One cool aspect of animation is how it can express any idea without limitation, since anything that can be drawn on paper of can be animated. This extends to technology, and it’s quite common for anime to show us fanciful glimpses of possible futures, like the Fyu-Neru robot from Guilty Crown, with both legs and wheels so it can roll anywhere yet climb stairs or furniture, a great design we might actually have in our homes someday. Often the technology shown in anime becomes another “character” in the story, like the Cyberpunk tech and Tachikomas from Ghost in the Shell or the important role of cell phones in Steins;Gate or School Days. I’ve recently been watching the new Nitroplus series Robotics;Notes, about a school robotics club that sets out to build an actual giant robot. The series is highly influenced by iPad-like tablet computing, and shows us a future in which everyone carries these tablets for gaming, communication and interaction with “augmented reality” virtual idols.
Robotics;Notes shows us the glorious future of tablet computing and robots.
