New robot anime stamps on sale

Japan Post today released its latest edition of stamps featuring robots from popular anime series.

The stamps show characters and robots from manga and anime series Patlabor, which deals with a Tokyo police division that uses huge mecha robots for law enforcement. The mecha feature the designs of Yutaka Izubuchi, who also did the exterior design for the HRP robot series being developed by the government.

JP is issuing 15 million Patlabor stamps in denominations of 80 yen that come in 10-stamp sheets.

The issue is part of JP's Anime Heroes and Heroines series that began five years ago with stamps honoring perennial robot icon Astro Boy.

Others include Gundam, Doraemon and Neon Genesis Evangelion. Karakuri clockwork dolls, the ancestors of modern Japanese robots, have also been celebrated with Japanese stamps.

Check out the Japan Post anime series page here (in Japanese).

The face that launched a thousand robots

I recently visited the Osaka Science Museum, where a new working replica of Japan's first modern robot has been put on display.

The quirky machine is called Gakutensoku, and it was originally created in 1928 by a biologist named Makoto Nishimura (pictured below). According to accounts, the massive Buddha-like robot could write Chinese characters, puff out its cheeks as though breathing and look up to the heavens for inspiration. It apparently disappeared while on a tour of Germany in the 1930s.

Here's an excerpt of an article I wrote for the Japan Times on it:

"R.U.R." was staged in Tokyo in 1924; in 1927, Fritz Lang's film "Metropolis" with its evil robot Maria opened overseas; and in Britain and the U.S. respectively, two early mechanical men were unveiled as curiosities.

The former was called Eric and resembled a suit of armor; it could stand up from its seat and relay the voice of a remote operator to "speak" to audiences. Westinghouse Electric Corp.'s Mr. Televox consisted of telephone-switching equipment and a crude cardboard anthropomorphic frame. It was able to activate electrical equipment upon receiving commands made on a whistle.

These early robots in science fiction and reality prompted discussion among Japanese intellectuals. When Nishimura learned that the Mainichi Shimbun would mount an exhibit at the 1928 Kyoto Fair, he suggested building a jinzo ningen (artificial human), as robots were first called in Japan.

But instead of being a synthetic slave worker like Capek's robots, it would be an artistic statement.

Quest for practical robots

A recent article in Newsweek quotes me as saying that Japanese are too in love with robots.

It's a point that is seldom discussed - while U.S. firms like iRobot have turned out hit mass-consumer products such as Roomba that are pragmatic, Japanese companies are still obsessed with building bipedal machines that are very cool but pretty useless.

It's the Astro Boy complex at work. The idea of building a humanoid robot just like the machines of science fiction makes for some very slickly designed robots, but many are marketplace failures.

As the article points out, it's no surprise that Roomba the robot vacuum cleaner has sold over 3 million units, but Mitsubishi Heavy Industries sold only a few dozen of its humanoid communication robot Wakamaru. Granted, the latter was over one hundred times more expensive.

But Japanese engineers are learning that things called "robot" should be practical too. Earlier this month, Toyota unveiled its Winglet electric scooter, similar to a Segway and incorporating robotics technology from Sony's Aibo lab. The automaker calls it "a personal transport assistance robot." Toyota's other robots include a band of humanoid musicians - impressive but nowhere near practical yet. The Winglet, though, is a brilliant fusion of design and functionality.