I try not to do this, but I’m going to use this unfinished scanlation (last updated in 2016) of Eve no Jikan to talk about an anime movie I watched the other day of the same name (2010).
SPOILERS
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Several years ago, I ended up discovering the Japanese Film Festival site because Facebook advertised to me that there was a Satoshi Kon film festival and I slammed the “Sign Me Up!!” button so hard that somehow I ended up with a newsletter subscription. At any rate, I get push notifications any time they’re running another film festival and they let me know they were running a live-action version of ReLife, but when I went there I discovered that it’s not yet available in North America. Disappointed, I cast around for something else available and ended up watching The Time of Eve.
The Time of Eve is the story of Sakisaka Rikuo, who lives in a world where androids are common. All androids are distinct from humans because they have a glowing, digital halo above their heads. When we’re first introduced to them they seem little more than advanced Alexas, needing wake words and specific commands in order to properly follow instructions. But, after doing a routine download of his android Sammy’s GPS log, Rikuo discovers that Sammy has been going off-script. She’s been visiting a literal underground club.
It turns out that the underground club is for humans and androids/robots to intermingle without fear of prejudice. There’s an new trend among Rikou’s generation: “dori-kei,” robot dependence, robot love. At first, it seems as though that’s probably what this club is for, clandestine meetings for humans and robots, especially since–in order to comply with the rules of the club–the android’s halos disappear when they enter. You can’t tell who is a robot and who is human by looking.
As Rikou and his best buddy, Masaki Masakazu, start going to the club in the hopes of checking Sammy out on her own again. What they discover, of course, is a whole culture of very human androids.
The thing I love about all of the manga and anime that I’ve consumed on this subject so far is that the question of these various stories is NOT, “Could machines ever achieve human-like emotions,” but, instead, “When machines achieve human-like emotions will humans be emotionally mature enough to accept them as people and treat them kindly?”
I’m not sure there was anything particularly groundbreaking in Time of Eve, but I really enjoyed the movie. I was actually the most moved by the side story of Masaki and his relationship to his mother-like robot Tex, and the story of the nameless robot who was abandoned. Sadly, neither of these show up in the 5 chapters that have been scanlated. Also, the manga is a little different from what I can tell from reading the first few chapters, but you can get a sense of the story from what’s there. (Apparently, in Japan, the story is complete in three volumes. It was, alas, never licensed in English.)
I wasn’t especially sold on the art in the movie or the manga, but the story was compelling enough to keep me going.
I feel like if you, like me, are fascinated by what robots/androids could be, this is a story for you. But, I am going to have to recommend either hunting down the anime TV series or the movie.