Mecha-topia: Imagining a Posthuman Paradise in Osamu Tezuka's ...

Mecha-topia: Imagining a Posthuman Paradise in Osamu Tezuka's
Metropolis
Joseph Christopher Schaub
College of Notre Dame of Maryland
Mecha anime (shorr for mechanical animation) is the subgenre of Japanese
animation that features robots, cyborgs, and high-tech machiner)' set in
futuristic science fiction narratives. Although they are generally perceived as
dysropian because of rheir detailed depictions of post-apocalyptic worlds and
violent conflicts between robors, humans, and alien life forms, mecha anime
can also be viewed as a rich source of uropian images. Whar makes rhese
Utopian images somewhat ambiguous, however, is the tendency for mecha
anime ro subvert traditional notions of utopia and dystopia. In their climactic
scenes depicting the destruction of bodies and architecture, mecha anime
project an image of rhe future rhat can only be regarded as uropian from a
posrhuman perspective. This drive rowards a posrhuman uropia is clearly
articulated in the film that pays homage to the manga artist who established
the mecha anime subgenre borh in Japan and inrernarionally. Osamu Tes^uka's
Metropolis (2001) exemplifies the mecha anime subgenre's Utopian aspirations,
while clearly delineating the paramerers of Tezuka's nascent posthuman vision.
To say that Osamu Te:(uka's Metropolis exemplifies the Utopian aspirations of
mecha is a somewhar controversial sraremenr. It seems to belie the tremendous
diversit)' of the subgenre, which includes an impressive quantir)' of feature
films, television programs, and OVA (direct to video releases). There are,
however, several good reasons for singling out Osamu Te^^uka's Metropolis as a
paradigmatic example. First and foremosr, the film foregrounds the collision of
bodies and archirecture. This collision is a fundamental feature of mecha, and
despire the vast array of narrative and visual approaches ro its subject matter,
all mecha are underpinned by some kind of notion of the body, in its many
human and posthuman iterarions, confronting some form of archirecture, in all
of irs macro and micro configurations. From irs first frame, which shows a
solitary man standing on top of a "Ziggurat" that reaches into the clouds,
Osamu Te^ka's Metropolis drives inexorably towards a climax which destroys
94 I Interdisciplinar)' Humanities

oth bodies and architecture, but heralds something new in the wake of that
destrucdon.
Secondly, Osamu Tet^tika's Metropolis is based upon a manga that was written
at the dawn of the formadon of the mecha anime subgenre. Published in 1949,
Tezuka's Metropolis manga followed shordy after his Shin Takarafima (New
Treasure Island, 1947), which sold over 400,000 copies, made Tezuka's
reputadon as a manga ardst, and helped to reignite Japan's postwar comic
industr}'.' Metropolis is part of a trilog}' that appeared right before the science
ficdon Creadon for which Tezuka is best known, Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boj),
which first appeared as a manga in 1951. Many of the same traits that define
Astro Boy appear in the character of Michi, the robotic character in Metropolis.
At the same dme, there are aspects of the earlier robot (its androgyny, for
example), with which the mecha subgenre is only recently coming to terms.
Connecdng the film adaptadon of Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis with its manga
source provides the unique opportunity to revisit an important moment in the
immediate aftermath of World War II when the mecha subgenre originated
and to examine its progression during the past half century.
Thirdly, Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis, an internadonaUy released feature film
with a considerable budget ($15 million), represents a genuine coUaboradon
between some of the best talent that the subgenre has to offer. Apart from
Tezuka, who penned the original manga source, the film features the talents of
Katsuhiro Otomo, who wrote the screenplay. As the author of the manga and
director of the film version of Akira (1989), Otomo is perhaps mecha's best
known luminary, ./^^/ra's compellingly realisdc portrayal of Neo Tokyo, and its
densely apocal}'pdc narradve, not to mendon its appearance at the zenith of
Japan's ascendancy as an economic superpower, made it a global phenomenon.
As a result, it is nearly impossible to write about mecha without some
reference to Akira. More than any other mecha work, Akira solidified the
collision of bodies and architecture as a generic requirement, and suggested the
opdmisdc outcomes that could result from the destrucdon of both.^ Along
with Otomo, Osamu Tes;tika's Metropolis features the direcdng talents of Rintaro
(Shige)'uki Hayashi), whose des to Tezuka go back to the televised version of
Tetsuwan Atomu (Astro Boj, 1963). Rintaro's Ginga Tetsudo 999 (Galaxy Express
999, 1979;, Genma Taisen (Har»jageddon, 1983) and X (1996) are considered
mecha classics, each sharing themadc and iconographie similarides to Osamu
Te^/ka's Metropolis.
The secdons that follow provide a radonale for focusing on the collision
of bodies and architecture as a fundamental feature of mecha, an analysis of
the climacdc scene in Osamu Te^ttka's Metropolis, and a discussion of the
posthuman utopia implied by the film's ending. Isoladng only these features of
the film and the subgenre is necessarily reducdve, and excludes other excidng
characterisdcs of mecha, such as the tendency to explore psychic phenomena
and stage quasi-religious batdes between good and evil. Mecha offer a broad
spectrum of potendally interesdng topics that gready exceed the scope of a
single essay. Nevertheless, highlighdng the condguides and ruptures between
Utopia/Dystopia I 95
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traditional humanistic utopias and the posthuman utopia suggested in Osamu
Tet(uka's Metropolis reveals one important aspect of mecha anime's contribution
to the growing body of posthuman theory.
The Architectural Body
The collision of bodies and architecture is a fundamental feature not only
of mecha atiime, but of many post World War II forms of Japanese popular
culture that both feed into and draw from the mecha stream. Japan has a
landmass roughly eqtiivalent to the state of California with four times as many
people, making the collision of bodies and architecture a daily feature of
modern life for its highly urbanized populations. Japanese popular culture
reflects this. Certainly the kaiju eiga (monster movie), for which the archetypal
example is Ishiro Honda's Gojira (1954), is replete with images of the
technologically enhanced bodies of giant monsters crashing into modern urban
architecture. The same is true of Japanese disaster movies, of which the best
known is Shiro Moritatii's Nippon Chinhotsu {Japan Sinks, 1973), which forecasts
Japan's disappearance into the Pacific after a devastating earthquake.
Earthquakes, which have always been a regular feature of Japanese life, are
particularly devastating in those spaces where bodies and architecture are most
concentrated, the urban centers. Indeed the recent Kansai earthquake that
destroyed the city of Kobe in 1995, and the slighdy more distant Kanto
earthquake that leveled Tokyo in 1923 serve as twentieth century reminders of
the vulnerabilities of bodies and architecture to natural disasters.
Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and tsunamis have played a major role in
Japan's imagination of disaster, but it goes without saying that some of the
worst disasters that have befallen Japan over the years were not due to natural
causes. The man made disasters brought about by World War II were at least
as destructive to bodies and architecture as the most devastating of natural
disasters. Many scholars have traced the apocalyptic thread that runs through
postwar Japanese popular culture to the horrors of the atomic bombs that
destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.^ Even before the atomic
weapons were used, however, whole cities disappeared overnight thanks to the
persistent incendiary bombing campaigns conducted from B-17 Flying
Fortresses and B-29 Super Fortresses. These massive Boeing bomber planes,
appropriately named "fortresses," presented an architecture of the sky in fierce
opposition to the architecture of the ground, with unfortunate bodies caught
in the middle.
Natural and human-caused disasters clearly provide a vast repository of
apocalyptic imagery for the destrucdve sequences of Japanese pop ctdture, but
there is another more basic explanation for the relendess collisions of bodies
and architecture that figure so prominendy in the spectacles of destruction in
mecha anime narratives. Mecha anime are fundamentally about exploring the
possibilities of new hybrid constructs that restilt from combinations of
architecture and bodies. They provide a space for visualizing the often
96 I Interdisciplinary Humanities

uncomfortable union of the two, resuldng in new cyborg idenddes comprised
of high tech circuitry (architecture) and organic matter (bodies). Often the
main characters in mecha narradves, these cyborg constructs occupy a liminal
space between the human and posthuman that makes them both fearful and
fascinadng. They are also burdened with a complex lineage, that always, at least
indirecdy, references the complicated history shared by the US and Japan.''
This was especially true in the immediate postwar years when representadons
of conflicts between bodies and architecture had particular cultural
associadons.
In his book. Architecture as Metaphor, Japanese literary theorist Kojin
Karatani discusses the dominance of architectural tropes in a wide range of
theoredcal and philosophical debates spanning centuries of Western discourse.
He states, "Western thought is marked by a will to architecture that is
reiterated and renewed at dmes of crisis."^ Indeed, a visit to any major
bookstore provides ample evidence to support Karatani's claim. Architectural
metaphors pervade literary theory, where deconstrucdon condnues to hold
sway. Micro-circuitry design is understood as "computer architecture,"
molecular biology as "genome architecture," and even internadonal economic
crisis has been interpreted through a lens focused on the "architecture of
global finance." In his cridque of Western idealism Karatani points out that,
"Philosophers since Plato have returned over and over to architectural figures
and metaphors as a way of grounding and stabilizing their otherwise unstable
philosophical systems."'^ The necessity of rebuilding Japanese cides during the
American occupadon years (1945-1952), required adopdon of the "will to
architecture" into the Japanese nadonal psyche along with a corresponding
demand for the liberadon of the body.
The extensive usage of bodily tropes in the narradves of Japan's immediate
postwar history is the subject of historian Yoshikuni Igarashi's book. Bodies of
Memory. In it, he describes the era of bodily liberadon that erupted at the close
of World War II . The desire for bodily liberadon was a direct response to
years of severe military reguladons, during which the kokutai, or "nadonal
body," had become the dominant metaphor and the most effecdve means for
subordinadng individual bodies to the will of the state. Igarashi writes, "By
controlling the material needs to support bodily funcdons, the state forcefully
created docile, nadonalisdc bodies."' The end of the war marked the end of
the "nadonal body" as a dominant state-endorsed metaphor but it was not the
end of the body's dominance as a nadonal trope. As Igarashi explains, "Most
Japanese cides had been destroyed by American incendiary bombing, and there
was litde to block the view in these urban spaces. For many survivors of the
war, their bodies were the only material objects they managed to rescue from
the destrucdon of the air raids.''^ With the disappearance of the mechanism for
enforcing the regimen of the nadonal body, according to Igarashi, "ordinary
cidzens celebrated the end of the war as the liberadon of their bodies."'
These two compedng tropes, one expressed as a "will to architecture," the
other as a demand for "liberadon of the body" form an imaginary backdrop
Utopia/Dystopia I 97
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for all mecha anime created since the American occupadon following World
War II . We can clearly see a conflict between the two in Osamu Tezuka's
Metropolis manga, which was published at the height of the occupadon in 1949.
The andpathy between bodies and architecture is a crucial feature in the climax
of the manga, which shows scenes of the main character, Michi, literally
knocking over buildings. Michi also falls from a building at the end just before
dying. The visual representadon of the clash of bodies and architecture has
evolved as the tropes themselves have evolved, but an overview of the history
of these representadons displays an important trend: an attempt to create a
hybrid that reconciles the two tropes. This hybrid is realized in the form of an
architectural body, a human robot or cyborg. Although the progression is
certainly not straightforwardly chronological,'" an examinadon of the
iconography of key mecha narradves of the last half-century reveals a gradual
indinadon towards merging the human body and the architectural robot in
three disdnct stages. Inidally, typical mecha narradves depict the human body
controlling the robodc architecture from the outside. A second stage in mecha
shows the human body moving inside of the robodc architecture to control it.
The most recent stage shows the robodc architecture placed inside of the
human body.
A typical example of the first stage of remote controlled robots is
Mitsuteru Yokoyama's Tetsujin 28-go (1956), a manga that later became an
animated series released in the US as Gigantor (1964). In it, a giant robot is
under the control of a young boy, who communicates with it from a distance
using a radio frequency device. Giant robots controlled by remote human
agents have also been a key feature of many live action television programs in
Japan, such as johnny Sokko and his Flying Robot (1969). There was even a
Godzilla movie, Gojira tai Mekagojira {Godilla vs. Mecha Godilla, 1974) in which
the "real" Godzilla fights a giant remote controlled mecha version of the
monster. Despite the enormous size and power of these robots, the human
agent is clearly the operator.
In the 1970s, a second tendency of mecha narradves emerged: depicdon of
the human body moving to the inside of the robot architecture to control it.
Go Nagai's Ma^nger Z (1972) was among the first manga to feature this type
of piloted robot." Perbaps tbe most infiuential of this type of mecha was
Yoshiyuki Tomino's Kido Senshi Gandamu {Mobile Suit Gundam, 1979-1980),
which featured the character of Amuro Rei as the teenage pilot of a highly
advanced armored suit used for fighdng wars in outer space colonies. The
influence of the Gundam series, which included TV sequels, movies, manga,
and a vast array of spin-off models and toys, can sdll be seen in more recent
mecha anime television programs such as Hideald Anno's Shin Seiki Hvangelion
{Neon Genesis Evangelion, 1995-1996).'^ While the placement of the human body
inside of the robodc architecture can be seen as a further attempt to complete
the hybrid of body and architecture, the separate lives of the human pilots in
these narratives often highlight their ambivalence and uncertainty about who is
really in control. The fact that the pilots are often teenagers further emphasizes
98 I Interdisciplinary Humanities
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this ambivalence.
At some point in the 1980s, popular mecha narratives began displaying a
third development. They progress from placing the human body inside of
robotic architecture to placing robotic architecture inside of rhe human body.
This developmenr corresponds wirh similar shifrs in the representation of
technological architecture in American science fiction, particularly in
cyberpunk narrarives. As Bruce Srerling nores, "the theme of body invasion:
prosthetic limbs, implanted circuirry, cosmetic surgery, genetic alteration,"
figures prominentiy in these narratives.'^ With this development, and the
resulting dissolution of the boundaries berween archirecrure and the body that
it precipirated, mecha have increasingly explored the metaphysical and spiritual
dimensions that constitute the terrain of posrhumanism. Katsuhiro Otomo's
Akira, makes a good case in point. When the main character Tetsuo loses an
arm in a batde, he employs his telepathic powers to regenerate a new arm from
inorganic matter. In other words, Tetsuo imposes a will to architecture on his
own body, bur he quickly loses control of rhe process and begins to mutate
into something that, by the end of the film, nearly destroys Neo Tokyo. Ir is
unclear wherher Tersuo's own human weakness or his new architectural
powers are rhe source of the chaos that he causes.
Mamoru Oshii's KûukikuKidoud {Ghost in the Shell, 1995), the internationally
released feature film based on Masamune Shirou's manga, further shows rhe
integration of architecture and the human body. In this mecha narrative, mosr
of the body of the protagonist Motoko Kusanagi no longer exists. All that
remains is a portion of her brain that contains her "ghost" living in an
architectural "shell" that she no longer owns. While these narratives may
appear dystopian if judged by humanistic standards, they also suggest the
possibilit)' of posthuman readings that allow for uropian inrerprerations. This is
particularly true of Osamu Tet^tka's Metropolis. A comparison of the manga and
anime reveals the changes that were necessary to foreground the posthuman
elements derived from the collision of bodies and architecture, which alrhough
present in Tezuka's original manga, are realized in a considerably more Utopian
way in the animated film.
Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis (manga to mecha)
In most respects, the anime version of Osamu Te^tka's Metropolis is a
fairhful adaprarion of rhe original manga, projecting a vision of rhe furure in
which human masters cruelly mistreat their robotic slaves in a large, foreign
(American) cir)'. In both versions of the narrative, an evil character named
Duke Red commissions a scientist to create a super powerful, life-like robot
that he can use as a weapon for his plans to dominate the world. Before Duke
Red can get the robot, however, the scientist's lab burns down, and the robot
escapes. A Japanese detective and his young nephew, Kenichi, find rhe robor
and try ro hide ir from Duke Red ro foil his plan. Afrer developing a close
friendship wirh Kenichi, rhe robot comes to believe it is human, but
Utopia/Dystopia 1 99
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eventually. Duke Red finds the robot, explains that it is not human, but was
created to serve him like the many other robots he has enslaved. At this point
the robot goes on a rampage, leading a robot revolt to destroy all human life.
The robot uldmately dies in the chaos that ensues.
Although most of the characters and plot are the same in the manga and
anime, Otomo and Rintaro made several changes to conform with the
progress mecha have made in the half century since the manga's publicadon.
For example, in the manga, the robot, Michi, can be switched from male to
female by pushing a button in the back of her throat. In the anime, Michi is
renamed Tima, and seems to be exclusively female. This decision follows a
recent generic tendency according to which the high tech body is represented
as female, thereby differendadng it from the stereotypically masculine robodc
bodies that signified power in the pre-microchip era.'"* Otomo and Rintaro also
added Rock, a character who appears in later Tezuka mangas, but does not
appear in the original Metropolis. Wearing his signature sunglasses. Rock
provides a cruel antagonist that resonates with Tezuka's manga fans. He is
charged by Duke Red, whom he calls father, with the task of killing robots
who venture out of their designated zones. Using a powerful pistol that
produces devastadng carnage in the electrical circtiits and wires of robodc
bodies, mimicking the gore that wotild spew from similar wounds on a human
body. Rock concentrates in a single character much of the cruelty towards
robots that permeates Tezuka's considerably less graphic manga.
Although Rock is fully human in the biological sense, he has something in
common with Tima and the other robots that make his desire to kill them
seem like a desperate need to prove his difference. Rock is an orphan, whom
Duke Red found "during the last war."'^ Tima, on the other hand, is modeled
and named after Duke Red's deceased daughter, which clearly has aroused
Rock's jealousy. Throughout the film, he taunts Tima, at one point asking her,
"If you're human who is your father?"'^ He then laughs riotously when she
answers, "Kenichi." While Kenichi tries to protect Tima throughout the film.
Rock tries to kill her, and eventually shoots her, at which point she finally
realizes she is not human because she does not die.
Rock is especially insistent upon idendfying Duke Red as his father.
Without that assurance he is merely Duke Red's servant, no different than the
robots he slaughters. His desire to be Duke Red's son is similar to Tima's
determinadon to verify her human idendty. Implicidy, both characters want to
avoid being idendfied with the servant class of robots.
The biggest change that Otomo and Rintaro made in their adaptadon was
to make the architecture a far more dominant feature of the animated film
than the odginal manga. At various points in the fikn, extensive tracking shots
reveal layers of acdvity in a muld-dimensional cityscape that includes elevated
trains, propeller-driven dirigibles, and towering beams of light criss-crossing
over an endless expanse of verdcally looming buildings. The realism and
abundance of detail in the architecture prompted cride Roger Ebert to write,
"The city in this movie is not simply a backdrop or a locadon, but one of those
100 I Interdisciplinary Humanities

movie places that colonize our memory."" One reason for this heightened
realism is that the backgrounds for the Metropolis setting were rendered using
sophisticated computer graphics, giving it a very convincing appearance. By
contrast, the characters, which closely resemble Tezuka's 1949 originals, were
hand drawn using traditional eel animation techniques. The effect is initially
jarring because characters and environment appear so stylistically discordant,
but the discordance provides a visualization of the film's, and the subgenre's,
larger thematic goal of unifying bodies and architecture. Osamu Tet^uka's
Metropolis does this in the film's climax, which occurs at the top olF the
Ziggurat, the city's tallest architectural monument.
The climax of the film differs from that of the original manga and those
differences convey something about the way that mecha have evolved in the
years separating the two works. There is no Ziggurat in the manga, and
although the final confrontation occurs with Kenichi at the top of a building,
there is no real sense of reconciliation between bodies and architecture. Michi
falls from a building, which ultimately leads to her death. Although Michi has
destroyed much of the city before her fall, there is a fatalistic sense of the
body's transience and architecture's permanence. The destruction of the
Ziggurat in the anime gives a very different impression. The idea for the
Ziggurat was almost certainly something Otomo and Rintaro borrowed from
Fritz Lang's Metropolis (1927). Since Tezuka had never seen Lang's Metropolis}^
he was unaware of the ingenious method Lang had devised for hierarchically
structuring a city based on notions of class. Lang has the affluent rulers of his
Metropolis living luxuriously in the massive skyscrapers that tower above
ground, while an enslaved caste of workers toils endlessly to keep the
machinery of the metropolis functioning below ground. Lang's Metropolis ends
with a self-destructive revolt by the underground worker classes against the
above ground ruling classes. The lower levels of the metropolis are flooded,
but the workers eventually reconcile with the rulers above. Most importandy,
the architecture, the signifier of class division, is preserved.
Like Lang's Metropolis, Osamu Tei^tka's Metropolis shows a city stratified by
class. Robots are restricted to certain underground zones, and risk death if they
are caught in a zone for which they are not granted access. The architectural
zones in Osamu Te^uka's Metropolis serve to establish a hierarchical distinction
between robot servants and human masters just as the architecture in Lang's
Metropolis distinguishes the two sets of human classes. The Ziggurat, the tallest
building in Metropolis, is also the place where Tima is to be installed on a
high-tech throne as a robotic master chip to control the Ziggurat's weapons
systems. After Rock shoots her and Tima accepts her fate by sitting on the
throne, the Ziggurat takes over, integrating Tima into its circtiits, which
penetrate her body while encasing her in the architecture of the building.
Kenichi tries to liberate her in a scene that forcefully captures the basic
struggle depicted in a half century of mecha narratives. Tima's robodc body is
pulled on one side by the Ziggurat's mechanically animated architecture while
Kenichi, a human being, tries to free it. The scene shows a will to architecture,
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or more accurately, an architectural will at both a macro level, encasing Tima,
and micro level, penetradng her, opposed by Kenichi's desire to liberate the
body. Kenichi sees traces of humanity in Tima's robodc hybridity, and tries to
keep her from becoming pure architecture, pardcularly the corrupt architecture
of the hierarchically structured Ziggurat. He reminds her of their reladonship
even as he pulls her from the Ziggurat's mechanical clutches.
Although Kenichi does eventually liberate Tima, the revolt that she
inidated has already begun, and both the Zi^urat and Tima will perish before
it ends. Interesdngly, it is Rock, the character who is least able to accept the
nodon that there may be traces of humanity in robots, who destroys the
Ziggurat, killing himself and Duke Red in its wake. After Tima assumes the
throne, and the robot rebellion begins. Rock and Duke Red are surrounded by
a gang of angry robots. Rather than see his "father" attacked by robots. Rock
pushes a self-destruct button in the Ziggurat and a massive white fireball
explodes across the screen. Ray Charles' "1 Can't Stop Loving You" plays on
the soundtrack as the giant skyscraper slowly crashes to the ground. The
apocalypdc destrucdon of the Ziggurat demonstrates what Susan Napier in her
study of apocalypdc anime refers to as "a carnivalesque overthrow of authority
and hierarchy."" Rock is, after all, destroying the symbol of his father's power
even as he tries to protect him. The rebellion, then, shows the overthrow of
parent by child as much as it shows the overthrow of master by servant. The
glorious spectacle of the Ziggurat's destrucdon provides a celebratory way of
leveling all of these hierarchies.
After the dust setdes, Kenichi searches for Tima amongst the ruins of the
Ziggurat on the ground below. A trash compactor robot named Fifi, who had
helped Kenichi and Tima when they were hiding from Rock in the city's lower
levels, hands Kenichi Tima's mechanical heart and repeats her name in chorus
with several other robots. Some of the robots have their lower zone
designadons clearly visible on their bodies in clear defiance of the city's
previous restricdons. With the destruction of the Ziggurat, the death of Duke
Red, and his enforcer Rock, these robots are now able to navigate the surface
of Metropolis instead of merely being confined to the city's lower levels.
Although Tima dies, it is clear that her sacrifice benefited other robots, and the
movie ends with a very upbeat portrayal of robots rebuilding the city under a
clear blue sky. The robodc utopia implied by the ending does not seem to
exclude humans since Kenichi stays in Metropolis to help with the rebuilding.
The ending of Tezuka's manga is not nearly as opdmisdc as that of the
anime adaptation. After Michi dies, in the final frame. Professor Bell, a
character who has served as a kind of objecdve narrator throughout, asks,
"Perhaps humanity's overdeveloped science may someday be the cause of its
own annihiladon?"2o Japan's status as a defeated nadon, and the harsh realides
of the new atomic age were no doubt factors infiuencing Tezuka's decision to
end his Metropolis with this dystopian warning, but given the events that led to
Michi's revolt, it seems clear that the inhumanity of the human characters is
the real modvator behind Professor Bell's fatalisdc quesdon. Machines rebel
102 I Interdisciplinar)' Humanities

against their human masters for the same reasons that people rebel. They are
being mistreated. Tezuka shows this throughout his manga, and suggests that
this human/machine reladonship should be governed by humane principles
even (or especially) if the machines are servants. In numerous frames he has
characters denounce the cruel treatment that the worker robots receive from
their slave-driving masters. In one scene, the detective pleads with Duke Red,
who is having a robot flogged, "Even if they are machines it's sdll cruel."^'
Duke Red replies disdainfully, "They were created for working so it's fine."22
Clearly Tezuka is suggesdng it is not fine to mistreat machines.
In contrast to the humans' displays of cruelty toward robots in Tezuka's
manga, the robots, prior to their rebellion, treat humans with selfless
generosity. Midway through the manga, a robot sacrifices its life to save the
detecdve, and several dmes Michi risks death to save other characters from
dangerous situations. After one of these rescues, Kenichi states, "Michi is a
fine human being. No, Michi is more human than a human being!"^^ This is an
important line, because it provides the basis for the posthuman vision that
Otomo and Rintaro expand upon in the anime. In Dreamland japan: Writings on
Modem Manga, scholar Frederick Schodt has pointed out that, "Tezuka infused
nearly all of his stories with what came to be known as 'Tezuka humanism.'"^''
Tenets of Tezuka humanism include respect for "all people and the sancdty of
life."25 Although he also recognized human fallibility, and the very human
tendency to act out of self-interest, Tezuka posited heroism as the ability to
overcome this tendency and perform selfless acts that benefit bumanity
generally. In many of Tezuka's mangas—not only Metropolis, but Astro Boy,
jungaru Taitei, {Kimba the White Lion), and others, it is the nonhuman characters
who behave heroically. In adapdng Metropolis, Otomo and Rintaro seized upon
this recurring modf in Tezuka's work. The ending of their film shows the
collapse of the Ziggurat and the oppression it symbolizes, and suggests a
dawning utopia that neither excludes nor relies upon human agents for its
realization.
The Posthuman Utopia
Like postmodernism's reladonship to modernism, posthumanism suggests
the possibility of either a break or condntiity with humanism. Certainly there
are many examples from popular culture which support the nodon that
posthumanism will consdtute a break with humanism, and whatever high-tech
dystopia succeeds the current era will be marked by an and-humanism, placing
technologically-enhanced beings in opposidon to fundamental human values.
More recent mecha anime narradves have begun to explore the possibilides of
posthumanism's continuity with humanism. Under this interpretadon the
"post" implies an afterword, a possibility for addressing the shortcomings of
humanism with the help of new technologies. This is certainly the view that
posthuman theorist N. Katherine Hayles supports in How We Became Posthuman,
Hayles writes:
Utopia/Dystopia I 103
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Posthuman does not really mean the end of humanity. It
signals instead the end of a certain conception of the
human that may have applied, at best, to the fraction of
humanity who had the wealth, power, and leisure to
conceptualize themselves as autonomous beings exercising
their will through individual agency and choice . . . The
posthuman need not be recuperated back into liberal
humanism, nor need it be construed as anti-human . . . the
posthuman offers resources for rethinking the articulation
of humans with intelligent machines.^**
The question is, will this new articulation of humans and machines bring the
subjects it spawns any closer to realizing a Utopian society?
In Archaeologies of the Future, Frederic Jameson provides another way of
framing this issue. In a chapter entided "Utopia and its Antinomies," Jameson
wrires:
This brings us to what is perhaps the fundamental Utopian
dispute about subjectivity, namely whether the Utopia in
question proposes rhe kind of radical transformation of
subjectiviry presupposed by most revolutions, a mutation
in human nature and rhe emergence of whole new beings,
or whether the impulse to Utopia is not already grounded
in human nature, irs persisrence readily explained by
deeper needs and desires which the present has merely
repressed and distorred.2'
This is the question that mecha anime take up and present again and again in
the volatile combinations of bodies and archirecrure that form their mise-enscène.
Can the human being be reengineered, can the "will to architecture" be
directed toward the creation of "a mutation in human nature and the
emergence of whole new beings?" If so, will these architecturally designed
beings exist in opposition to what Jameson identifies as the impulse to utopia
already grounded in human beings, or whar mecha depict as liberation of the
body?
Initially it is clear that Osamu Te^ka's Metropolis attempts to address these
questions by revealing rhe problems with humanistic thinking that Tezuka
exposes in his original manga. By viewing robors exclusively as rhe servanrs of
people, descended from far more primitive machines designed to make human
life easier, we fail to see that robots are also the lifelike creations of human
beings, and therefore have something in common with human children. These
connections that Tezuka establishes between robots and people in the late
1940s are echoed in many conremporary rheories of posthuman identity. In an
essay entitied, "Class and its Close Relations," Alexandra Chasin discusses the
104 I Interdisciplinary Humanities
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ways that mechanical servants disrupt the clear disdncdon between human
beings and machines. Chasin points out that the "servant troubles the
disdncdon between we-human-subjects-inventors with a lot to do (on the one
hand) and them-object-things that make it easier for us (on the other)."^» ATM
machines, high-tech appliances, and computers that assume personalides in
order to serve inevitably become endowed with human characterisdcs of race,
gender, and especially class. For Chasin, "idenddes derive from doing rather
than from being,"^^ and mechanical servants that assist in doing human labor
must also share to some extent in human idendty. Rather than an ontological
disdncdon there is a dialecdcal connecdon between humans and machines.
Chasin concludes her essay by stadng, "It is crucial in meedng the
epistemological challenges presented by electronics, to avoid the seducdve
suggesdon that 'something must be enslaved in order that something else may
win emancipadon.' However strange it may seem, the fate of working people is
inextricably linked with the fate of machines.''^" Tezuka reached a similar
conclusion in 1949. His Metropolis manga shows the abuses of the
master/servant reladonship, but he also suggests that something like a
parent/child reladonship might offer a better model for interacdons between
humans and robots. The bleak ending of the manga stems in part from the
regret the human characters feel for not treadng Michi better. In death, Michi
is regarded as a child who only wanted to know and be loved by its human
parents. The destrucdon that Michi caused teaches the human characters a
lesson about the dangers of humanisdc—perhaps more properly labeled
human-centric—thinking.
In their anime adaptation, Otomo and Rintaro expand upon the cridque of
human-centric thinking that pervades Tezuka's Metropolis manga, but they also
acknowledge the condnuides between humanism and posthumanism inherent
in Tezuka's linking of robots to human children. Surely this is why Osamu
Tei^tka's Metropolis is preceded by an epigram from the French historian Jules
Michelet, which reads, "Every epoch dreams its successor." The quote was
famously used by Walter Benjamin in his Arcades Project as a way of illustradng
the dialecdcal nature of Utopian thought. After cidng Michelet, Benjamin
writes:
In the dream in which every epoch sees in images the
epoch which is to succeed it, the latter appears coupled
with elements of prehistory—that is to say of a classless
society. The experiences of this society, which have their
store-place in the collective unconscious, interact with the
new to give birth to the utopias which leave their traces in
a thousand configuradons of life, from permanent
buildings to ephemeral fashions."^'
Benjamin's interpretadon of the Michelet quote underscores the
condnuous thread of Utopian aspiradons to be found in all human endeavors,
Utopia/Dystopia I 105
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ut Benjamin also famously stated in his Theses on the Philosophy of History,
"There is no document of culture that is not at the same time a document of
barbarism."^2 Osamu Tespka's Metropolis echoes this thought, by initially
showing a Utopian society for human beings that is, at the same time, a
dystopian nightmare for its mechanical creations. Nowhere is the contradiction
between the two more clearly expressed than in the architectural monument of
the Ziggurat. In its dedication. Duke Red calls it, "the culmination of
humanity's long history of intellect and science." It is also, in its hierarchical
structure, housing a deadly super weapon at the top and zones of enslaved
workers beneath, the culmination of humatiity's long history of class based
oppression and subjugation, a document of ctilture that is at the same time a
document of barbarism. The difference between Benjamin's interpretation of
the Michelet quote and its usage as an epigram in Osamu Te^tika's Metropolis is
in the latter's depiction of architecture. Benjamin differentiates "permanent
buildings" from "ephemeral fashions," but Osamu Te^ka's Metropolis shows
that both are ultimately ephemeral. Buildings and architecture can and will be
destroyed. Ironically, it is sometimes this destruction that paves the way for the
dream of a classless society that Benjamin saw as the crucial Utopian element
carried forward from human prehistory.
The posthuman utopia then constitutes both a break and a continuity with
the human utopias preceding it. It constitutes a break when humanism implies
an exclusively human-centric worldview that has litde regard for the bodies of
machines apart from their value as servants. On the other hand, the
posthuman utopia includes humanism when it is conceived as an ongoing
project to extend the scope of human rights and privileges to an increasingly
broad sector of beings.^^ The bodies of those beings may be comprised of
organic or inorganic matter, flesh or architecture, or myriad combinations of
the two, but they will always be dialectically connected to the bodies of human
beings as successors are to their predecessors. Like human beings, the bodies
of machines in Osamu Te^ka's Metropolis bleed when they are struck by Rock's
bullets. They die when they fall great distanees. To the extent that they share in
these bodily experiences of pain and death, they can also be expected to share
a desire for the liberation of the body. In mecha anime this desire for bodily
liberation occurs through, with, or against a corresponding will to architecture.
The subgenre's persistent attempts to reconcile the two are its way of
approaching the fundamental dispute about subjectivit)' that Jameson
describes. Mecha anime present Jameson's notion of both an "impulse to
Utopia grounded in human nature" and "a mutation [causing] the emergence
of whole new beings." What mecha anime reveal is that this very human
impulse to Utopia may only be achievable in a posthuman form.
Conclusion
If, as Tom Moylan states in Scraps of the Untainted Sky, "Dystopian narrative
is largely the product of the terrors of the twentieth century,"3'* then Osamu
106 I Interdisciplinary' Humanities
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Tet^uka's Metropolis, released at the close of that century as an homage to a work
published just after the ghasdy terrors of the mid-centur)', would appear ripe
for dystopian interpretadons. War, oppression and apocalypse comprise a
substandal part of this film, as they do all mecha anime narradves. Indeed, the
metropolis itself, with its massive vertical skyscrapers and endless horizontal
sprawl blocking out all traces of the natural environment has been the cardinal
feature of the twendeth century's dystopian film landscape at least since Lang's
silent, German Expressionist classic. Despite these dystopian features, the
ending of Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis cries out for a Utopian reading. It suggests
that the dawning new millennium might hold some promise of transcending
the terrors of the century just ending.
One advantage to viewing Osamu Te:^uka's Metropolis as a Utopian text is
that such a view allows for a far more nuanced understanding of the mecha
anime subgenre to which it belongs. It reveals, in the images of giant robodc
batdes and the apocalypdc devastadon of elaborately constructed cides
defining mecha, a drive toward the reconciliation of bodies and architecture.
That drive extends at least as far back as Tezuka's Metropolis manga, and
reflects the assimiladon of the American and Japanese cultural streams that
have flowed into mecha anime since the occupadon era. It also reflects the
inexorable progress of technology, showing its penetradon into bodies and
architecture, and its role in the increasing integradon of both. In mecha,
architecture contracts, compresses, and diminishes. The expansive sprawl of
the mecha cityscape is mirrored in the equally elaborate detail of the
microchip. The body, by contrast, expands, extends and develops. Its physical
capacides lead it into metaphysical, supernatural, and extraterrestrial
dimensions. The drive for a union of architecture and bodies may spell
destruction for the urban subjects of mecha's human engineered dystopias, but
it may also lead to the construcdon of new subjects, engineers of future
posthuman utopias.
Not surprisingly, one of the most persistent features of the posthuman
Utopian subject is its appearance as a child. Tezuka's manga provides a
pioneering example of the posthuman child's connecdons with, and
disdncdons from, its human predecessors. Despite their differences, Tezuka's
posthuman children need human beings to acknowledge them as descendants.
This is also the theme of Steven Spielberg's A.I. - Artifidal Intelligence (2001),
which was, coincidentally, released at the same dme as Osamu Te^^ika's
Metropolis?'^ In A.I., a sciendst, after compledng an utterly lifelike child robot
named David (Haley Joel Osment), asks another sciendst, "If a robot could
genuinely love a person, what responsibility does that person hold toward that
Mecha in return?"3'' This is basically the quesdon raised by Osamu Tev^tika's
Metropolis. The difference between the two films is that in A.I., David's
"mother" fails to act responsibly toward him, whereas in Osamu Tezuka's
Metropolis, Kenichi, whom Tima calls her "father" at one point, accepts total
responsibility for her.
Now that the terrors of the twendeth century have segued into a new
Utopia/Dystopia I 107
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global war on terror that promises to mark much of the twenty-first century,
dystopian narradve has a new pool of darkness from which to draw its
inspiradon. Indeed, mecha have already begun to incorporate the theme of
global terror into their narradves, and it is unclear how recent geopolidcal
developments will affect the subgenre's Utopian aspiradons. It is certainly easy
to imagine more sophisdcated and deadly mecha dystopias. After Osamu
Te^ka's Metropolis, however, it is very hard to imagine a utopia without human
beings acknowledging their responsibility to their posthuman descendants.
Notes
' Frederik L. Schodt, Dreamland japan: Writings on Modem Manga, (Berkeley: Stone
Bridge Press, 1996), 235.
2 Japanese artist Takashi Murakami makes this point clearly in his description of the
final frames oiAkira, "A few pages before the end, Kaneda and the other protagonists
race around ruined skyscrapers on motorbikes, even as the skyscrapers rebuild
themselves before our eyes. The city, destroyed by Akira and Tetsuo, noiselessly
returns to its former state, rendered in painstaking detail with Otomo's characterisdc
realism. The reconstruction of Neo Tokyo's skyscrapers embodies a movement from
dystopia to utopia." Takashi Murakami, Uttle Boy: The Art of japan's Exploding Subculture,
(New Haven: Yale University Press, 2005), 111.
^ See, for example, Chon Noriega's "Godzilla and the Japanese Nightmare: When
'Theml is U.S." Cinema journal 27:1 (1987): 63-77, Susan Napier's "Panic Sites: The
Japanese Imagination of Disaster from Godzilla to Akira," in Contemporary japan and
Poptdar Culture, ed. John Whittier Treat, (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1996),
235-262, or more recently, Roland Kelts, japanamerica: How Japanese Pop Culture Has
Invaded the US,, (New York: Palgrave, 2006).
'' In stating this, I am restating a point made very eloquendy by Japanese cultural
theorist Hiroki Azuma who writes, "The history of otaku culture is one of
adaptation—of how to 'domesticate' American culture." Hiroki Azuma, Otaku: japan's
Database Animals, trans. Jonathan E. Abel and Shion Kono, (Minneapolis: Universit)' of
Minnesota Press, 2009), 11.
5 Kojin Karatani, Architecture as Metaphor, (Boston: MIT Press, 1995), 4.
(• Ibid.
^ Yoshikuni Igarashi, Bodies of Memory: Narratives of War in Postwar Japanese Culture,
1945—1970, (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2000), 52.
* Igarashi, 47.
'^ Igarashi, 52.
'" Indeed, Tezuka's Metropolis manga, written in 1949, is an exception. Michi, as Lee
Makela points out in his study of the changing perceptions of robots from Lang's
Metropolis to Osamu Tes^ka's Aletropolis, is "a biological, rather than a mechanical
'artificial being.'" Makela, Lee. "From Aietropolis to Aietroporisir, The Changing Role of
the Robot in Japanese and Western Cinema." In Japanese Visual Culture: Explorations in
the World of Manga and Anime, ed. by Mark W. MacWilliams, (London: Sharpe Inc.,
2008), 102.
" Frederik Schodt quotes Nagai as saying, "I wanted to create something different.
108 I Interdisciplinary Humanities

and I rbougbt it would be interesting to have a robot tbat you could drive, like a car."
Schodt, Frederik L. Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia.
Tokyo: Kodansha International Ltd., 1988), 83.
'2 Science fiction scholar Taka)'uki Tatsumi attributes the design of the mobile suit for
the Gtindam series to an illustration inspired by Robert Heinlein's Starship Troopers
(1959). In particular, he cites, "a paperback edition with a cover illustration of tbe
powered suit drawn by Studio Nue." Taka)'uki Tatsumi, "Gtindam and the Future of
Japanoid Art," Mechademia 3: ¡Jmits of the Human, (Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 2008), 192. Body armor suits inspired many mecha anime OVAs in
the 1980s, such as Btibblegtim Crisis (1987) and Gwyfir (1989).
'3 Bruce Sterling, Mirrorshades: The Cyberpunk Antholo^, (Berkeley: Ace Books, 1988),
xiii.
''' The giant bodies of robots like Gigantor and even the massive Gundam suits are
good examples of the masculine robotic body. For more on the feminine articulations
of robots and cyborgs see Joseph Christopher Schaub, "Kusanagi's Body: Gender and
Technology in MzcViA-anme.," Asian Jotimalof Commtmication 11:2 (2001): 79-100.
'5 Osamu Te^ika's Metropolis. DVD. Directed by Rintaro. 2001. Columbia Tristar Home
Entertainment, 2001.
'6 Ibid.
'^ Roger Ebert, "Roger Ebert's Film Festival." Metropolis. Aptil 27, 2002.
http://www.ebertfest.com/four/metropolis_anime_rev.htm (accessed January 5,
2010).
"* Tezuka claims he had seen only a picture of the robot Maria from Lang's Metropolis.
Helen McCarthy, The Art of Osamu Te^tika, (New York: Abrams Comic Arts, 2009), 94.
''•' Susan J. Napier, Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke, (New York: Palgrave Press,
2001), 207.
^° Osamu Tezuka, Metroporisti, (Tokyo: Kadokawa Shoten, 2001), 160. The English
translations of the lines of Japanese dialogue in Tezuka's manga are my own, but I had
a great deal of help from my students, Hiromi Matsuda, Arisa Shibagaki, and Mati
Yamakawa.
2' Tezuka, 72.
22 Ibid.
23 Tezuka, 109.
2''Schodt, 1996,236.
25 Ibid.
2' N. Katherine Hayles, How We Became Postlmman: Virtual Bodies in Cybernetics, ¡Jterattire,
and Informatics, (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1999), 286-287.
2'' Fredetic Jameson, Archaeologies of the Futtire: The Desire Called Utopia and Other Science
Fictions, (London and New York: Verso, 2005), 168.
2** Alexandra Chasin, "Class and Its Close Relations: Identities Among Women,
Servants, and Machines," In Posthuman Bodies, ed. Judith Halberstam and Ira
Livingston, (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1995), 73.
2'-' Chasin, 74.
3" Chasin, 93.
3' Walter Benjamin, "Patis: Capital of the 19tb Century." Perspecta 12 (1969): 166.
32 Walter Benjamin, Illuminations, trans. Harry Zohn, (New York: Harcourt, Brace &
World, Inc., 1968), 258.
Utopia/Dystopia I 109
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33 Tbe United Nation's "Universal Declaradon of Human Rigbts" was adopted on
December 10 1948, just before the publication of Tezuka's Metropolis manga. Wbile I
have no evidence suggesting that Tezuka was influenced by tbe Declaradon, its
serendipitous publicadon is interesdng.
3"* Tom Moylan, Scraps of the Untainted Sky: Sdence Fictions, Utopia, Dystopia, (Boulder:
Westview Press, 2000), xi.
35 There are some further interesdng connections between tbese two films. Stanley
Kubrick initially began developing tbe project tbat would become A.I. from Brian
Aldiss' short stor)', "Supertoys Last All Summer Long" (1969). Kubrick was also a fan
of Tezuka's science ficdon. Helen McCartby in 'The Art of Osamu 'Tezuka reports tbat
Stanley Kubrick invited Tezuka to be tbe art director for 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968),
but, unfortunately, Tezuka was unable to comply (McCarthy 160). It is interesdng to
speculate on bow Tezuka would bave imagined what may be science fiction's
archetypal image of tbe newborn postbuman being, tbe "star cbild."
^A.l. - Artificial Intelligence. DVD. Directed by Steven Spielberg. 2001. DreamWorks
Video, 2002.
110 I Interdiseiplinar)'Humanities