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Posted in: Anime, Pop TV, Review, TV | Tagged: anime, Animeigo, blu-ray, Time of Eve
Time of Eve Review: Sci-Fi Anime Tale Teaches Importance of Empathy
Time of Eve effectively focuses on human/android relations to send a "bigger picture" thematic message about the importance of empathy.
Time of Eve, the minor classic anime film and OVA (Original Video Animation) miniseries, has at last been collected in a single Blu-Ray set from AnimEigo. It's a classic for a reason. It's not a shonen action anime with big set pieces but a lowkey drama, a Science Fiction tale about a boy learning that robots have feelings, too. This sounds glib, but that's the story and it's every Japanese story about robots, but it's always about a bigger point that's worth making again and again.
In Time of Eve, a teenager who grew up taking androids (who look no different from humans) for granted grows close to his android housekeeper and caretaker when he finds her acting independently, secretly communicating with other androids who just want to live like humans and be treated equally. Even though anti-android sentiments occur in the background, they don't go on a grand adventure or go on the run from gun-toting soldiers. They just go about their lives, quietly visiting a café where humans and androids spend time as lines blur between who's human and who's android as the world slowly moves toward one where everyone is equal. Time of Eve is a character drama, one without shouting or loud declarations of emotion. It's about people, including androids, quietly talking and observing each other and slowly connecting, just as people.
"Time of Eve": Minor Science Fiction Classic
Japan has always been the one culture on Earth that has sentimental feelings about robots. This might be part of the Japanese Shinto Buddhist mentality of ascribing emotional meanings and souls to beloved objects, and that's not a bad thing at all. It suggests a capacity for empathy and a desire for connection. Virtually all anime and manga stories are about empathy and the need to understand others. Time of Eve is part of the subgenre where relationships between humans and robots are a metaphor for finding empathy. The Japanese like to treat robots as artificial creatures capable of having a soul and even better at empathy and kindness than humans, as an expression of a more advanced and enlightened being. That's the ideal.
In case you haven't noticed, we recommend Time of Eve. It can be ordered from the usual outlets and has loads of extras on the disc, including the filmmakers' commentary and interviews.
Time of Eve
10/10
A recent minor classic of Science Fiction, this is a low-key story about human-android relations as an allegory for finding empathy between people and those who might be consider Other, which is the key theme of every anime, and also part of the uniquely Japan sentiment for treating robots like people and ascribing them with souls.
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