The Missing Key

In a gloriously imagined 1920s world inhabited by people who have gramophones for heads, young composer Hero Wasabi has left Japan to study musical composition in Venice, accompanied by his oboe-playing cat Jacuzzi. Hero is a student of the terrifying Madame Zero at the Scuola di Musica, where his fellow students include the aristocratic Count Telefino, an unscrupulous telephone-head who is planning a campaign of dirty tricks to help him win the school's graduation prize, the Abacus Scroll. As Hero struggles to compose his graduation piece, Count Telefino employs the villainous Morso Codo to steal the music and destroy the instruments of potential rivals, but he doesn't bother with Hero Wasabi, thinking him no competition. Shortly before the Abacus Scroll concert, Count Telefino hears Hero's latest piece and realizes he must be dealt with. Morso Codo breaks into Hero's studio, steals his music and breaks his piano. Despondent at the loss of his score, Hero decides to return to Japan wi