We turn our attention to "Eve no Jikan (Movie)".
Before I give my review, I want to talk about references stated in this movie. Since the movie is about robotics, and the more proper term from within the movie "androids"; it might interest people to know about the term "Three Laws of Robotics".
These laws were originally envisioned by scientist and author, Isaac Asimov; and was most important in his "Foundation" series of science fiction novels. But they began with a short story called "I, Robot" which strangely enough had almost nothing to do with the recent movie of the same title acted in by Will Smith. While this film gave Isaac Asimov a screen credit, the screenwriter shredded the original story and created a brand new work, and didn't even bother to include the central theme of Asimov's novels, "The Three Laws of Robotics", except as a preamble.
But these Laws ARE in "Eve no Jikan". And now you see how we get to the review.
I won't bother the reader with a spoiler for the story. But I will say that the story is well written, envisioned, and placed into the artwork. The characters are pretty, and quite attractive; and slightly smarter than us actual members of Mankind.
Ironic that this is the case, since the future world described in "Eve no Jikan" is not that far into the future. It is placed so recently into the future that old design androids and relatively new designs walk through the story in the same city, and at the same time. If this were the far future, it can easily be assumed that androids would have standardized, and the older models would have been flushed out of the system by attrition.
The dialog is excellent, and since this is mostly a dialog-driven story; my comments to this effect are pointed. I have a more general comment about the ideas conducted, including those presented by the dialog, but let's put that aside for the moment. The japanese voices are excellent, and each character makes a clear contribution to the philosophy the authors wish to convey. I have not watched this show in dub-english, but I assume it also presents the story well.
The music is very sparse. There is some impromptu piano music, played by a few of the characters, and there is a lovely and pointed End-Titles Song. And that is just about it. Normally, I would have expected a full-on soundtrack for such a profoundly emotional story; but in this rare case, the producers actually and properly underplayed the music. The story needed very little music to make the story-points clear.
Now let's talk a bit more about the ideas in "Eve no Jikan" which I had delayed earlier. The biggest idea in the story is that of the notion that there will be a time when the machine begins to evolve where at some point it become 'self-aware', and its synthetic and very artificial intelligence becomes so much like the minds of its creators, that the idea becomes an difference without a distinction.
The authors wish us to believe that us flawed members of Mankind will have a form of shell-shock, and rebel from the notion of including these sentient androids into society at any level whatever. So for many of us, this anime movie presents an answer:
FOR A QUESTION NOT WELL ASKED IN OUR OWN WORLD
This infirmity of thought, is a mistakenly assumed point of reference. I have more faith in Mankind than that form of petty jealousy. When a machine has feelings and ideas so clear that they perfectly mimic similar themes within us all; then I would heartily give the android credit for that notion. And I think most of us would do the same.
All of this discussion leads us to a really ugly form of discussion known as "... second class entities have no rights ...". This is what led to notions like Manifest Destiny, in the United States; or the more active form Pacification by Force, in Australia; in years past. Both of these ideas ended in the death of tens of thousands of the assumed 'second class entities'. In the United States, it was the American Indians. In Australia, it was the Aborigines. If it is declared not Human, we can destroy it without recompense.
It has not always been the case, but I want to believe that Mankind will be better than that, in the future.
I give "Eve no Jikan (Movie)" a solid 8, and I hope you all will give this movie a look.
