japanese robopophilia

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eon rdo

A Brief History of Japanese RobophiliaAuthor(s): Mark GilsonSource: Leonardo, Vol. 31, No. 5, Sixth Annual New York Digital Salon (1998), pp. 367-369Published by: The MIT PressStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1576597

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2/4

r i e f

i s t o r y

o

apanese

obophilia

Mark

Gilson

Abstract

Theauthor

discusses

the

particular

enchant

owards

robots

exhibited

by

the

Japanese

and

attempts

to

explain

he

origins

of

this

phenomenon

hrough

an analysisof Japanesepopculturecharacters.

There

was

a

time when

people

believed that

by

1998

the

world

would

be

overrun

by

robots,

not unlike the

classic

195os

vision of the

future

wherein

we all

rode in

flying

cars to our

cities

in

the

skies,

where

our robot

servants

attended to our

every

need.

In

fact,

the

advancementof robots and

robotics

has

been

a

rather

quiet

affair,

outshined

in

recent

years

by

cloned

sheep

and the

like.

In

the

age

of

the

Internet,

technology

has

become a

provider

of what is

nowadays

called

content,

and

desktop

computers

are an

important

facet of

mass

media.

The

technological

threat is

gone,

and

with it the

fear

of the metal

men.

The word

'robot'

has taken

on

a

completely

different

meaning

in the

1990S,

and these

days,

everyone

would rather

have a

node

on

the

network

than a

robot butler.

This is not

a

universal

sentiment,

however. One

nation has

slowly

but

surely

been

integrating

robots

into

daily

life,

both in

the

open

and

behind the

scenes. In contrast

to

the

West,

Japan

has

always

exhibited

a

unique

form of

what

can be

describedas

robophilia. Japanese

roboticist Ichiro

Kato has

enthusiastically

stated that Japanese obot technology will changethe world [1].

The roots of this

robophilia

are

part

of a

larger

philosophy

in

regard

to

technology

that

developed

along

with

postwarJapan

to

make

it

the

power

it

is

today.

In

World War

II,

Japan

experi-

enced

firsthand the

devastating power

of

modern

technology

in

the form

of

the

atomic

bomb.

In

postwar

Japan, technology

would become

Japan's

savior. The

noted

expert

on

Japanese

cul-

ture Karl

Taro

Greenfeld

describes

Tokyo

as a

society

in

sym-

biosis with the

machine.

Exactly

where

human

beings

end and

machines

begin

can

become

confusing

in

a

city

that

resembles

more

than

any

other

city

on

the

planet

a

neon-lit circuit

board

writ

gigantic

[2].

Most

people's imagery

of

robots comes

from the

world of

fantasy.

Ask

some

friends to

draw their

conception

of a

robot,

and most will draw

you

the classic metal man, and not the

industrial

riveting

arm

from

the Detroit

auto

factory.

As

of

yet,

our

strongest

images

of robots

are

derived from these

represen-

tations. It

should come

as no

surprise

that with

the birth of

the

Japanese

comics

industry

in the

195os,

the

first hero

it

spawned

was a robot.

Mighty

Atom

[3]

would later be

known

as

Astroboy

in the

United

States,

while in

Japan,

his

notoriety

would

gain

his

creator

Osamu

Tezuka

the title

of

manga

no

kamisama;

he

god

of

comics.

Atom's

appeal

lies in his

humanity,

even

though

he is a

robot.

In a

way,

his

story

is like that

of

Pinocchio,

built to

be a

replacement

for the

son lost

by

his creator in

a

traffic

accident.

So

right

away,

Japan's

image

of robots

was

a

nurturing

one.

Atom

was

Japan's

son.

It's not

unthinkable that

many

Japanese

who lost

sons to the

war

effort could

relate

very

personally

to

the

concept

behind Atom.

(As

I

write

this,

the

verbal

similarity

in

English

between

Atom

and

Adam

also

becomes

appar-

ent.)

Tezuka

was a

medical

student who

originally

ntended for

Atom

to be a sort

of

parody,

but he

recalls that

publishers

wanted me to

stress a

peaceful

future,

where

Japanese

science

and

technology

were

advanced,

and nuclear

power

was used

for

peaceful

purposes [4].

Author

Frederick

Schodt,

arguably

the

foremost

expert

on

the

topic

of

Japanese

comics,

notes that

over the years,Atom and robots became linked with a wonder-

ful

future

that science

and

technology

could

provide [5].

An

important part

of

Atom's character

development

was

his

weaknesses.

His

powers

were to some

extent

based on

principles

of

hydraulics

and

electromagnetics.

Schematics

of his

internal

Mark

Gilson,

3

Stuyvesant

Oval

#sF,

New

York,

NY

10009,

U.S.A.

Email:

[email protected].

LEONARDO,

Vol.

31,

No.

5,

pp.

367-369, 1998

367

1998

Mark

Gilson,

received

I

May

1998

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3/4

circuitry

were

published,

and it

was not at

all

unusual

for

Atom to

require repairs

at

some

point during

his adventures

[6].

As the father

of

Japanese

comics,

Tezuka set

the

trend that would be fol-

lowed

by many

others. Tezuka's success

was soon

followed

by

the

debut of Iron

Man #28

[7],

by

artist

Mitsuteru

Yokoya-

ma.

Iron

Man #28

occupies

an

interesting

niche in the development of the Japanese

fantasy

robot.

He

was

essentially

a

giant

remote-controlled robot

piloted by

Shotaro

Kinta

against

various nefarious

types.

Schodt

makes the

interesting

obser-

vation

that Atom and Iron Man are the

ancestors

of all

subsequent Japanese

fan-

tasy

robots,

particularly

wo distinct

gen-

res

seen

today: truly

autonomous robots

and

those that

require

human intervention

for their

operation

[8].

Could

Iron

Man

#28

have

influenced the

Japanese pen-

chant for

gadgets?

I wouldn't be sur-

prised.

It is also

interesting

to

note that

within

the

genres

of comics and

anima-

tion,

colossal

super-robots

such

as Iron

Man

would

soon become

the

norm.

The

next

big

robot

icon to

sweep

Japan

was

Doraemon

[9],

created

in

1970

by

the team

known

as

Fujiko Fujio.

Doraemon

is a robot cat sent

from the

future to watch over

a

boy

named Nobi-

ta.

Doraemon worked

on

many

subtle

levels.

Nobita

is a classic slacker

whose

laziness

winds

up

causing

all sorts of

trouble

for his descendants.

Doraemon

was

sent

from the

future to set

him

straight,

as

it were. The

Japanese

verb

nobirumeans

to

do

things

in a lackadaisi-

cal manner. The

past

tense

of this verb

is

nobita,

the

same

as our

protagonist's

name.

There is a distinct

undercurrent

visible

in

Doraemon:

technology

from the

future comes

back

in time to ensure

our

hero's

well-being-

the

idea

of technolo-

gy as savior.

Another

extremely important ingredi-

ent of Doraemon's

success was his

char-

acter

design.

He

very

well

may

have been

the first

character

designed

in

a

style

that

would

come to be known

in

the

genre

as

super-deformed

or SD. Doraemon

has a

perfectly

round head

disproportion-

ately

large

in

comparison

to the rest of

his

small,

soft-edged

limbs and

body.

This

is a formula that

the Sanrio

company

would

later

turn

into a literal merchandis-

ing empire

with

the

1976

debut of

the

adorable iconic cat character

Hello

Kitty

[lo].

The formula

worked,

and

Doraemon

is

still

an icon

in

Japan.

It is

interesting

to consider how Dorae-

mon's success

came

to be. He

is

called

a

robot cat but

actually

looks like neither

robot nor

cat-

making

him a

universal,

neutral icon. He has incrediblepowers, all

based on

technology

from the future

(most

notably

the

doko de

mo

doa,

a door-

way

that leads to

anywhere

you

want

to

go).

Whereas Atom

is

essentially

a model

superhuman,

Doraemon is closer to

a

superpet,

a cute

bearer of the

technologi-

cal

wonders

of

the future. In recent

years,

Japan

(and

later

America)

was

swept

with

a

fad

known

as

the

virtual

pet.

These

small

devices fall somewhere

between

a

toy

and

a

game

and

are about

the size of

a

digital

watch. Players hatch a sort of

digital embryo

(not

unlike a

tadpole)

which

they

must

then raise to

adulthood

and

keep

alive

through

functions such as

cleaning, feeding, discipline,

and

play.

The most

famous of these

virtual

pets,

the Bandai

company's

Tamagotchi

(the

name is a

play

on the

Japanese

tamago,

meaning egg)

was a

phenomenal

success

and took

many by surprise,

so

that

sup-

plies

were

quickly

unable

to

meet

demand.

Looking

at

characters

such as

Doraemon, however,

we can

clearly

see

the roots

of the

Tamagotchi phe-

nomenon.

Japan

has had

an

endearing

attitude

towards cute

technological

crea-

tures for close

to

thirty years

[11].

The

1970S

also saw the birth

of a

completely

new

concept

in

fantasy

robots

pioneered

by

artists such

as Go

Nagai.

Says

Nagai,

I

wanted

to create some-

thing

different,

and

I

thought

it

would

be

interesting

to have

a

robot

that

you

could

drive, like a car

[12].

He did just that

with

the

creation

of

Mazinger

Z

[13],

a

giant

robot that was

piloted

by

means

of

a small

flying

car and command

center

that docked inside the head.

Nagai's

cre-

ations

(most notably

Mazinger

Z)

are

today

considered to be

the classic

Japanese super-robots.

Rendered

in

bright

primary

colors,

and

styled

somewhere

between

military

equipment

and samurai

armor

(to

this

day,

almost

all

Japanese

fantasy

robots

carry

some kind of

sword),

Mazinger

Z is an

archetype

for the fanta-

sy

robot.

Nagai's

creation

subsequently

touched

on an

issue that is

still

the sub-

ject

of

research,

the

concept

of

the

inter-

face between

robot

and

human. Schodt

notes that

Mazinger

Z and

its successors

served to

solve

an

old

problem

in

robot

fiction,

the

problem

of

personifying

the

machine [14].

Nagai's

robots were

successes in comic

and later

in

animated form but went on

to

develop

into

a

form that

undoubtedly

had a

phenomenal

impact

on the

youth

of

Japan: toys.

With

attributes such

as

fists

that shot off and miniature

ships

that

docked

in the

robots

themselves,

Nagai's

creations translated

perfectly

into

toys.

In

fact,

at the

request

of

toymakers, Nagai

would later create

Combattara

[15],

the

first robot that was

made of smallercom-

ponent robots and the predecessor of all

the

transforming

robot

toys

that

swept

through Japan

and America

in the

198os

[16].

More

importantly,

Nagai's

robots

became

not

only

heroes but

playthings.

A

generation

of

Japanese

children

was liter-

ally

brought up

playing

with

robots.

The next

development,

and

arguably

the one with

the

most

profound

impact

on the

genre

of

Japanese

fantasy

robots,

came

in

1979

when

Nippon

Sunrise ani-

mation aired

Mobile Suit

Gundam

[17].

Gundam was

the creation

of

Yoshiyuki

Tomino,

who

took a

radically

different

approach

to

the

super-robot

standard.

Whereas

in the

Mazinger

Z series the

robot

is the central focus of the

story,

Tomino

placed

his

focus

on

characteriza-

tion. As

the name

implies,

the

robots

are

in fact

giant

mobile

suits

of armor

(like

a

humanoid

tank),

bearing

only

classifica-

tions and

not names. The

focus

was

on

the

struggles

between

colonies

in

outer

space. Mobile Suit Gundam was a war

story,

and

it

targeted

the

blurring

of the

lines between

good

and evil

and the

effects

of

war

on the

people

who

fight.

Additionally,

Mobile Suit

Gundam takes

place

in

deep

space,

allowing

for fantastic

epic

battle

scenes.

Gundam's

popularity

and effect

on

robot

ideology

can

not

be stressed

enough.

The

original

show was a

phe-

nomenon

in

Japan,

and

spawned

a fran-

368 Mark Gilson, A Brief History of Japanese Robophilia



4/4

chise that is

still

going strong.

What Star

Wars is to American

twentysomethings,

Gundam is

to

Japanese

of

the same

age,

in

popularity, mpact

on

culture,

and mer-

chandising.

It is

considered

one

of

the

three

greatest

animated shows

in

Japanese

history

( Space

Cruiser

Yamato and

Neon

Genesis

Evangelion ,

the latter

another

program featuring

robots,

are the

other

two).

In

fact, Bandai,

the

company

that

owns

the master license

for Gundam

merchandise,

made

so

much

money

from

it over the

years

that

they actually pur-

chased

Nippon

Sunrise animation

outright

and ensured that the

Gundam franchise

would continue

for

years

to

come.

Today,

Japan's robophilia

has extended

into

multiple applications

that

technology

has

allowed for.

There was

the aforemen-

tioned

Tamagotchi

craze,

which,

like

transforming

robots,

was

a hit

in

the

United States. Then there are the new

robots,

telepresences

like

the virtual idol

Kyoko

Date

[18].

Virtual idols

have

been

a

part

of

Japanese

animation

since at least

1986,

which

saw

the introduction

of the

characterof Eve

in the

original

video ani-

mation

(OVA) Megagone

3,

and Eve

has

since

been followed

by

characters such

as

Sharon

Apple

from

1994's

Macross

Plus

OVA.

Curiously,

both

Eve and Sharon

Apple's

characters

were idol

singers, just

like

Kyoko

Date.

Modern

young Japanese

are

growing up

in

an

age

in

which

cellular

phones

are considered

a

necessity

and are

surrounded with

tech-friendly

names

such as

Game

Boy,

DiscMan,

and

PlayStation.

Even within

the realm

of

consumer

electronics,

there is

an almost

anthropomorphic

quality

inherent

in

Japan's

small,

elegant

gadgets.

Looking

at

the

history

of

Japanese

fan-

tasy

robots,

we can

see where this sense

of

ease with

technology

has

its roots.

Robots were

accepted

in

general

as the

tools

to

rebuild

postwar Japan.

Fantasy

robots

have

served

to

represent

technolo-

gy

in

nearly

every

form

in

which it

could

present

itself

to

Japan.

Robots can be

humanoid,

like

Atom,

or a watchful

superpet

like Doraemon. Combattara and

Mazinger

Z

represent components,

expandability,

and the user-machine inter-

face.

Gundam

represents

robots as

weapons,

and shows such

as the

popular

Evangelion

from

1996

have

pushed

the

concept

even

further,

as the robots from

that

particular

series are hinted as

having

divine

origins

and

are revealed

to

be

bio-

logically

as well as

mechanically

derived.

Where will the

future

concepts

in

robotics

come

from?

Keep

watching

the

cartoons.

References

nd

Notes

1. Frederick

L.

Schodt,

Inside he

Robot

Kingdom:

Japan,

Mechatronics

nd the

Coming

Robotopia

(New

York: Kodansha

International,

988)

p.

13.

For more

information about

Japanese super-

robots,

see also

Bandai's

/iew

Broadly:

he

Super-

Robot

Super

Book

(Tokyo:

Bandai

Company

Media

Works,

1997).

2.

Karl

Taro

Greenfeld,

Speed

Tribes:

Days

and

Nights

with

apan's

Next Generation

New

York:

Harper

Collins,

1994)

p.

17.

3.

Osamu

Tezuka,

Mighty

Atom

(Tetsuwan

Atomu),

Tezuka

Productions,

1951.

Images

of

Mighty

Atom can

be found on the Web

at

www.tezuka.co.jp.

4.

Schodt

[1]

p.

76.

5.

Schodt

[1]

p.

76.

6.

Schodt

[1]

p.

76.

7.

Mitsuteru

Yokoyama,

Iron Man

#28

(Tetsu-

jin

#28),

Mitsuteru

Yokoyama/Eiken,

1956.

8. Schodt

[1]

p.

79.

9.

Fujiko/Fujio,

Doraemon,

Fujiko

Pro,

1970.

Images

of

Doraemon can

be

found on the

Web

at

www.kyoto-su.ac.jp/information/famous/

doraemon.html.

lo. Hello

Kitty

was created in

1974 by

Sanrio.

More on Hello

Kitty

can be found on

the Web at

the

company's

home

page,

www.sanrio.com.

11.

Schodt

[1]p.

80.

12.

Schodt

[1]

p.

83.

13.

Go

Nagai, Mazinger

Z,

Dynamic

Plan-

ning/Fuji

Television/Toei

Films,1972.

Images

of

Mazinger Z can be found on the Web at

www.sfwj.or.jp/member/NAGAI-GO.e.html

(home

page

of the

Science Fiction Writers of

Japan).

14.

Schodt

[1]

p.

83.

15.

Go

Nagai,

Combattara

,

Toei

Films,

1976.

16. Schodt

[1]

pp.

84-86.

17. Yoshiyuki

Tomino,

Mobile Suit

Gundam,

Kuratsu

Agency/Nippon

Sunrise,

1979.

Models

of the

classic

Mobile Suit

Gundam can be

found

on the

Web

at

www.pluto.dti.ne.jp/-hanaoka/

gundam.htm.

18. Matthieu

Dumas,

Kyoko

Date Info

Page,

on the

Web

at

www.etud.insa-tse.fr/-mdumas/

kyoko.html.

Mark Gilson is

a

graphic

designer

from

New

York

City.

His

particular

strain of

Japanophilia

began

in

his

early years

with

the

king

of the

monsters,

Godzilla,

and

eventually

led

him

to obtain

an

under-

graduate

degree

in

Japanese

language

and

literature from Connecticut

College.

His

favorite books are Haruki Murakami's

Hardboiled

Wonderland nd the

End

of

the

Worldand Scott McCloud's

Understanding

Comics,

both of which

he

highly

recom-

mends. After a

stopover

at Parsons

School

of

Design,

he

is

currentlyworking

towards

his master's

degree

in

computer

art

from

the School

of

Visual

Arts.

Currently,

he is obsessed with

Japanese

professional

wrestling.

Mark Gilson,A Brief History of Japanese Robophilia 369


japanese robopophilia

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