Microsoft Word - MarshallfNOV.docx “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   Western  Washington  University   Author contact: Robert.Marshall@wwu.edu Abstract Structural  analysis  of  the  phenomenally  popular  and  enduring  Japanese  anime  Doraemon  helps  us  think  about   what  we  might  hope  to  see  in  the  not  too  distant  future  from  Japan’s  promised  surge  in  development  of   socially  assistive  robots  (SARs)  designed  for  the  care  of  the  elderly.    Doraemon,  the  earless  blue  robot  cat  from   the  22nd  century,  is  assigned  the  conjoined  tasks  of  caring  for  the  10-­‐‑year-­‐‑old  boy  Nobi  Nobita  as  his  constant   companion,  which  he  does  by  reproducing  the  ideal  caregiving  characteristic  of  Japanese  expectations  for   mothers,  endlessly  affectionate  indulgence;  and  of  improving  Nobita’s  character,  at  which  he  is  unsuccessful   because  he  perpetually  indulges  Nobita’s  immature  demands  for  technology  from  the  future  to  solve  his   problems  with  no  effort  of  his  own.    One  might  suspect  a  moral  lies  hidden  here  for  us  all.    Oddly  and   surprisingly  enough,  however,  notwithstanding  Doraemon’s  failure  as  a  robot  to  reform  the  child  Nobita’s   character  because  he  can’t  say  ‘No’,  exactly  because  the  elderly  require  not  reformation,  but  rather   preservation,  of  the  characters  they  have  spent  a  lifetime  honing,  the  unceasing  affectionate  indulgence   Doraemon  extends  to  Nobita  (even  if  to  Nobita’s  lasting  detriment)  could  augment  the  diminishing  physical   and  emotional  care  resources  available  to  the  elderly  from  their  real  caregivers,  fundamentally  middle-­‐‑aged   women  who  must  see  first  to  the  needs  of  their  children  and  husbands  as  their  essential  duty  to  the  futures  of   their  families.   Keywords:    Japan,  aging,  robotics,  caregiving,  Doraemon,  mothering,  anime       Anthropology & Aging, Vol 37, No 1 (2016), pp. 27-40 ISSN 2374-2267 (online) DOI 10.5195/aa.2016.124   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License. This journal is published by the University Library System of the University of Pittsburgh as part of its D-Scribe Digital Publishing Program, and is cosponsored by the University of Pittsburgh Press. Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           27   “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   Western  Washington  University   Author contact: Robert.Marshall@wwu.edu 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.).    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   similarly   slightly   defective   ten-­‐‑year-­‐‑old   boy,   lets   us   peer   into   one   foreseeable  future  of  this  nexus.     Doraemon’s  relationship  to  his  charge  Nobita  plays  out  the  pattern  of  persevering  care  founded   in  affectionate  indulgence  (amae)  that  reproduces  the  Japanese  cultural  ideal  of  care  of  a  mother  for  her   child,  her  husband,  his  parents,  but  which  care  is  becoming  increasingly  unavailable  in  practice,  at  least   to  the  elderly.    The  phenomenal  popularity  of  the  anime  Doraemon  warrants  opening  a  window  onto  what   tens  of  millions  of  Japanese  evidently  think  a  robot  good  with  children  might  be  like.    From  this  vantage   point,  we  can  reflect  further  on  whether  or  how  a  realized  Doraemon  might  be  good  with  people  in  that   second  childhood  we  never  outgrow.    When  Japan’s  robotics  engineers  come  to  consider  the  relationship   binding  Doraemon  and  Nobita  as  a  plausible  template  for  SAR  performance  for  eldercare,  the  result  of   their  effort  might  assuage  today’s  fraught  and  frequently  infantilizing,  even  neglectful  relationships  with   youthful,  attentive  elder-­‐‑focused  relationships.       Not   a   sensei,   not   a   father,   definitely   not   another   child   nor   yet   a   mythical   hero   or   trickster,   Doraemon  is  a  Mother,  a  Japanese  Mother  (capitalized  to  indicate  the  symbol  ‘Mother’,  not  the  observable   behavior  of  any  particular  mother),  which  makes  all  the  difference  in  Japan.    Doraemon  does  not  demand   or  insist  or  discipline,  he  indulges,  he  supports,  he  encourages,  he  puts  up  with,  he  whines,  he  weeps,  he   even  mildly  chides.    With  true  devotion  Doraemon  carries  out  his  assignment  to  care  for  Nobita  as  his   constant  companion  and  helper  in  order  to  improve  Nobita’s  character,  but  his  help  does  not  refashion   Nobita  into  anything  like  a  modern  Momotarō,  Japan’s  traditional  child  folk  hero,  which  is  the  robot’s   ultimate  task.              Mothers,  in  one  aspect  or  another,  are  Japan’s  intimate  caregivers.    What  Doraemon  has  now  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.    Considering  the  coming  transition  to  SAR  eldercare,  I  have  begun  to  wonder  with   MIT  robotics  researcher  Sherry  Turkle  (2011:  107),  is  the  performance  of  care,  care  enough?  Turkle  points   out  how  the  caring  robots  presently  being  developed  in  Japan  can  “take  care  of  us,”  but  they  would  not   “care   about   us”   (italics   in   original).     But   elderly   Japanese,   especially   elderly   women   -­‐‑-­‐‑   all   mothers   Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           28 themselves   -­‐‑-­‐‑   dread   imposing   on   their   children.     And   these   elders’   adult   children   -­‐‑-­‐‑   the   “Sandwich   Generation”  of  women  who  must  care  for  children,  husbands,  elders,  and  work  at  least  part  time  outside   the  home  -­‐‑-­‐‑  are  at  best  ambivalent;  and  many  feel  distinctly  burdened  (Yamashita  and  Soma  2014).           Through   discussions   of   eldercare   in   Japan,   SARs,   Doraemon,   and   Japanese   Mothers,   the   remainder  of  the  present  article  ponders  this  quandary  step  by  step:  as  inevitable  as  well-­‐‑designed  SARs   are,  can  they  ever  become  a  sufficient  solution  to  the  care  of  the  world’s  rapidly  growing  population  of   elderly?  This  much  is  clear:  the  social  and  emotional  care  robots  that  emerge  from  Japan  in  the  next  few   decades  will  lead  the  way  in  SAR  development  for  the  rest  of  the  world  as  well.     Elder-­‐‑care  in  Japan   Twenty-­‐‑five  years  ago  Margaret  Lock  (1993:  46-­‐‑47)  captured  the  perspective  on  aging  and  elder-­‐‑ care  in  Japan  that  largely  prevails  there  to  this  day.  In  contrast  to  the  50  years  of  prewar  Japan,  men  can   now  expect  to  live  80  years,  and  women,  a  world-­‐‑leading  87  years  or  more.    If  a  tempered  blessing  for   citizens,  planners,  politicians,  and  bureaucrats  see  in  an  image  of  16  per  cent  or  more  of  the  population   over  65  the  approach  of  disaster,  a  tsunami.  The  "ʺgreying  of  the  nation,"ʺ  which  took  130  years  in  France,   85  years  in  Sweden,  and  70  years  in  the  United  States,  has  taken  Japan  just  25  years.    If  present  trends  of   both  low  fertility  and  mortality  continue,  by  the  year  2025  people  65  and  over  may  make  up  a  full  quarter   of  the  Japanese  population.     The  most  dramatic  demographic  changes  will  occur  during  the  first  quarter  of  this  century  as  the   postwar  baby  boomers  reach  old  age.  This  change  in  the  structure  of  the  population  will  not  only  produce   a  rapidly  aging  labor  force  and  a  major  increase  in  expenditures  of  all  kinds  for  the  elderly,  but  forecasts   widely  assume  it  will  all  be  accompanied  by  a  decline  in  economic  growth.    Ogawa  (1988)  had  already   estimated  in  the  late  1980s  that  by  the  year  2020,  close  to  55  per  cent  of  medical  expenditures  will  result   from  care  given  to  the  elderly,  that  actual  costs  will  increase  10-­‐‑fold,  and  that  the  greatest  proportion  of   this  money  will  come  largely  from  the  pockets  of  the  shrinking  younger  population  of  taxpayers.  Ogawa   went  on  to  point  out  that,  should  present  trends  continue,  more  than  14  million  Japanese  will  suffer  from   senile  dementia  by  2025,  of  whom  66  per  cent  will  be  women,  and  more  than  two  million  people  will  be   bedridden  (netakiri,  referring  to  all  sick  and  disabled  elderly,  not  necessarily  entirely  immobilized),  of   whom   62   per   cent   will   be   women.     The   combination   of   a   high   incidence   of   stroke,   the   cultural   reinforcement   of   dependent   elderly,   a   shortage   of   institutionalized   facilities   for   the   care   of   the   aging   population,  and  current  government  policies  means,  therefore,  that  many  women  from  about  the  age  of   50  or  55  can  expect  to  devote  a  good  deal  of  time  to  the  care  of  the  older  generation,  most  often  their   parents-­‐‑in-­‐‑law.            The  tradition  of  extended  family  care  of  the  aged  in  Japan  continues  into  the  present.    At  the   time  Japan’s  Long  Term  Care  Insurance  (LTCI)  system  kaigo  hoken  was  introduced  in  2000,  just  over  half   (50.3%)  of  Japan’s  elderly  were  living  with  or  cared  for  by  their  children  or  other  close  family  members   (Hashimoto  2000:  3).    However,  as  women  continue  to  join  the  paid  labor  force,  as  in-­‐‑home  care-­‐‑givers   age,  as  households  of  one  and  two  elderly  member  increase,  as  fewer  children  are  born,  families  lose  their   capacity  to  care  for  their  infirm  elderly  members.                Kaigo  hoken  was  specifically  targeted  to  reduce  the  caregiving  burden  on  families,  especially   women  in  the  labor  force,  while  at  the  same  time  was  designed  to  help  the  elderly  remain  in  their  own   homes  as  long  as  possible.    Yet  families  do  not  necessarily  give  the  best  care  available,  nor  does  caregiving   best  support  the  integrity  of  families  (Sugiura  et  al.  2009;  Nakano  et  al.  2002).      Many  women  and  even   some  men  do  want  to  be  qualified  care  givers  and  even  go  through  a  recognized  course  of  training,  but   Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           29 those  who  do  not  do  so  are  not  penalized  in  this  new  system.    On  the  contrary,  the  frail  elderly  of  the   household  are  entitled  to  all  the  care  they  are  determined  to  need  by  a  qualified  care  manager,  itself  a   novel  position  created  by  kaigo  hoken  (Yamada  et  al.  2009).       In  this  way,  the  introduction  of  kaigo  hoken  dramatically  increased  demand  for  trained  home  care   attendants  (Tsutsui  and  Muramatsu  2005:  225).    And  so,  as  demand  for  home  helper  services  exploded,   what  was  expected  was  in  fact  discovered:    “Home-­‐‑visit  care  is  the  service  clients  complain  most  about.   The  complaints  are  mostly  about  the  quality  of  the  services  and  attitudes  of  the  care  workers.    The  root   causes  of  the  problem  are  related  to  inadequate  training  of  home-­‐‑helpers”  (Nakane  2003:  19).      Does  this   situation  identify  and  create  a  place  for  SARs  in  Japan’s  system  of  care  for  the  elderly?    Maybe  not,  but   Japan  will  certainly  try  to  find  out.           Socially  Assistive  Robots  and  Elder-­‐‑care   Japan  leads  the  world  in  robotics,  both  production  and  socially  assistive  robots  (SARs).  More  and   better  SARs  are  evidently  on  their  way,  but  views  on  their  prospects  vary.    Media  reportage  uniformly   smiles   on   pilot   projects   (e.g.,   the   debut   of   Softbank’s   “human-­‐‑like”   robot   Pepper   (http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-­‐‑27709828))  while  Sherry  Turkle  (2011)  has  now  come  to  expect   only  disappointing  simulacra  of  intimacy  from  intelligent  personal  technology.     Can  we  glimpse  possibilities  for  the  use  of  and  reaction  to  SARs  for  the  elderly  in  Japan  before   this  nascent  technology  becomes  “rapidly  mundane”  (Horst  and  Miller  2012)?  Japan’s  ambitious  National   Robot  Strategy  was  unveiled  on  January  23,  2015  (DeWit  2015).    It  was  developed  by  the  “Committee  for   the  Implementation  of  the  Robot  Revolution,”  which  had  its  first  meeting  on  September  11,  2014.  Its   membership  included  heavyweights  straddling  business  and  government.    At  its  final  meeting  on  January   23,  it  formally  presented  its  report  to  Japanese  Prime  Minister  Abe  Shinzo.    Abe  then  declared  2015  to  be   “year  one  (gannen)  of  moving  towards  a  “robot  society”.”  The  strategy  outlined  by  the  committee’s  report   aims  to  quadruple  the  current  domestic  robot  market  from  ¥600  billion  at  present  to  ¥2.4  trillion  in  2020.   Japanese  authorities  want  to  expand  the  use  of  robots  in  such  spheres  as  services,  construction,  disaster   resilience,  farming  and  elderly  care.              The  robot  strategy  aims  to  alleviate  problems  both  of  using  robotic  assistance  to  displace  labor   demand  and  to  eliminate  the  current  high  risk  of  injury  to  care  givers  from  handling  the  sheer  weight  of   the  elderly.  Thus  robotics  will  be  used  to  help  in  moving  the  elderly  from  beds,  in  assisted  walking,  in   bathing  and  use  of  the  toilet,  as  well  as  in  care  of  those  with  dementia.  Survey  data  indicate  that  60%  of   caregivers  would  like  to  use  robots  in  elderly  care.  Moreover,  among  recipients  of  care,  the  desire  to  be   assisted  by  robots  is  already  higher,  at  65%.  The  National  Robot  Strategy  aims  to  raise  both  these  figures   to  80%  by  2020.       Interviews  with  females  between  55  and  75  who  work  as  caregivers  for  the  elderly  in  Japan  show   a  mixed  response.  Many  do  find  the  physical  work  more  demanding  than  they  want,  but  almost  equally,   they  find  the  emotional  element  either  valuable  or  deeply  distressing  (Marshall  2013:30-­‐‑31).    A  significant   body   of   research   examines   the   emotional   capacity   of   workers   and   how   employers   try   to   harness   it   (England  2005).  Lopez  (2006)  reviews  this  literature  within  the  framework  of  the  organization  of  emotional   care  in  order  to  understand  care  work  performed  in  nursing  homes.  Existing  evidence  suggests  that  there   might  be  a  place  in  this  constellation  of  home  and  nursing  home  care  for  the  right  SARs,  but  does  not   suggest  that  empathetic  robots  are  even  on  the  horizon  (Asada  2015).         Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           30 Indeed,   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).    Their  first  cut  found  2891  articles  which,  through  exhaustively  detailed  methods,  they   boiled  down  to  “41  publications  reporting  on  17  studies  involving  four  robot  systems  and  one  undefined   robot,”  almost  all  discussing  research  done  in  Japan.            So   far,   the   effects   and   effectiveness   of   SARs   in   elderly   care   have   not   been   demonstrated   comprehensively.  Most  of  this  research  is  done  in  Japan,  with  a  limited  set  of  robots  (mostly  Paro  and   AIBO,  now  obsolete),  and  not  yet  fully  embedded  in  care-­‐‑need  driven  interventions.  Although  obvious   positive  effects  are  reported,  the  scientific  quality  of  the  evidence  is  limited  methodologically  (e.g.,  small   sample  sets,  short  durations,  no  control  group,  no  randomization).    The  exploratory  nature  of  this  research   emphasizes  the  pioneer  work  of  the  researchers  and  caregivers  involved  in  this  relatively  young  field   (Bemelmans,  et  al.  2012:  117).    The  present  would  seem,  then,  a  moment  ripe  for  thinking  deeply  about   the  qualities  that  would  make  a  SAR  good  with  the  elderly.     Wu   and   colleagues’   (Wu,   et   al.   2012)   French   focus   groups   unwittingly   invite   us   to   consider   Doraemon  in  all  his  aspects  as  a  candidate.    During  discussions  of  humanoid  robots,  one  theme  concerned   the  non-­‐‑genuineness  of  expressions  of  humanoid  robots  and  of  human–robot  interaction.  When  looking   at  the  robot  Kobian,  a  participant  said:  “It  has  an  expressive  face.”  Another  participant  answered:  “An   expressive  face  is  not  an  expression.”  Along  this  same  line,  most  participants  expressed  at  first  glance  a   positive   attitude   toward   Paro.     Most   of   them   found   it   charming   and   attractive.     However,   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   While  Sparrow  and  Sparrow  (2006:  141)  find  it  “not  only  misguided,  but  actually  unethical,  to   attempt  to  substitute  robot  simulacra  for  genuine  social  interaction,”  Sharkey  and  Sharkey  (2012:  27)  locate   “three  main  ways  in  which  robots  could,  if  introduced  appropriately,  solve  a  number  of  the  problems  that   elderly  care  might  face:  (1)  to  assist  the  elderly,  and/or  their  caregivers  in  daily  tasks;  (2)  to  help  monitor   their   behavior   and   health;   and   (3)   to   provide   companionship.”   Ethical   or   otherwise,   Doraemon,   is   definitely  “not  a  pet,”  Odel  and  LaBlanc  (2013:  70)  assure  us,  “but  a  helper  and  companion.”    It  seems   worth  asking,  then,  if  a  realized  Doraemon  couldn’t  assist  someone  in  Japan  at  the  other  end  of  life  just  as   well,   someone   perhaps   at   the   edge   of   increasing   senility.   To   do   so   we   need   first   to   understand   the   relationship  between  Doraemon  and  Nobita  as  Doraemon  presents  it  to  us.   In   March   2008   Japan'ʹs   Foreign   Ministry   appointed   Doraemon   the   nation'ʹs   first   "ʺanime   ambassador."ʺ    2014  was  the  35th  anniversary  of  the  Doraemon  animated  TV  series,  first  broadcast  in  1979   and  based  on  a  cartoon  introduced  in  manga  form  in  1969.      Since  1979  one  15  minute  episode  has  been   broadcast  nightly  at  6:45,  just  before  the  evening  news.    Fifty-­‐‑plus  full  length  movies,  thousands  of  comic   books  and  1500-­‐‑plus  TV  episodes  have  been  created  since  Doraemon  was  first  introduced  in  1969.  One   Saturday  evening  while  living  in  Japan  in  2004,  I  surfed  into  the  Doraemon  25th  Anniversary  TV  Special  and   ended  up  watching  four  continuous  hours  of  Doraemon  cartoons,  16  in  all.  For  the  analysis  here  I  use  the   16  episodes  of  the  Doraemon  Television  Collection,  Part  1,  Vol.  1-­‐‑3  (2001).  By  a  fate  mysterious  and  deep,   Doraemon  and  I  will  share  a  common  birth  month  and  day,  September  3,  in  the  year  2112  for  him,  the   suitably  palindromic  date  of  his  manufacture.       Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           31 Episode  plots,  the  syntagmatic  structures  of  structural  analysis,  are  formulaic.    Nobi  Nobita,  a  ten-­‐‑ year-­‐‑old  boy  and  the  central  character  of  the  cartoon,  is  an  utter  mediocrity  or  less  in  everything  he  does.     The  children  in  his  neighborhood  –  the  big  bully  Gian,  the  sneaky  nerd  Suneo  and  the  cute  girl  Shizuka  -­‐‑ -­‐‑  are  his  friends  and  figure  prominently  in  his  adventures  with  Doraemon.    In  the  words  of  young  fan   Mijea,  “so  many  hundreds  of  stories  start  off  with  Nobita  running  home  in  tears,  crying  "ʺDoraemon!  Do   something!"ʺ.”    Nobita  tries  to  get  Doraemon  to  fish  a  gadget  from  the  future  out  of  his  pouch  to  solve  his   problem.    Doraemon  resists  but  finally  yields.    The  gadget  performs  as  required,  but  then  unintended  and   unforeseen  consequences  ensue,  making  matters  worse,  but  funny.    Nobita  seems  to  have  learned  his   lesson  by  the  end,  but  tomorrow’s  episode  reveals  that  he  has  not.    Wash,  rinse,  repeat  as  needed.    Suitable   for  daily  use  with  children.       Fujimoto  Hiroshi,  creator  of  Doraemon,  and  Claude  Levi-­‐‑Strauss,  author  of  “The  Structural  Study   of  Myth”  (which  celebrated  its  60th  anniversary  in  2015),  two  giants  of  20th  century  mythology,  form  a   gestalt.    “When  a  manga  hero  becomes  a  success,   the  manga  suddenly  stops  being  interesting,”  said   Fujimoto.    “So  the  hero  has  to  be  like  the  stripes  on  a  barber  pole;  he  seems  to  keep  moving  upward,  but   actually  he  stays  in  the  same  place”  (Schilling  1997:43).    From  Levi-­‐‑Strauss  we  learn  that     …a  myth  exhibits  a  “slated”  structure  which  seeps  to  the  surface,  if  one  may  say  so,  through  the   repetition  process.    However,  the  slates  are  not  identical.    And  since  the  purpose  of  myth  is  to  provide  a   logical  model  capable  of  overcoming  a  contradiction  (an  impossible  achievement  if,  as  it  happens,  the   contradiction  is  real),  a  theoretically  infinite  number  of  slates  will  be  generated,  each  one  slightly  different   from  the  others.    Thus,  myth  grows  spiral-­‐‑wise  until  the  intellectual  impulse  which  has  originated  it  is   exhausted  (1955:  105).       The  1500  fifteen-­‐‑minute  TV  episode  “slates”  and  50-­‐‑plus  full-­‐‑length  movies  have  evidently  not   exhausted  the  impulse  that  moves  Japanese  children  and  now  their  parents,  some  of  whom  are  robotics   engineers  who  themselves  once  watched  as  children,  to  cease  attending  to  Doraemon  and  Nobita’s  barber   pole.       Analysis  of  artifacts  of  pop  culture  and  their  place  in  daily  life  requires  both  a  reliable  method   and  a  reliable  technique.    Pfadenhauer  and  Dukat  (2015)  argue  convincingly  that  we  cannot  understand   what  SARs  actually  are  until  we  understand  their  relations  with  the  humans  to  whom  they  are  connected.     To  consider  whether  the  anime  Doraemon  could  prove  a  model  for  a  valuable  SAR,  we  must  have  an   accurate  understanding  of  Doraemon  in  his  relation  to  Nobita.  Structural  analysis  offers  a  means  to  control   our  understanding  of  complex  cultural  objects  beyond  the  simple  associations  symbols  evoke  in  us  as  we   encounter  them.       The  method  of  structural  analysis  takes  symbols  as  public  patterns  for  action  based  on  structured   and  interested  local  knowledge,  rather  than  as  embodied  loci  of  encoded,  disinterested  meanings.    This   method  allows  us  to  identify  enduring  and  reliable  connections  among  the  operating  categories  of  daily   life   and   their   relationships   to   each,   the   paradigmatic   structure,   which   underlay   the   activities   of   the   narrative,  the  syntagmatic  structure.    Ouwehand’s  (1964)  structural  analysis  of  the  late  Edo  era  cartoons   that  immediately  flooded  the  city  following  the  great  Tokyo  earthquake  of  1855,  links  earlier  to  recent   creators  and  consumers  of  Japanese  popular  culture  in  a  centuries-­‐‑old  continuous  cultural  tradition.    This   late  Edo  tsunami  of  cheap  cartoons  portrays  the  traditional  child  folk  hero  Momotarō  (Peach  Boy)  and  his   animal  companions  (a  talking  dog,  a  monkey  and  a  pheasant)  descending  into  the  bowels  of  the  earth  to   quell  with  just  a  drinking  gourd  the  writhing  of  the  giant  catfish  (namazu)  which  caused  earthquakes  in   Japan  in  those  days.    In  one  of  the  Doraemon  franchise’s  earliest  theatrical  movies,  “Boku,  Momotarō  no  Nan   na  no,  sa”  (Doraemon:  What  I  am  for  Momotarō),  released  in  1981  just  two  years  after  the  inauguration  of   Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           32 the  television  series,  Nobita  pops  out  of  the  peach  and  Doraemon  bears  Momotarō’s  iconic  banner  “Nihon   Ichi”  (“Japan  Number  1”),  self-­‐‑consciously  connecting  Doraemon  to  Momotarō  lore.    Doraemon  plays  to   mythic  rather  than  modernist  sensibilities,  to  emotional  more  than  intellectual  life,  to  the  needs  of  children   and  to  the  needs  of  adults  for  their  children,  rather  for  adults  themselves.       Ouwehand’s  results  justify  at  least  trying  to  analyze  the  structure  of  this  vast  body  of  connected   cultural  material,  even  if  it  is  not  produced  collectively  and  anonymously,  but  within  the  conventional   bounds  of  Japan’s  current  commercial  entertainment  industry  by  a  small  number  of  known,  indeed  now   famous,  cartoon  artists  (Condry  2013).    That  Momotarō  and  his  animal  companions  re-­‐‑establish  the  axis   mundi  with  just  a  drinking  gourd  and  so  calm  the  rumblings  of  the  earth,  jostles  evocatively  with  Nobita,   Doraemon,  and  the  rest  of  his  pals,  and  the  tasks  they  fail  to  accomplish,  for  anyone  who  knows  both   narratives,  which  in  Japan  is  everyone  above  age  three.    Nobita  is  not  Momotarō,  who  is  a  culture  hero   even  though  a  child.    Who  cannot  be  interested  in  the  question,  then,  of  how  a  child  can  build  a  sound   character  and  what  adults  can  do  to  help?   At  a  first  pass,  structural  analysis  of  this  sample  of  Doraemon  episodes  yields  results  within  the   range  of  available  interpretations.    At  one  extreme,  Shiraishi  (2000:  293)  approvingly  quotes  Shilling’s   (1997:  44-­‐‑45)  cotton  candy  characterization  cited  previously,  “a  breath  of  freedom  and  a  glimpse  of  a   funnier,   friendlier   world   where   all   dreams,   even   foolish   ones,   can   come   true.”     At   the   other,   in   the   dyspeptic  view  of  The  Anime  Encyclopedia’s  unattributed  “Doraemon”  entry  (Clements  and  McCarthy   2006:  158),  “…the  cat’s  techno  assistance  causes  more  trouble  than  it  is  worth.”    My  analysis  generated  a   more  moderate  syntagmatic  structure  overall,  that  the  futuristic  gadgets  Doraemon  produces  from  his   pouch  offer  a  constant  temptation  to  take  the  easy  way  out  which,  once  viewers  are  exposed  to  their   unintended  and  unforeseen,  if  amusing  consequences,  help  us  see  once  again  that  only  genuine  effort  and   ningen  kankei  (human  relations)  can  be  ultimately  and  intimately  satisfying.    But  would  the  approving   parents  of  Doraemon’s  child  fans  want  Doraemon  for  their  own  aging  parents?    What  price,  then,  reality?   A   second   pass,   however,   precipitated   a   more   intractable   and   sobering   question   from   the   paradigmatic   structure  Doraemon’s  gadgets   :  Nobita’s  problems   ::  Doraemon   :    Nobita.    Doraemon   structures  these  hundreds  of  brief  narratives  around  the  assertion  that  technology  is  no  more  likely  to   solve  our  fundamental  problem  of  how  to  live  together  as  humans  beings,  than  children  are  able  to  build   self-­‐‑reliant  adult  personalities  with  only  their  mothers  to  guide  them,  even  when  both  do  as  well  as  anyone   can   expect   of   them.   The   minor   contradiction   of   the   paradigmatic   structure,   the   left   side   relationship,   focuses  the  way  the  gadgetry  Doraemon  pulls  from  his  pouch  both  solves  and  fails  to  solve  the  endless   minor  childhood  problems  Nobita  suffers.    The  minor  contradiction  these  cartoons  model,  as  Doraemon   pulls  one  gadget  after  another  from  his  fourth-­‐‑dimension  stomach  pouch,  tells  us  that  especially  when   technology  performs  as  it  is  designed  to,  even  the  ever  more  wonderful  technology  that  awaits  us  in  the   future,  it  cannot  improve  upon  or  replace  the  dedicated  tenacity,  ganbari,  Japanese  know  they  must  all   exert   to   develop   a   character   that   can   support   genuine   human   relations,   ningen   kankei.     The   major   contradiction,  the  right  side  relationship,  however,  has  been  built  into  the  syntagmatic  structure  of  the   stories  in  a  less  obvious  way.  Doraemon  has  been  sent  back  to  the  present  from  the  22nd  century  by   Nobita’s  dissatisfied  descendant  Sewashi  (like  Nobita  also  a  child)  to  improve  Nobita’s  future,  which  can   only  result  from  improvements  in  Nobita’s  character,  turning  him  from  a  non-­‐‑entity  into  a  20th  century   success,  rather  than  altering  any  specific  event,  against  which  time  travelers  are  of  course  always  warned.   In  a  similar  but  not  identical  way,  Doraemon  cannot  reform  Nobita’s  character  for  him,  because  even  as   human  rather  than  cat  or  robot  as  he  seems,  he  is  himself  merely  more  not-­‐‑quite-­‐‑marvelous  technology   from  the  future.     Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           33 The  major  contradiction,  the  constant  relationship  that  runs  through  each  episode,  recognizes   how  Doraemon,  the  robot  who  does  not  look  or  act  like  a  robot,  does  and  does  not  help  Nobita  build  a   capable,  self-­‐‑reliant  character  that  will  be  able  to  support  genuine  adult  human  relationships.      Like  his   own  gadgets,  Doraemon  is  not  quite  right  for  the  job  he  has  been  assigned.    Because  Doraemon  perpetually   fails  to  resist  Nobita’s  persistent  importunity  for  a  solution  to  his  problems  from  the  technology  of  the   future,  Nobita  never  learns  to  rely  on  and  develop  his  own  capacities  in  the  here  and  now.       We  are  told  Doraemon’s  own  flawed  technology  prevents  him  from  straightening  Nobita  out,  but   it  actually  looks  as  if  he  simply  won’t.    In  any  event,  he  doesn’t.    Doraemon  first  presents  himself  as  having   come  to  save  Nobita  from  a  horrible  fate,  but  later  we  learn  that  Nobita’s  distant  descendant  actually   brought  Doraemon  back  to  the  past  “to  whip  the  disappointing  boy  into  shape”  (Orbaugh  2002:  113).    This   never  happens.    Technology  appears  to  give  Nobita’s  descendant  Sewashi  the  capacity  to  (re)form  the   child  Nobita’s  character,  as  an  adult  might.  This  appearance  is  illusory.    In  the  United  States  our  parents   are  the  most  important  choice  we  make  in  our  lives,  but  in  Japan  the  perpetuity  of  the  ie  (corporate  stem   family)  evidently  requires  people  to  go  back  even  farther  to  fix  fundamental  family  flaws.   The  structural  analysis  presented  here  recognizes  Doraemon  as  the  negation  of  the  technological   part  of  present  and  future  reality,  a  reducto  ad  absurdum   through  laughter.    The  technology  works  as   advertised,   but   only   mechanically,   not   socially,   for   each   specific   gadget   explicitly   and   for   Doraemon   himself  implicitly.    The  anime  never,  of  course,  refers  at  all  to  the  invention  of  technologies  of  any  sort,   including  robots,  as  a  way  for  large  companies  to  earn  large  profits,  the  entry  point  of  technology  into  our   world  where  invention  is  the  mother  of  necessity.The  self-­‐‑referentially  paradoxical  irony  underlying  the   overnight  reset  button  is  that  Doraemon  fails  to  change  Nobita  at  all.    Even  as  the  content  of  the  episodes   shifts  to  include  more  topics  of  the  day,  such  as  environmental  issues,  Nobita  and  Doraemon  remain  the   same.    Even  the  earliest  episodes,  now  over  30  years  old,  remain  phenomenally  popular  in  Japan.  Stand   by  Me  Doraemon  ,  a  full-­‐‑length  movie  released  in  2014,  pulls  together  in  one  continuous  narrative  the  main   story  threads  from  the  beginning  through  the  first  seven  years  of  the  television  anime  series.    The  film  was   a  major  commercial  success  in  Japan.  It  ranked  number  1  on  the  box  office  charts  for  5  consecutive  weeks   and  was  the  second  highest-­‐‑grossing  Japanese  film  for  2014  in  Japan,  with  a  box  office  total  of  ¥8.38   billion.  In  February,  2015,  it  won  the  Japan  Academy  Prize  for  Animation  of  the  Year  at  the  38th  Japan   Academy  Prize.        Far  from  realizing  time  travel,  Doraemon’s  creator  has  made  time  stand  still.    From  the  point  of   view  of  social  relations  versus  the  inevitable  changes  brought  on  by  spreading  technologies,  once  called   ‘progress’,  Doraemon  is  utterly  conservative  if  not  actively  Luddite  in  its  sentiments:  even  if  technology   does  no  harm,  it  is  still  merely  the  preferred  solution  of  an  immature  outlook  and  cannot  be  the  foundation   of  an  adult  character  and  adult  social  relations.    No  future  will  experience  the  effects  of  Nobita’s  adult  life   while  time  stands  still  in  his  childhood  life.    A  living  Nobi  Nobita  is  57  years  old  in  2016.  His  wife  cares   for  his  aged  parents.   Doing   the   same   thing   over   and   over,   expecting   different   results,   is   one   casual   definition   of   neurosis.    Takeo  Doi’s  (1973)  path-­‐‑breaking  work  on  neurosis  and  amae,  the  “need  for  human  affection”   (Johnson   1993:   ix),   opens   the   way   to   deeper   understanding   here.     While   nothing   at   all   depends   on   Doraemon’s  gadgetry,  Nobita  and  Doraemon  depend  deeply  and  constantly  on  each  other  for  affection   despite  the  failures  of  Doraemon’s  technology  to  solve  Nobita’s  problems  and  Doraemon’s  (and  Nobita’s   own)  failure  to  improve  Nobita’s  character  along  any  timeline.    Where  can  we  look  among  Japanese  life   models  for  this  relationship  of  interdependence  based  on  enduring  affection  and  support,  and  yet  which   evidently  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?     Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           34   Japanese  Mothers,  Burdens  and  Affection   Nobita’s  Mama,  like  Papa,  is  an  unimportant,  two-­‐‑dimensional  figure  in  the  stories,  whose  only   task   is   to   give   Nobita   an   unexceptionable   family   to   be   part   of.     Doraemon,   future   relative   Sewashi’s   defective  technology  sent  back  to  correct  Nobita’s  character,  is  the  Japanese  Mother  of  the  narrative.  That   Mothers  do  and  do  not  build  their  children’s  character  remains  tacit  in  the  narrative  and  in  Japanese  life.   How  can  Mothers,  so  utterly  selfless,  so  self-­‐‑sacrificing,  be  thought  to  have  shortcomings  precisely  as   Mothers,  when  they  suffer  so  to  indulge  their  dependents  and  thus  add  their  support  to  help  the  next   generation  prosper  and  succeed?    All  Japanese  know  in  some  way  that  Mothers  do  not  precisely  create  (or   reform)  character  in  a  child  (or  husband)  in  the  first  place.  Sensei  (teacher)  does  this;  Father  would  if  he   was  ever  home;  the  gang  of  neighborhood  children  (nakama)  relish  the  chance;  public  officials  and  police   officers  are  Mother’s  standby  threat;  and  indeed  the  whole  rest  of  the  world  (seken,  soto)  requires  it.       This  Japanese  Mother  disguised  as  an  earless  blue  male  robot  cat  sent  from  the  future  to  (re)build   Nobita’s  character  is  deeply  underdetermined  in  relation  to  Nobita’s  equally  overdetermined  childish   child.    The  character  Mother  in  the  Japanese  domestic  drama  indulges  (amayakasu),  but  is  not  understood   to  build  character  directly  or  explicitly.    As  a  superordinate,  she  is  not  authoritarian  but  an  enabler.    Only   later  in  life,  when  they  recall  her  long-­‐‑ago  sacrifices  for  them,  can  her  grown  children  draw  on  these   emotion-­‐‑laden  memories  to  help  them  persevere  (ganbaru,  a  deeply  revered  Japanese  value)  through  life’s   hardships   (Kondo   1990:   83-­‐‑89).     Memories   of   Mother   reduce   the   hardest   Japanese   heart   to   tears.     So   sending  a  significantly  flawed  Doraemon  is  not  exactly  a  mistake  by  Sewashi,  but  no  one  can  have  any   interest  in  clarifying  this  situation.    The  story  asserts  that  Doraemon  is  the  best  impoverished  Sewashi,  in   his  limited  childhood  situation,  could  manage.    Structurally,  making  Doraemon  a  Mother  in  an  earless   blue  cat  costume  is  how  Fujimoto  keeps  Nobita  from  growing  up.    He  keeps  the  barber  pole  turning  by   stimulating  his  audience’s  affectionate  attachment  and  sense  of  humor,  rather  than  its  critical  awareness.   Viewers   do   not   see   Doraemon’s   affectionate   indulgence   of   Nobita’s   demands   as   one   of   Doraemon’s   characteristic  defects,  such  as  his  fear  of  mice  because  a  mouse  ate  his  ears.    Mothers  indulge  their  children   and  their  husbands.    The  question  for  the  present  article  is,  what  expectations  do  Japanese  have  that   mothers  will  indulge  their  parents  and  parents-­‐‑in-­‐‑law?    How?    And  do  they?   While  Mothers  everywhere  are  caregivers,  they  care  differently  from  culture  to  culture.    Here  I   draw  on  three  widely  familiar  accounts  of  Japanese  mothering  relationships  from  the  extensive  literature   on  motherhood  in  Japan.  Peak  (1991)  contrasts  mothers  with  pre-­‐‑school  teachers;  Kondo  (1990)  describes   women  of  a  certain  age  who  work  part-­‐‑time  in  a  confectionary;  and  Iwao  (1993)  observes  mothers  as   wives.       Mothers  and  preschool  teachers  appear  identical  because,  after  all,  they  are;  but  their  behavior  is   night  and  day  to  the  children  in  their  charge.  In  the  popular  wisdom  of  Japanese  mothers  and  teachers,   the  home  and  the  outside  world  are  so  different  that  the  family  cannot  teach  the  fundamental  rules  of   social  interaction  governing  life  in  the  outside  world.    The  home  is  the  home,  preschool  is  the  outside   world,  and  the  two  settings  require  different  styles  of  behavior  and  habits  of  self-­‐‑presentation  for  success.   This  discrepancy  between  the  public  and  the  private,  soto  and  uchi,  has  frequently  been  described   by  observers  of  Japanese  society.    The  Japanese  language  institutionalizes  it  and  ritualizes  it  in  indigenous   discourse  on  the  social  world  (Bachnik  and  Quinn  1994).    The  home,  or  uchi,  is  the  private,  intimate  arena   in  which  one  can  relax,  let  all  of  one’s  feelings  show,  and  expect  indulgence  and  sympathy  from  other   members  of  the  family.    Within  the  uchi  a  healthy  amount  of  self-­‐‑indulgence,  regressive  behavior,  and   mild  aggression  are  not  only  cheerfully  tolerated,  but  also  encouraged  as  the  indication  of  intimacy  and   Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           35 trust.    However,  in  the  soto,  the  outside  world,  one  must  learn  to  assume  a  genial  and  cooperative  public   persona,  in  which  individual  feelings  and  desires  must  be  subjugated  to  the  harmony  and  activities  of  the   group  (Peak  1991:  7).   The  family  (uchi)  is  not  the  group  (shudan).  Neither  style  of  personal  interaction  trumps  the  other   in  the  abstract;  in  a  healthy  personality  each  should  be  exhibited  in  the  appropriate  situation.    Japanese   mothers  desire  to  maintain  a  certain  degree  of  amae  in  their  child’s  behavior  toward  themselves  and  other   family  members  while  expecting  that  the  child  will  learn  to  display  enryo  (self-­‐‑restraint)  from  and  toward   peers,  neighbors,  and  others  outside  the  family.    The  first  day  of  preschool  presents  this  expectation  to   most  Japanese  children  for  the  first  time  (Peak  1991:  16).    Americans  are  routinely  stunned  to  find  that   Japanese  preschool  teachers,  far  from  considering  hitting  a  matter  requiring  their  intervention,  see  a  child   routinely  playing  alone  quietly  as  an  extremely  serious  behavioral  problem  (Peak  1991:  165).   This  pattern  of  mothering  becomes  a  significant  means  of  creating  intimacy  and  trust  in  other   settings  such  as  work  as  well,  making  them  feel  “homey.”    At  the  confectionary  factory,  women  were   instrumental  in  defining  the  tone  of  the  work  culture  on  the  shop  floor,  the  informal  social  relations  on   the  job.    “They  did  so  primarily  vis-­‐‑à-­‐‑vis  the  younger  artisans,  in  their  roles  as  surrogate  mothers”  (Kondo   1990:  294).  Most  of  the  younger  male  artisans  were  in  their  late  teens  or  early  twenties,  while  the  part-­‐‑ timers  tended  to  be  women  in  their  forties  and  fifties.     Kondo   catalogues   the   ways   these   women   provide   the   young   men   with   a   humanized   work   atmosphere,  a  source  of  support  and  care,  fostering  feelings  of  togetherness,  of  “company  as  family,”  of   work  groups  which,  like  the  household,  become  the  locus  of  emotional  attachment.    “This  position  is  a   contradictory  one,  for  it  replays  on  the  shop  floor  the  notion  that  women  are  emotional  workers,  care-­‐‑ givers  and  creators  of  an  uchi  (homey)  feeling”  (Kondo  1990:  295)  and  so  continually  set  themselves  apart   from  the  central  story  of  maturity  through  apprenticeship  and  masculine  toughness  and  skill:  while  they   are  acting  like  mothers  toward  these  young  artisans,  they  are  not  improving  these  young  men’s  characters   as  disciplined  workers.   At  the  same  time,  however,  their  position  as  Mothers  puts  them  in  a  position  of  advantage  over  the   male  artisans  and  serves  to  make  them  important,  though  formally  marginal,  members  of  the  company.       In  Japan,  Kondo  carefully  records,  the  position  of  care-­‐‑giver  or  the  one  who  indulges  the  selfish  whims  of   another  (the  amayakasu  position)  is  actually  a  superordinate  one  associated  with  parents  or  bosses.    By   asking  favors  of  the  part-­‐‑timer  women  or  by  acting  childish,  the  young  artisans  are  placing  themselves  in   the  amaeru  position  of  a  child  or  a  subordinate  seeking  indulgence  (Kondo  1990:  295-­‐‑296).   Iwao  describes  how  this  pattern  of  indulgence  based  in  the  need  for  human  affection,  as  something   that  can  be  at  least  wheedled  if  not  demanded,  carries  over  into  married  life  and  the  relation  between   wives  and  husbands.      The  domestically  helpless  husband  –  and  some  women  do  call  their  husbands  “my   big  baby”  or  “eldest  son”  –  is  a  prime  target  for  caring  patterns  shifted  from  the  young.    Japanese  women   give  greater  priority  to  their  role  as  mother  than  wife,  but  the  two  do  overlap  considerably      As  well,  this   role  tends  to  keep  husbands  acting  like  children  at  home,  “as  they  shift  adeptly  from  the  indulged  son  to   the  indulged  husband”  (Iwao  1993,    88-­‐‑89).    As  elders,  men  more  easily  amaeru  than  women,  a  Buddhist   priest  explained  when  discussing  care  and  loss  in  late  life:  “Strength  is  easier  for  women  to  achieve.    Men   can  cry  ‘mommy’!”  (Danely  2014:  177).    Nobita  cries  “Doraemon!”   In   commenting   on   Japan’s   large   numbers   of   bedridden   elderly,   Kiefer   (1987)   points   out   that   allowing  oneself  to  be  dependent  on  the  family  is  culturally  "ʺavailable"ʺ  (particularly  for  the  very  young   and  the  old)  and  hence,  in  contrast  to  North  America,  Japanese  culture  indirectly  encourages  the  infirm     Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           36 to  stay  dependent.    And  yet,  as  Iwao  (1993:  56)  counters,  “the  care  of  both  infants  and  the  elderly  rests   almost   solely   on   the   shoulders   of   women.”   So,   “availability”   of   culturally   space   for   “dependency”   contrasts  with  the  variable  occupation  of  that  space.    The  similarities  and  differences  in  the  relationship  of   care-­‐‑givers  and  their  dependents  at  the  two  ends  of  the  age  spectrum  do  not  meet  to  close  the  circle.    A   growing  social  movement  in  Japan  urges  a  deeper  examination  of  the  state  of  the  elderly  bedridden  in   Japan  (Ōkuma  2000;  Sakuma  1998),  insisting  that  infantilization  (“netakiri-­‐‑ni-­‐‑saserareru,”  to  be  made  to   become  bedridden)  is  not  the  simple  application  of  standard  mothering  technique  in  the  same  way  to  both   the  very  young  and  the  very  old,  but  is  rather  a  means  of  reducing  the  demands  of  the  elderly,  to  make   the  elderly  become  bedridden  for  the  care-­‐‑giver’s  own  convenience  in  the  way  that  Doraemon  was  sent   to  improve  Nobita’s  character  by  his  great,  great,  great  grandson,  in  the  way  US  nursing  homes  have  been   accused  of  over-­‐‑use  of  sleep  medication.    All  this  is  the  emotional  opposite  of  amayakasu,  affectionately   indulging  a  dependent’s  need  for  affection,  even  at  some  trouble  to  oneself.   Yet  here  too  we  find  not  a  one-­‐‑way  street,  but  a  relationship.    Consider  the  extent  to  which  the   elderly,  women  especially,  are  determined  not  to  depend  on  their  middle-­‐‑aged  children  when  their  roles   and  authorities  reverse.    Traphagan  (2000:  151)  considers  Lebra’s  (1976:  55)  discussion  of  dependence  and   indulgence   to   reveal   patterns   of   interdependence,   each   contributing   as   they   can,   that   dependency   in   Japanese  society  should  not  be  viewed  as  either  a  wholly  positive  nor  negative  concept.    People  strongly   feel  “the  need  to  avoid  imposing  on  others’  comfort  and  freedom”  (Kinoshita  and  Keifer  1992:  177)  even   when  the  bond  of  family  allows  some  degree  of  dependence  and  even  indulgence.    However,  even  within   the  family  there  are  limits  on  how  much  a  member  can  cause  a  burden  and  on  how  much  one  is  willing   to  be  a  burden  to  others  (Traphagan  2000:  153).    Either  way,  whether  any  daughters  (-­‐‑in-­‐‑law)  do  indulge   their   parents   (-­‐‑in-­‐‑law)   or   not,   it   seems   that   1)   dependent   elders   still   need   affection   demonstrated   by   indulgence,  and  so  might  amaeru;  and  2)  it  becomes  harder  and  harder  to  indulge  them  as  senile  dementia   advances.         The  conclusion  is  hard  to  avoid  that  while  this  notion  of  amayakasu  and  Turkle’s  conception  of   “care  about”  must  be  very  close,  and  perhaps  even  includes  “care  for”  as  well,  a  third  term  too  must  be   considered:  meiwaku,  trouble,  a  burden.    A  person  might  well  not  ask  for  affectionate  emotional  indulgence   because  they  do  not  wish  to  be  a  bother.    “In  one  survey  conducted  on  reasons  worshipers  attend  Sudden   Death  Temples  (pokkuri-­‐‑dera),  93  percent  stated  that  it  was  because  they  did  not  wish  to  become  bedridden   and  a  burden  on  other  people.    The  second  most  common  response  (18  percent)  was  that  people  did  not   want  to  suffer  with  a  prolonged  illness  like  cancer  (Woss  1993:  195)”  (Traphagan  2004:  26).    Long  observes   that  “Death  in  Japan  is  feared  more  often  than  calmly  accepted,  but  as  high  suicide  rates  for  the  elderly   suggest,  perhaps  it  is  not  feared  as  much  as  becoming  a  burden  on  others”  (Long  2000:  7).    Suicide  rates   for  elderly  Japanese  women,  higher  than  for  elderly  Japanese  men  and  for  both  elderly  men  and  women   in  the  US,  are  “often  interpreted  in  Japan  as  an  indication  of  their  unwillingness  to  burden  daughters-­‐‑in-­‐‑ law  with  their  care”  (Lock  1993:  13).   Amaeru  and  meiwaku  emerge  as  one  relationship  looked  at  in  the  different  light  of  the  degree  of   affection   of   the   person   being   caused   trouble   by   the   person   making   himself   a   burden.     Children   and   husbands  seem  not  hesitate  to  amaeru  their  mothers  and  wives,  since  that  is  Mother’s  (and  Wife’s)  role,   to  take  up  that  burden  cheerfully.    But  this  relationship  does  not  appear  to  extend  uniformly  or  routinely   from  the  same  woman  in  her  role  as  care-­‐‑giver  to  a  dependent  parent  or  parent-­‐‑in-­‐‑law.    Or  at  least  the   elderly,  especially  women,  do  not  shed  their  enryo  (self-­‐‑restraint)  in  a  way  that  would  easily  let  them   impose  on  their  caregiver,  when  they  feel  their  request  for  indulgence  could  seem  to  be  a  burden  to  their   caregiver.       Japan  has  now  come  to  recognize  explicitly  that  caregiver  resources  are  increasingly  limited.    It  is   Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           37 less  explicitly  recognized  how  asymmetrically  these  resources  are  allocated:  care  for  children  requires   infinite  patience,  even  a  willingness  for  the  socially  superior  adult  to  absorb  physical  aggression  from  the   child.  Child  care  is  the  Mother’s  fundamental  duty.    Care  for  husbands  plays  out  in  similar  ways,  if  with   less  devotion,  but  the  question  emerges  explicitly  in  Japan  whether  the  wife  playing  the  role  of  the  one   who   indulges   (amayakasu)   makes   her   the   husband’s   social   superior,   and   generalizing,   whether   that   means  that  women  have  more  power  than  men  as  a  general  proposition  in  Japan  (Ogasawara  1998).    This   matter  is  treated  as  something  for  open  debate  in  a  society  that  routinely  ranks  near  the  bottom  of  the  list   for  gender  equality  among  developed  nations:  here  is  one  subtle  way  Japan  polices  gender  role  inequality.     And   finally,   all   Japanese   are   familiar   with   the   legend   of   Obasuteyama,   Grandmother   Abandonment   Mountain,  which  tells  us  that,  while  the  elderly  merit  all  the  care  they  require,  they  sometimes  absorb   resources  that  could  be  better  used  in  furthering  the  prosperity  of  the  family,  which  is  the  fundamental   duty  of  all  family  members.    Indeed,  as  the  household’s  future  looks  more  and  more  bleak,  grandmother   informs  her  son  that  it  is  time  for  him  to  take  her  to  Obasuteyama.    He  resists  as  long  as  he  can,  but   ultimately  relents,  ultimately  indulges  her,  because  he  too  must  do  all  he  can  for  the  family,  although  this   is  the  hardest  thing  he  will  ever  have  to  do.   How  true  is  it  then  that  “one  also  cannot  incur  meiwaku  (burden)  with  a  robot”  (Sabelli  n.d.)?    This   assessment  is  too  ambiguous.    Is  it  because  robots  cannot  be  programed,  ever,  to  feel  burdened  or  anything   else;  or  is  it  that  nothing  one  might  ask  of  them  could  strike  a  robot  as  a  burden,  like  a  bodhisattva  at  last   entirely  free  of  desire  and  remaining  on  earth  only  to  relieve  others’  suffering?    From  the  other  direction,   can  we  move  beyond  simulacra  to  robots  that  can  display  emotion  as  humans  recognize  it?    And  should   we?    At  this  point  I  have  not  found  evidence  that  intimate  Japanese  caregivers  do  indulge  their  elderly   dependents  in  ways  that  parallel  or  extend  their  relations  with  children  and  husbands,  although  cultural   space  is  available  and  the  possibility  widely  valorized  if  only  in  the  ideal.    But  given  the  care  resources   available  to  mothers,  whose  ultimate  responsibility  is  to  manage  those  resources  her  husband  provides   her  for  the  good  of  the  ie,  the  senior  generation  must  come  third  after  children  and  husband.     Discussion  and  Conclusion   Japanese  Mothers  do  not  build  character  directly  through  their  immediate  behavior,  they  indulge   children  and  husbands  in  their  need  for  affection  and  support,  which  has  its  positive  effects  on  those  who   depend  on  them  in  the  long  term.    Although  the  evidence  is  not  clear  that  women  affectionately  indulge   the  elderly  in  this  same  way  routinely,  the  culture  would  allow  them  to  do  so,  just  as  it  would  allow  the   elderly  to  press  for  affectionate  indulgence  if  they  could  bring  themselves  to  overcome  their  inhibitions  in   this  area.    But  duty  requires  all  members  to  push  resources  toward  the  young  of  their  household.   So,  would  the  elderly  and  their  intimate  caregivers  want  to  have  Doraemon  in  their  lives?    Yes,   they  would.    It  feels  odd  to  me  to  say  so,  but  an  imperfect  anime  robot  that  acts  toward  his  charge  as  a   Mother  should  act  toward  her  imperfect  child,  realized,  might  be  an  ideal  SAR  for  the  elderly  who  require   monitoring,  assistance  and  companionship  as  they  become  less  and  less  able  to  rely  on  whatever  human   resources,  their  own  and  of  others,  remain  available  to  them.  Elders  reluctant  to  press  daughters-­‐‑in-­‐‑law   for  the  affectionate  indulgence  those  daughters-­‐‑in-­‐‑law  (now  the  superordinates)  are  reluctant  to  give  or   perhaps   even   feel,   would   develop   a   youthful   rather   than   infantilized   or   neglectful   relationship   with   Doraemon.    Is  it  possible  that  Japan’s  robotics  engineers  will  build  Doraemon  before  2112,  albeit  without   the  gadget  pouch?    Whether  they  have  thought  by  now  of  Doraemon  as  a  model  robotic  caregiver  for  the   elderly,  they  all  know  him  inside  and  out.  And  yet  judging  by  the  anime  Doraemon  we  have  at  present,   it  seems  unlikely  anyone  supposes  he  would  make  a  real  or  lasting  difference  in  peoples’  lives,  if  not   ultimately  make  matters  worse.    No  one  would  ever  think  this  of  a  Mother.       Anthropology  &  Aging   Vol  37,  No  1  (2016)        ISSN  2374-­‐‑2267  (online)        DOI  10.5195/aa.2016.124    http://anthro-­‐‑age.pitt.edu   Marshall  |  What  Doraemon           38   While  I  am  not  Japanese,  it  does  not  seem  to  me  at  least  that  inventing  SARs  to  care  for  increasingly   incapable  seniors  is  “taking  the  easy  way  out”  as  care  resources  become  less  and  less  available  to  families.     The  elderly  do  not  require  having  their  characters  rebuilt,  but  on  the  contrary  dread  as  much  as  anything   losing  the  personalities  they  have  spent  a  lifetime  developing.    Companionship  and  personal  assistance   in  old  age  are  a  different  matter  than  for  a  ten  year-­‐‑old.    But  if  a  realized  Doraemon  could  allow  the  elderly   to  enjoy  life  at  least  as  much  as  Nobita  does  with  the  anime  Doraemon,  I  think  no  one  can  ask  for  or  expect   more  from  any  robot,  and  would  rarely  get  as  much  from  human  caregivers.   REFERENCES     Asada, Minoru. 2015. “Towards Artificial Empathy: How Can Artificial Empathy Follow the Developmental Pathway of Natural Empathy?” International Journal of Social Robotics 7:19–33. 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