the ability to use her voice.
- Five-Man Band Concert: The dolls of the Kuronekotei not only serve customers with food and drink but they also sing together on stage.
- Misapplied Phlebotinum: These are all highly realistic, durable creations that all have a special linking ability to boot...who are running a cafe, out of all things. Subverted in that they were originally created for an entirely different job, and that these characteristics were invaluable for that.
- Missing Mom: Chiyo mentions her when she first meets Haizakura, her mother died.
- The Mole: Retzel starts off as one but joins the group.
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Zigzagged. The dolls eyes glow red when linking with other dolls and robots to give commands or see into their memory banks. When Haizakura is first introduced, she links to stop some war machines from rampaging through the city. Haikagura's eyes glow red when she reengages the war machines in the final episodes.
- Ridiculously Human Robot: The automata are all ridiculously human, and the only thing that sets them apart visually are their 'backpacks'. This also seperates them from the other robots that were used for the menial work during war. They are also shown to be able to eat anything a human can.
- Robot Girl: The dolls are stylized to look like cute young girls.
- Robot Soldier: The dolls themselves served in some capacity in the armed forces, either for recon, combat or simply as morale boosters. There's also the regular bots that were used in combat infantry.
- Rose-Haired Sweetie: Haizakura has pink hair and is as nice as can be.
- The Sixth Ranger: The later introduction of a new doll, Haikagura to the group. The episode following her introduction is is fittingly titled, A Momentary Sextet.
- Theme Naming: Most of the episode names refer to music in some way.
