Tuesday, May 18, 2010

The Japanese and Robots

Any one who’s spent much time reading through manga and watching anime will soon realize that, while the Japanese are fascinated by robots, their fascination has a different character from the Western sci-fi fear of the robot that becomes destructive through hyper-rationality, such as HAL in 2001. They’re more concerned about robots as social beings, a concern one find’s, for example, in Tezuka’s Astro Boy stories, many of which are, in effect, about civil rights for robots.

Frederik Schodt has written an informal history of Japanese robots, Inside the Robot Kingdom (Kodansha America 1990). He traces the story back to dolls and automata and then tells of how, for example, robots were treated in the early days of industrial robotics. A new robot would be welcomed to the production line by a blessing ceremony officiated by a Shinto priest.

The newest manifestation of this fascination is called I-Fairy, a four-foot high robot that officiates at weddings (stories here and here, but sure to check out some of the related stories linked to the right at both sites). I’m not sure whether this is a commentary on the capabilities of robots or the nature of fixed rituals, or both.

3 comments:

  1. If this is a heart of the justice whether the robot such as "Astro Boy" is kind to the heart that is a dream, and it knows a heart of the justice durability and that there were comics called "strong man 28" in the strong same times and handles it for many Japanese including me, these two robots which I cause damage to I do a bad thing if I act and handle it for a heart of opening and and it sometimes breaks down of the justice are robots with the property to disagree with comics in the same time while it is it
     

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  2. Thanks for the comment. "To the heart that is a dream" -- I like that.

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