Marking bodily differences: mechanized bodies in Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke's ‘Robot’ and early Showa robot literature

Abstract

With the introduction of the play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) by Karel Čapek (1890–1938) in 1923, Japan witnessed a boom of literature about robots (jinzō ningen). Early Showa Japan was undergoing a rapid mechanization process where machines were incorporated into the modern landscape, and these robots became the epitome of the machine's power and authority. At the same time, however, they also produced considerable anxiety about the mechanization of the human body and its reproductive process. This article focuses on cultural historian Hirabayashi Hatsunosuke's short story ‘Robot’ published in Shin Seinen (New youth) in 1928. It situates this text within the scientific discourses surrounding women and their bodies in the Showa era, and shows how the text borrows the metaphor of the machine to raise key questions about bodily differences and female anatomy.