Hello and welcome back to Futuretoons, where we explore the intersection of retrofuturism
and animation by looking at past depictions of the future seen in cartoons.
A year or so ago, we had an episode that was an overview of futuristic anime.
Now obviously it is impossible to include everything, given how many anime take place
in futuristic or cyberpunk settings, but we did cover a mix of well-known, Akira and Bubblegum
Crisis, and some more obscure titles like Future Boy Conan.
Today, we are continuing this trend by looking at iconic and lesser-known works from the
Godfather of Manga, Osamu Tezuka.
Like most episodes, the distinction between science fiction and retrofuturism is going
to be blurred here.
The way I always handle this, is basically, all depictions of the future are fiction and
retrofuturism says more about the world of yesterday than it does about the world of
tomorrow.
I also realise not all of you are into anime and may not understand the significance of
Tezuka, so as a very quick summary, Osamu Tezuka is like Walt Disney.
There was Japanese animation and sequential art before him but everything was different
after.
Manga and anime as we today know it starts with Tezuka’s Astro Boy, or Mighty Atom.
Now I don’t want to spend a ton of time here but I do think it is important, not only
for the aesthetics and art style it established, but also the themes it introduced, which we
will be seeing again.
Astro Boy, the manga, was first published in 1952, running through 1968.
There have been multiple anime adaptations, the most famous of which was the first, from
1963.
This is one most are familiar with, due to its popularity both in Japan and abroad.
Astro Boy takes place in 2003 in the manga and 2013 in the anime, which we are going
to be looking at the first episode of.
The story opens with real boy, Astor Boynton, driving his car on electric highway 66, said
to be safest road in existence.
It’s more or less an automated road, where drivers merely have to press a button to travel.
Again, safe, convenient, however, Astor dies in a freak accident, which is very upsetting.
His father, who is head of the Ministry of Science, decides to create a robot version
of his son and Astro Boy is born.
After a sort of Pinocchio-like period of discovery, Astro’s father realises that his creation
will not age like other children and sells his robot son to a circus.
Here, Astro is forced to fight larger robots for people’s entertainment.
Due to his erratic behaviour, Astro’s father is fired from the Ministry of Science and
is replaced by Dr. Elefun, who is more compassionate towards robots and AI.
Elefun seeks out Astro Boy at the circus, which sets on fire during a performance.
Astro and the other robots to save the human audience and the episode ends with a news
report announcing the passing of the Robot Bill of Rights and the end of robot servitude.
So this touches on a lot.
Roboethics, which we started a series on before the pandemic, maybe we will revisit that someday,
but there we looked at how AI has become engrained in our lives.
As technology develops and robots get tasked with more “emotional” responsibilities,
different moral issues arise.
What is being lost in delegating these roles to nonhumans?
Is it right to trust something like someone’s health or mental well-being to a machine?
Can that machine handle certain responsibilities, and who’s profiting?
In Astro Boy, we get a cavalcade of interesting robot designs, all of which are programmed
to serve or entertain.
They are treated awful by their owner.
There is also, I think at least, an underlying distrust of technology, especially automation, Astor
dying on the safest highway.
The fact Tezuka recognised these concerns when he did and explored these ideas in what
is ostensibly a children’s cartoon is pretty amazing.
Something we did not get over here in North America, and is virtually lost to time, is
Galaxy Boy Troop, also from 1963.
Apparently, Tezuka was extremely unhappy with this series and ordered all copies destroyed.
As far as I’ve found, only one episode still exists, episode 67, so there isn’t a lot
to go off of but I do want to cover it, if only for its obscurity.
What we are seeing here seems to be the from the French broadcast, given the hard subs.
It only aired in Japan and France, so maybe that’s why this survived.
Galaxy Boy Troop is the happiness or most stable future we are going to be looking at
today, at least on Earth.
It takes place in the 21st century where humanity is comfortable, at peace with one another,
and so they set out to reach other worlds.
It is a traditional/puppet animation hybrid.
Marionettes are used, similar to Thunderbirds, which gives a cool effect when mixing with the traditional animation.
The aesthetics are definitely the most interesting thing about Galaxy Boy Troop.
Beyond what I’ve already said, there aren’t really any explicit future predictions, just
pretty generic sci-fi fare.
Jumping ahead to 1980, we have Phoenix 2772, or the title I prefer, Space Firebird 2772.
This was based on Tezuka’s Phoenix series, a manga that spans future, present and past,
with 12, self-contained stories written between 1954 and 1988.
Each story dealt with reincarnation, hence the Phoenix.
This film adaptation takes place in the distant future, where Earth’s resources have been
depleted.
The only hope of reviving the planet lies in the blood of a mythical creature, a phoenix,
and mankind sets out to capture it.
In this future humans are less grown as they are manufactured.
All life begins in test tubes.
Occupation is assigned to you by a computer and you are raised under constant surveillance.
I love that the future of video games this shows.
Sprites come out of the screen at you.
The main character Godo is raised by female presenting robot that he has control over,
which gives us a couple awkward scenes.
At one point she makes a pass at him.
It is a cold and cruel future.
There is rigid hierarchy and dating outside of your class can lead the member of the lower
class straight to a work camp, that is attempting to solve Earth’s stability issues but is
only exasperating them.
In terms of architecture and vehicles, pretty standard stuff, actually, across the board
so far has been pretty conventional.
Domes, fins, flying cars.
Nothing really spectacular but there is a super cute server robot.
I love this.
The last film we are going to be looking is Metropolis, based on the 1949 manga of the
same name, which is unrelated to Fritz Lang’s film of the same name.
We covered that on a recent episode of Futurefilm, over on Patreon.
Support us if you can.
Tezuka did apparently take some inspiration from Lang’s Metropolis, despite never having
seen it.
He was exposed to ideas and aesthetics from it through an article he saw in a magazine.
The 1927 film would more directly inspire the film adaptation, which came out in 2001,
12 years after Tezuka’s death.
You could consider this the anime equivalent of a rock supergroup, given the talent involved.
The source material, obviously written by Tezuka, was adapted Katsuhiro Otomo, creator
of Akira, produced by Madhouse, and was directed by Rintaro, who actually worked with Tezuka
as a director on Astroboy.
He also directed the film adaptation of Galaxy Express 999 which you could classify as retrofuturism.
At its core, Metropolis is a story about class.
Like Fritz Lang’s version, society is divided, literally, into three levels, or zones.
Above ground, in a city, live the wealthy humans, served by robots, in a city hailed
as the world leader in industry, economics and culture.
This is broadcast repeatedly over speakers.
Below ground, in Zone 1, are the poor and unemployed humans, who resent robots, as they
believe they took their jobs.
Misplaced anger.
The rich gave their jobs away.
Like in Astro Boy, AI and robot rights are major themes here.
We get tons of unique robot designs.
Different robots serve different purposes.
There are some that are purely service robots, industrial robots, as well advanced humanoid
AI.
A major plot point deals with combining human organs with robots so kind of transhumanism.
Robots don’t have real names.
They are designated by number, as it is believed names infringe on rights of humans.
They live in zone 2 and are still lower on the social ladder than destitute humans who
inhabit zone 1.
Older robots are relegated to Zone 3.
Aesthetically, it looks great.
It’s a combination of traditional animation and CGI.
Around the time this was produced, CGI was thought of as the future and used to symbolise
the future.
This animation is still beautiful today.
Perhaps because of its relation to Fritz Lang’s Metropolis, it draws a lot of inspiration
from the early 20th century, America, the jazz age.
As excessive and lavish as Lang’s film was, it was still limited by the production constraints
of the time.
The fact that this film is animated allowed the producers to create a more immersive and
fleshed out world, from the architecture, above and below ground, to the citizens just
living their lives.
It feels lived in.
And that’s about it for Metropolis.
I am no expert and this was not meant to be exhaustive, so if I missed anything, feel
free to correct or comment down below.
I will also post links to relevant material in the description if you want to check it
out.
Let me know what you think.
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See you in the future.