The men who create Japan's machines are perhaps the most sentimental. Many of these engineers say they were moved by the animated characters who have served over the years as emblems of a future world. A child of the 1950s. A '60s guy. That's '70s all the way.
Robots are always heroes in comic books.
They help the weak and defeat the bad guys. That's a uniquely Japanese view of the good-hearted mechanical being. His humanoid worker robots rise up and destroy their human masters. By conceptually transforming robots into cherubic pals, Japan made the idea of automated technology more palatable. While laborers in other parts of the world feared robots would make them obsolete, Japanese workers celebrated their time-saving efficiency.