By Janice Tay, For The Straits Times
Jun 30, 2007
The Straits Times

I WATCH anime. Tonnes of anime. In fact, I watch far more anime than I should, given the limitations of the standard human eyeball.

But I've never understood the point of all the giant robots. Or as some people call them, mecha.

There seems to be no scenario, no story into which over-sized tin cans with assault features can't be propelled. An adaptation of The Count Of Monte Cristo? No problem - we'll even toss in aliens and one Destruction Of Paris for free.

An adaptation of Seven Samurai? Here, have a robot. Hell, have a whole army of them. We'll have them fly about on flying battleships that will blow up - boom! - when one samurai attacks them. With a sword.

Kurosawa-san, don't look now.

Admittedly, Gankutsuou and Samurai 7 were both highly entertaining, but there were times when I couldn't help wincing. Call me old-fashioned but I can't fit a giant robot duel into the same picture as the Champs-Elysees.

The studio responsible for those two shows - Gonzo - now has another one airing on Japanese television. It's an adaptation of Romeo And Juliet. I'm just waiting for the robots to show up.

Shakespeare-san, don't look now. Not until I tell you it's safe.

(Come to think of it, it's never going to be safe. Not when the first episode has flying horses and Juliet as a masked, red-caped Zorro.)

So with my habit of watching around the robots, I was surprised to find how much I enjoyed Gundam Seed.

The Gundam franchise is rather like the grand-daddy of mecha shows and has been compared to Star Trek more than once. Both didn't do well in their initial runs on television but went on to evolve into worlds with numerous series, hardcore fans and lots and lots of merchandise.

Gundam Seed was apparently an attempt to bring the franchise to a new generation of viewers and it worked, resulting in a sequel, hardcore fans and lots and lots of merchandise.

I had fun with Seed but I'm still not quite sure why. The characters went where other casts from other shows had boldly gone before, the lead pilot kept crying and the main source of dramatic tension was the old childhoodfriends-turned-enemies chestnut.

Kids! Chestnuts do not make good sources of dramatic tension!

Be told.

But I watched Seed feverishly till the bitter, knockdown-drag-out-and-nuke-out end. Maybe because of the way things just kept blowing up. There's something mesmerising about the sight of a spaceship rushing about the galaxy, with a trail of explosions to show the line of its progress.

Still, every time a giant robot appeared, it entered a blind spot in my vision.

It took me about eight episodes before I worked out how to distinguish the mecha piloted by the childhood-friends-turned-storytelling-cliche. One robot is red; the other, white and blue.

There are, no doubt, a gazillion other features which separate them but there's this spot that keeps stopping me from seeing them. I think it's blind.

On the other hand, there are people who can not only tell robots apart after a 10-second glance, but also know what their nicknames were when they were assembled in the factory.

Anime has the stories for minds like these. By slipping into the stories, they can ride in the cockpit of a towering mecha - and interact with robots that come in all sizes and shades of humanity.

Sure, we're shown the downside of living so closely with technology, but we also get to play board games with a robot that has learned how to crack jokes and ask for souvenirs.

The stories mirror Japan's position as a world leader in robotics, but what is it about the culture that makes it so open to this form of technology?

One theory puts it down to the country's history of animism. If a people have a world view that invests everything - even inanimate objects - with a spirit, goes the theory, it's a snap to treat robots the same way.

The theory seems pretty convincing when I see ceremonies being carried out at shrines to thank needles and brushes for the work they've done.

But there's got to be more to it than that. After all, other races in the world have similar traditions but you don't see them rushing off to make pets out of robots or turning them into aides for the elderly.

Animism may well play a part in the Japanese affinity for robotics, but to me it looks like nothing so much as a love of the machine.

It is a world I am shut out of. Though I rely on machines in a way I would have thought impossible even 10 years ago, though the words 'cannot find server' are some of the most upsetting I have ever known, and though I have given names to my iPod and laptop, they are not my friends.

And they will never be my friends as long as I see them as things to be used rather than to be with.

But I'm willing to change my mind about them. And if the finer points of machines are hard to see, perhaps I should start with a bigger model. Like a giant robot.

I'll have a chance to try when Mobile Suit Gundam 00, the latest addition to the franchise, airs in October. I'll try even though it already looks like it's going to be uphill all the way.

Four of the show's pilots and their mecha were presented to the world earlier this month; I found out about it on the Anime News Network website (www.animenewsnetwork.com).

It's a hugely informative site but the write-up about the new show reminded me once again why there's more chance of me becoming president of the world than of me buying a Gundam model kit.

Taking the lead role is 'Setsuna F. Seiei, a 16-year-old from the Middle East's Kurdis Republic...who keeps his thoughts hidden beneath a cool exterior. He pilots the GN-001 Gundam Exia, a mobile suit that owes its extraordinary manoeuvrability, stealthiness to conventional radar, and close-combat deadliness to the revolutionary GN drive and seven swords'.

Do you think the seven swords will come with samurai attached or will they be sold separately?

But Setsuna's not alone in his fight. Also on his team is a 'seemingly calm, benign 19-yearold who grew up as an orphan'.

His name's Allelujah. Allelujah Paptism.

I can't even begin to make a joke about it.

His giant robot of choice is the 'GN-003 Gundam Kyrios, the team's only fully transformable Gundam - it has a flight mode with reconfigurable weapon modules'.

I'd like to see the light - I really would - but a giant robot's standing in the way.

tastingjapan@gmail.com

The writer, a former sub-editor with The Straits Times, is studying Japanese in Kyoto.

» Have your say on this and other issues in our forum pages