I guess Dusk Beyond the End of the World would round out this trilogy, but I’ve already covered it elsewhere. Let’s see if either of these shows are worth watching, though.
Alma-chan Wants to Be a Family!
What if a robot is so human-like that you can’t tell it apart from an actual child? The problem here, however, is that Alma is supposed to be an combat android. Who exactly programmed my combat android to desire a family? And a nuclear one at that. Look, this isn’t what Shinzo Abe meant when he told you guys to shack up and pump out children. You’re supposed to copulate and breed, not create an artificial being without ever touching each other. But that’s exactly what Enji and Suzume did. They could’ve made their combat weapon look like anything, but they chose a small, humanoid child with endearingly childish features.
Cuteness has always been deployed in this fashion. Cuteness is often used to subvert and disguise, hiding and simultaneously spreading propaganda in plain sight. People usually frown upon the development of weapons, especially weapons for warfare, but make it moe and suddenly it’s okay. This aspect of Alma’s development is actually kind of an ethical gray area, and I wonder if show will ever address it. You can’t just slap a cute anime girl onto a weapon of mass destruction, and just pretend it never happened, can you? Judging by the tone of the first episode, however, I fear that we’ll just sweep the whole debate under the rug.
Apparently, Suzume was only responsible for the mechanical body and its locomotion. It was up to Enji to program the AI, so if have to pin the blame on anyone, I suppose this is all his fault. Perhaps he secretly desires something more than a cordial and sometimes prickly working relationship with Suzume. And even though she would never admit it, the feeling seems to be mutual. Alma implies as much. In the end, the “parents” cope about as hard as Loid from SPY x FAMILY. Enji reasons that they need to hide their advanced combat android in plain sight, and the best way to do so is for the three of them to act like a family. Sure, “act.” It’s all for the mission, right Loid Enji?
What makes the SPY x FAMILY couple dynamic more interesting to me, however, is that you can easily imagine Yor wholeheartedly admitting her love for Loid one day. This serves as a nice contrast to the hardworking spy who has to maintain his mask at all times. The only thing standing in Yor’s way is that she doesn’t understand romantic love; she’s only ever known family love. But once she gets over that hurdle, it’ll be like breaking a damn. On the other hand, Enji and Suzume are a couple of awkward tsunderes. Maybe future episodes will do a better job of differentiating their personalities, but for now, they kinda render the other “parent” redundant. Loid and Yor come across as two very different people on a plate. So far, Enji and Suzume is what you get when you play with your food and mix it all up.
Anyways, Enji insists that Alma doesn’t have actual feelings. But as you can see from the screenshot above, she already has way too much mirth for a mere robot. Ultimately, if you can’t tell the difference between a robot and a human child, then does it actually matter? If a robot elicits the same paternal or maternal feelings in you like a human child, then what’s the difference? Oh, I suppose there’s the technical difference: one is made of nuts and bolts and the other flesh and blood. But if you treat them the same way — care for them, nurture them, cherish them, praise them — then it’s pretty much all the same, isn’t it? And I suppose the same logic can be extended to their “union.” If you live together, work together, share even a child together, then you’re a family. All we’re missing is the sex, but nobody’s doing that disgusting act in Japan anyway.
Mechanical Marie
On the other hand, what if a human so unhuman-like that you can’t tell them apart from a robot? What if there’s a human out there who can’t pass any of those online “checking to see if you’re human” tests? But you still can’t help but love them, because that’s what humans do all the time. We anthropomorphize everything in our lives. Cats and dogs can certainly feel emotions, but we often go beyond what they’re capable of. We project our own feelings onto them, because this lets us love them even more. What happens when it isn’t a pet though? What happens if the target of our projection is actually another living, breathing human being that is perhaps just neurodivergent? It certainly becomes a bit problematic, isn’t it? I think this might make for an interesting story, but sadly, that’s not exactly what we get in Mechanical Marie. Marie, the eponymous heroine of our story, isn’t exactly robotic on the inside, i.e. her thoughts and feelings. She’s just inexpressive on the surface.
So what’s the gist? Well, Arthur is an heir to a corporate empire, and he’s constantly in danger of being Luigi’d every single day of his life. For example, even the bouquets he gets are booby-trapped. Who would even dare? Well, his own damn relatives are out to get him, most notably his stepbrother. As a result, Arthur has become a giant misanthrope. When he opens up to his “robotic” maid midway through the episode, Arthur confesses that he can’t trust anybody so he’s decided to make it on his own! He’ll climb his way to the top with his own two hands! Hah, that’s pretty rich coming from a rich boy. What do you mean you can’t trust anybody? Then who’s this? Isn’t this your manservant Roy? Didn’t you trust Roy enough to get you a robot maid? But I guess that’s the primary problem with this kid. He hates liars, but he’s lying to himself. He’s just afraid to trust. And sure, with people constantly out to get him, I guess that’s a pretty valid fear. My point is that when you can’t tell who’s an enemy, you also can’t tell who’s a friend. In other words, Roy deserves better.
As for Marie, I wish it was actually difficult to tell her apart from a robot. The only thing that’s arguably robotic about her is that she isn’t very expressive, and, well, that’s not even true anymore, is it? Why wouldn’t you expect an advanced robot to have expressions? Why wouldn’t you expect an advanced robot to react to a bomb going off? AI companies literally programmed their LLMs to be annoyingly obsequious, and it worked. It worked too well. You had (and still have) weirdos out here fantasizing about their AI boyfriends and girlfriends, because the chatbox couldn’t be anything but extremely servile. AI companies eventually had to tone it down, so to speak, and all of a sudden, those AI boyfriends and girlfriends became “inhumanly” cold overnight. So you can’t really judge Marie’s humanity through her capacity to express emotions. Not anymore.
In the end, Marie still feels very human since plenty of humans are stoic, so the problem here is still Arthur. He’s desperate for someone to trust, so he’s tricking himself into believing otherwise. The mind believes what it wants to believe. Before I watched the episode, I had wondered if Marie would eventually fall in love with her master. Well, she hasn’t quite gotten that far, but she does pledge her loyalty to him rather quickly. All it really takes is for him to defend her from a couple of school bullies. Yup, that’s it. A single flashback with her mother suggests that Marie also desires intimacy. So maybe these two are perfect for each other. And even though she has to lie to him, well, why would you assume robots can’t lie? For me, however, it’s not about whether she’s more or less robotic. I just wish she was a little weirder. For the most part, Marie is a pretty normal girl who just has a stoic face.
