“Impressive, eh? To have so much… and do so little with it.”
As quotes go this is a short one. Not so strange though, it being from a comic novel, Doll, a Manga by Mitsukazu Mihara. After my trip to Japan, back in October, I’ve picked up a book or two, mostly Samurai stuff, but Doll is not your standard comic book fare, even though the ingredients look very familiar.
It is set in the near future when technological advances have created androids (the titular Dolls) that are incredibly life-like. They work as personal assistants, housekeepers and lovers.
Normally in these type of stories, the androids begin to develop thoughts or emotions and make the humans question where life begins and man’s authority over machines ends. See AI or The Matrix for versions of this. In Doll there is no doubt as to the artificiality of the android and that makes it all the more interesting and ultimately tragic. The dolls become vessels for people’s desires, hopes and obessions. In one of the stories, a husband creates a doll in the image of his late wife, but is then tormented by her presence: the woman he loved now a machine that obeys his every command.
Mihara asks some fundamental questions. What if we could give in to our obsessions? What if we could postpone our sorrow and hurt indefinitely with artificial recreations of life? A bittersweet world it would be…
Her work has also had a lasting influence on Japanese fashion, being responsible for ‘Goth Loli‘, a truly bizarre style that tries to recreate the look of Victorian porcelain dolls.
‘I pray they find a place in this world to call home!’
Sublime Nonchalance 
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March 30, 2007 at 1:44 am
Diana
I know that in your blog you are speaking of androids, but I cannot help but think of the issue of cloning, which is a big deal here in the U.S. People are willing to pay thousands of dollars to clone a child they lost or beloved pet. It makes me sad as I am against such things and I cannot help but think that don’t these people realize that even if it is possible to clone someone you love, the clone wouldn’t be the same? What makes a person a human being? Is it merely the physical or something more? I like to think that we are more than the sum of our parts, and probably the author of your book would agree, from the sound of some the stories.