Production
Metal Fighter Miku started as an idea by Nippon Victor producer Hiroyuki Birukawa. It was a first in many respects: the first series animator Takeshi Honda designed the characters for, Birukawa's first original project, studio J.C.Staff's first television production, and the series directorial debut of Akiyuki Shinbo. Prior to Shinbo's involvement, however, a separate director was attached who left during pre-production. With the original director gone, Birukawa had to find a replacement director; and having seen episode 74 of Yu Yu Hakusho, which Shinbo had storyboarded and directed, he invited Shinbo, who was already attached to storyboard an episode of the series, to direct the project instead. Up until that point, Shinbo had mainly been directing works at studio Pierrot, but he described the works of the studio as not being particularly otaku-oriented, which he found interest in through J.C.Staff's OVA projects. This, with the fact that there weren't many opportunities to direct a television production as a first-time director, led him to taking Birukawa's offer.
Though Birukawa had found interest in Shinbo's use of color, the director was troubled in directing Metal Fighter Miku as a first-time director. According to him, not only did he have to keep the work cohesive, but he had to find himself as a series director and how much of his own tastes he should put into the work. Furthermore, the initial director had led the project up to the storyboard order for the third episode, including having checked and corrected the storyboards themself; and with Shinbo taking over, this meant he had to check and correct storyboards that had already been checked, and weave them into the parts that he was to be in charge of from their beginnings. As such, his motivation was lowered by the fact that he would make so many storyboard corrections, and he felt as though it would've been better for him to direct all of the episodes as an episode director instead.
Nonetheless, Shinbo found motivation by the 11th episode of the series when he saw the work of director Naohito Takahashi and animation director Yuriko Chiba, which had surprised him. Having seen their work, Shinbo decided that he wouldn't "lose to" anyone, and used Takahashi and Chiba's episode as motivation for the final episode, which he storyboarded and directed himself. In Birukawa's opinion, the episode was produced perfectly.
