Robots certainly are a hot topic. And when talking about near-future robots, the kind of thing you might believe we could actually see, there are some interesting takes. Take the “maid robot” idea for instance. On the surface, this is pretty appealing since it would amount to taking modern robot vacuum cleaners and making them way more capable and aesthetically pleasing. I would love a robot to do actually dusting and tidying up and if it looks nice, that’s a perk.
But when you start to question what a robot, especially an advanced robot, is, things get a little fuzzier. Sure your robot vacuum is a pretty simple unintelligent automaton, but something that’s made in the image of a human and intended to interact like a human? At what point does a being like that have an existence that deserves respect as an equal, rather than continuing on as a machine? As AI models get ever better scores on their Turing tests, we have to wonder.
This kind of subject matter has, naturally, been dealt with a lot in science fiction over the course of the last century, including in anime. How does Time of Eve handle the topic?
Well, it’s a little odd at first. Clearly, there wasn’t a lot in the way of resources to produce this show, as it’s just six episodes and they aren’t even quite full-length, clocking in at something like sixteen minutes each. The animation isn’t bad per say, but they clearly didn’t have the ability to fully produce everything to vision as there are times the show resorts to jitter-cam in order to convince you that something is going on. Honestly it looks rather similar to Gene of AI, except cheaper and thus less able to deliver those visuals.
But, even though visual presentation is certainly part of the grading rubric when it comes to anime, I’m more here for the content of the story. What’s Time of Eve got going for it?
Well, it stars Rikuo Sakisaka, an ordinary high school student in future Japan, whose family (like many) has a domestic servitor robot, Sammy. Robots in this setting obey Asimov’s Three Laws of Robotics, but he notices some odd behavior out of said robot and finds an odd blip in her activity logs, and goes with his “suspicious of robots” friend Masakazu to check it out. This brings them to the mysterious hidden cafe Time of Eve, where the rule is that you make no distinction between human and robot within.
They meet a very animated girl there, who talks it up, as well as the main staffer (who is rather strict about the rule), but note that the one robot that they saw go in, once inside, is not displaying the halo “ring” that robots normally do. The next day, they spot the girl they talked with at school, and to their shock she is, in fact, a robot who acts like one when not at the cafe.
Thus, with Rikuo at least questioning what’s real about robots and especially the one he lives with, we close out episode 1.
This is, in all honesty, a pretty good setup. We’ve got our everyman, our equivalent to Kengo from Beatless, and a decent mystery about what these supposedly Asimov-compliant and seemingly very robotic robots are doing down in the secret cafe that lets them let loose with their humanity, a trait that may only be hidden in the outside world.
We continue to see little stories play out in the cafe, interacting with different patrons as Rikuo learns more about what may be going on in Sammy’s head. For instance, we deal with a romantic couple, who both turn out to be robots who believe their partner, who they meet at the cafe, is human. In another, a dying older model visits, and we have to face up to the pathos of this entity that is… not quite as intellectually refined as the human-like robots we see for the most part. The little vignettes, however, add up to Rikuo’s dive into the humanity of the robots around him (with him particularly concerned about Sammy).
And then there’s Masuzaki. He sort of drifts away from Rikuo during the show, as you might expect. It seems his family is involved in something regarding AI law… law that little touches throughout the show suggests to be pretty harsh, with constant adverts from a lobbying group that comes off as just… robo-racist?
Turns out Masuzaki’s father is on said “Ethics Committee”, which wants to use androids of their own to hunt down places like Time of Eve so they can run media smear campaigns and police raids in order to shut them down. We’re told they have a dark past of anti-robot activism that has lead to injury before, hence why they’ve rebranded and Rikuo doesn’t understand. Masuzaki’s own stance is somewhat more conflicted, as we see he actually had a robot caretaker until his father sabotaged it (eventually revealed to be ordering it to never speak, thus denying it bonding with the child), leaving him with the husk of what was, to a small child, a friend.
Said robot ends up going to Time of Eve, seemingly trying to warn the staff and patrons of the coming infiltration. Masuzaki is called to help deal with the issue since he knows robot law, but of course recognizes his missing family robot. It’s then that an infiltrator enters and, because of the danger that poses to Masuzaki, the robot is able to talk because the First Law (Do not harm humans or allow humans to come to harm) supersedes the second. This results in tearful reconciliation, and Rikuo giving a good little speech about how he’s learned that robots and humans should live in harmony (which clearly touches Sammy on an emotional level), but the Infiltrator escapes – though with only enough evidence to put any investigation on hold, so things are safe for now.
And… that’s where the show ends. It is a short one, after all.
Yet, for all that, I feel like it did a pretty good job. Okay, the visuals aren’t the best and the story feels a little underdeveloped, with only a petty attempt at a climax in the double-length final episode, but all the same most of our emotional arcs did resolve. We got growth out of Masuzaki, actually a hell of a lot of growth out of Rikuo (who started, if more open, about as dubious regarding the proposition as Masuzaki), and… well, it’s reasonable enough that there wouldn’t really be an “end” to a show like this that feels like one. Not unless things ended pretty badly, at least.
There were… quite a few awkward scenes, for something so brief. But I feel like a lot of the hard to watch moments were hard to watch on purpose, because Rikuo especially hadn’t grown up about the main topic and was thus inserting his foot into his mouth a fair bit. I think this is at a level where it’s still tolerable in service to his turnaround (which largely happens in episode 5) being satisfying.
Sammy showing some personality outside the cafe, our last image.
Since this one is brief, I’ll be brief with it: Time of Eve gets an A-. The minus is mostly on the weakness of the direction. As long as you’re not going in expecting a big story, knowing that you’re mostly dealing with Slice of Life, Time of Eve is something that can make you think and make you feel, and the shorter running time might actually be perfect for Slice of Life so it doesn’t overstay its welcome. It won’t take long, so check it out if you get the chance.