Japan Isn’t the Robotopia Apple’s ’Sunny’ Portrays

Sunny, the new Apple TV show, invites us to think about what even the most innocuous robots can be. Friends? A crime-solving partner? Or, perhaps, as the show’s opening scene suggests, even killers?

The dark drama-comedy, from Hollywood darling production studio A24 and starring Parks & Recreation’s Rashida Jones, tells the tale of the grieving Suzie Sakamoto, an expat in Kyoto grappling with the mysterious loss of her family in a plane crash. The twist is the eponymous Sunny, an irritatingly accommodative helper robot — designed by Suzie’s husband , and which may be the key to finding the truth.

The inevitable place to set this show, then, is Japan. Robots — like bullet trains, kimonos and animal cafes — remain, rightly or wrongly, among the enduring go-to images of the country. 

But Suzie hates the machines. Along with her lack of language ability, it’s one of the many things that puts her at odds with Japanese society. Sunny’s out-of-time, futuristic-yet-1970s Kyoto is a fresh choice, yet it still trades in the familiar stereotypes of Western-seen modern Japan: we get the yakuza underworld, check; shop shelves laden with sex toys, check; hikikomori social outcasts, check; awkward social interaction with Japanese men unable to handle Western women, check, check, check.

Such images of the country are only half-complete, providing alleged exoticism rather than understanding. This is true: It is for automatons, too — from Sony Group Corp.’s robot dog Aibo to the early bipedal droid Asimo, the idea of Japan’s “robotopia” is one that, like a Terminator, just won’t die. “To a startling degree, the Japanese have taken to robots,” said a 1982 New York Times article, noting the country’s “love affair with robots dates back decades.” 

It’s not just Western media. The country is more than happy to feed the narrative of the “robot kingdom,” a frequently used phrase that formed the title of the influential Frederik L. Schodt’s 1988 book on the subject, which helped cement the idea in popular Western thought. And it is, of course, a world leader in automated industrial machines, as well as boasting a rich history of fiction featuring friendly automatons, from Astro Boy to Doraemon to Arale Norimaki, the little robot girl of Akira Toriyama’s manga Dr. Slump.

Japan certainly does have an affinity for droids, with explanations ranging from the Shinto belief in animism, to the history of karakuri mechanical puppets, to the suggestion that the absence of a Japanese history of mass slavery frees it from the fear of an uprising by a downtrodden underclass. Regardless of the reasons, as my colleague Catherine Thorbecke has noted, Japan is much less concerned about artificial intelligence than other countries, with an Ipsos survey noting Japan has by far the fewest saying AI products made them nervous.

Nonetheless, away from the factory floor, the devices of modern Japan remain closer to Schodt’s book than the near-future fiction of Sunny. True, my day will often take me past the security robots that patrol the corridors of our office building, drawing glances from tourists; or the cat robot waiter that delivers dishes to restaurant tables. Yet these devices seem little different from the examples Schodt provides — such as the robot for “lazy shoppers” developed by department store operator Seibu in 1985, which followed customers to hold their purchases. He also notes that many such 1980s’ experiments were mere marketing devices, rather than actual tools. 

Many of the promises of that era of robotics remain unkept. Where, for example, are the caregiver robots we’ve long been promised would help Japan’s rapidly aging population, asks James Wright, the author of Robots Won’t Save Japan. Even Pepper, the SoftBank Group Corp.-backed machine once a staple of office receptions and bank lobbies, has been discontinued and relegated to a kitschy tourist cafe.

The idea of the “robotopia” has a whiff of the current hype around self-driving vehicles, blockchain or AI. While robotaxis might gradually be making an appearance in some Chinese and US cities, how long has Elon Musk been promising us his full self-driving cars? Those unfulfilled promises are worth keeping in mind given the hype around his Optimus robot, supposedly set to join factory floors in 2025. 

Beyond a few experiments like the delightful Uber Eats robot recently launched in limited areas of Tokyo, robots and drones seem no closer to solving the last-mile problem of delivery — in marked contrast with Sunny’s ability to cook, clean and do almost anything required. 

Ultimately, the problem is one of economics. In addition to the technological barrier, one of the reasons we still see relatively few robots doing the menial jobs is that human labor is cheap. In most cases, it’s still more economical to have a person, with dexterity and ingenuity beyond the ken of robots, to do most tasks, unless they’re extremely repetitive or dangerous. But that’s also a reason to be encouraged for the future of Japan’s robotopia. The country’s increasingly acute labor crunch has executives desperately trying to determine how to better automate thankless tasks. And here Japan’s affinity for robots might come in useful: The AI doomerism of today’s West is paralleled in the 1982 New York Times article mentioned earlier, which noted American workers were “at best, unenthusiastic about the prospect of robots in their lives.” Just as AI might be making robots more versatile, the shortage of workers will make their integration in Japan socially easier, too.

And perhaps, as Schott noted in a more recent reprint, as people worldwide consume Japanese media, they’ll “absorb Japanese ideas of what robots should be”— lovable, friendly, kawaii. That might be Japan’s more lasting contribution. But unlike Sunny, don’t expect the robots of the near future to help you solve a mystery or recover from a loss. 

More From Bloomberg Opinion: 

A Google search instantly verified this stereotype remains true, with a very recent example from the country of birth of both myself and of Sunny’s creator, Japan-based Irish author Colin O’Sullivan.

Ironically, these devices are less well suited to cramped central Tokyo eateries, and I see them more often in second-tier cities or airports.

Before the pandemic, the Robot Restaurant was a kitsch but strangely beloved tourist attraction — though it also featured very few actual robots, relying mostly on suited dancers.

This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Gearoid Reidy is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering Japan and the Koreas. He previously led the breaking news team in North Asia, and was the Tokyo deputy bureau chief.

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