Schodt - Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia

" Fascinating.... It is ironicand Schodt appreciates the ironythat the Arnold Schwarzenegger film The Terminator ends with the berserk humanoid monster meeting its end next to two industrial robots, one made by Japan's Fanuc and the other by Japan's Yaskawa."

"[A] sharp, singular book."

" Western industrialists will learn more about competing with Japan from this book than from all the how-to books that have proliferated since Japan Inc. became a popular ogre."

"The robots are coming, and they are Japanese."

"One of the best Sci-Tech books of 1988"

On the New Digital Edition of
Inside the Robot Kingdom

I began doing research for Inside the Robot Kingdom in the mid-1980s. In retrospect, it was a particularly interesting time to write a book on Japanese robots and the relationship between culture and technology.

There was then a palpable sense in Japan that the twenty-first century was to be Japan's century, an era in which its unique approach toward technologyespecially manufacturing technologywould usher in a bright, shining, new age. In the United States and in Europe, many in corporate boardrooms and on factory floors shared this opinion, although their attitude was one of gloom born of defeatism.

Since then much has changed. In the early 1990s Japan's economic bubble burst, and the country entered a profound slump that surprised everyone by its duration. Instead of Japan, it was the United States, with its software and network technologies, that led the Internet revolution and demonstrated a newly re-energized economy that lasted into the new millennium. And instead of Japan, in the new multi-polar world of the twenty-first century it was South Korea, Taiwan, and the emerging economies of China, Brazil, India, and Russia that really roared for attention. Still, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, Japan remained an economic powerhouse, and people could still marvel at its technology. Japan was admired for its ubiquitous wireless communications, for its innovations in green energy technology, and for its sophisticated and elegantly designed high tech products. Less frequently noted was the fact that Japan was (and is) still the undisputed Robot Kingdom.

The least glamorous robot is the industrial version, working mainly in factories. Industrial robots have both a hardware and software component, and in the late 1980s it was still not entirely clear which was more important. Despite America's domination of the software industry in general today, in the world of industrial robots, in both number and application, Japan today remains far and away the leader.

Fantasy robots are as popular as ever in Japan, and indigenous Japanese designs have now been successfully transplanted overseas. As young people around the world consume more and more Japanese pop culture in the form of manga and anime, they also absorb Japanese ideas of what robots should be, whether pilot-able exoskeletons or transforming robots, oras with fantasy characters like Astro Boy and Doraemonlovable pal robots. Increasingly, images of robots in the American and European fantasy media seem Japanese-inspired.

In the world of experimental robots and robots outside of manufacturing, Japan is not the only nation doing interesting research. Yet Japan leads the way in trying to develop appealing humanoid and animal-like robots. Major Japanese corporations regularly announce increasingly sophisticated bipedal robots that can dance or run or walk up stairs, or four-legged robots that act as human helpers or function as surrogate animal pets. At a serious level (as opposed to attempts to mass-produce simple toys) this is an effort still largely confined to Japan, and it heralds the ultimate realization of a long cherished Japanese goalthe creation of intelligent, humanoid robots that will live among us and help us.

Inside the Robot Kingdom: Japan, Mechatronics, and the Coming Robotopia has been out of print for many years now, but as time and technology advance, more and more people have wondered if they could somehow purchase a digital copy. With the help of my dear friend Raymond Larrett, an expert on digital publishing and my personal oracle on all things modern and interesting, it is finally now possible to offer this book in a new, free-flowing format viewable on a wide variety of digital platforms. The digital version presents the original content of the book unaltered, except for formatting and design.

While this book was first published in 1988, I hope readers will find much in it that applies to today, and hints of tomorrow.

FREDERIK L. SCHODT
San Francisco, California
October 31, 2010