“What Doraemon, the Earless Blue Robot Cat from the 22nd Century, Can Teach Us About How Japan’s Elderly and Their Human Caregivers Might Live with Emotional Care Robots.”

Robert C Marshall

doi:10.5195/aa.2016.124

Abstract

While immense literatures examine aging and robots in Japan separately, reality has not yet reached the point where robotic care for the elderly can be examined comprehensively. Disciplining imagination with method, structural analysis of the popular Japanese children’s animation series Doraemon, in which a slightly defective blue robot cat sent from the 22nd century becomes the helper and companion to a similarly slightly defective ten-year-old boy, lets us peer into one possible future of this nexus. If Japan’s robotics engineers would consider Doraemon as a plausible model for a socially assistive robot (SAR), their result might replace today’s fraught, infantilizing relationships with youthful, elder-focused care relationships.

Highlights

While immense literatures examine aging and robots in Japan separately, reality has not yet reached the point where care for the elderly by a socially assistive robot (SAR) can be examined comprehensively (Bemelmans, et al 2012; Jenike n.d; Sabelli n.d.)
Disciplining conjecture with method, structural analysis of contemporary Japan’s most endearing and enduring work of the imagination, the children’s anime Doraemon, in which a slightly defective blue robot cat sent from the 22nd century becomes the helper and companion to a slightly defective ten-‐‐year-‐‐old boy, lets us peer into one foreseeable future of this nexus
Where can we look among Japanese life models for this relationship of interdependence based on enduring affection and support, and yet which fails to develop the dependent child’s character in a way that will help the child enter into and participate in society, effectively to grow up?

Summary

Introduction

While immense literatures examine aging and robots in Japan separately, reality has not yet reached the point where care for the elderly by a socially assistive robot (SAR) can be examined comprehensively (Bemelmans, et al 2012; Jenike n.d; Sabelli n.d.). What Doraemon has led me to think about social and emotional robots in Japan’s future, care given the elderly rather than children and husbands, and the middle-‐‐aged children who have become caregivers to their own parents, leaves me somewhat unsettled. The right robots may never arrive, whatever robots in addition to Paro become commercially available in Japan or elsewhere Bemelmans and his colleagues undertook an exhaustive search of the English language literature on SARs, “...robots designed to give assistance through social interaction to achieve progress in, for example, convalescence, rehabilitation, and learning” (Bemelmans, et al 2012: 115). When the moderator told them about its interaction capacities, a participant said: “But this is not a genuine interaction,” and later concluded: “To communicate with Paro is to communicate with nothing” (Wu, et al 2012: 127)

Doraemon Cares

Findings

Discussion and Conclusion