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Makota Ishida for TIME
Firms like TMSUK are promoting devices, such as this maid robot, to serve humans.


In a land where people make pets of their gadgets, the root looks set to become the companion of the future
By TIM LARIMER Tokyo

Japanese personalize their machines. They give names to their office PCs and printers, their factory robots, their cell phones, CD players and Game Boys. Such playful intimacy with inanimate objects made of acrylic, silicon and liquid-crystal displays may seem unnatural. But electronic devices are so vital to Japanese lives that they become virtual family members. Indeed, many people spend more time with machines than they do with their relatives. Just watch a schoolgirl on a subway train with her cell phone, checking voice messages, typing in e-mail responses, downloading her horoscope. Her cell phone is her best friend.


The Japanese tendency to anthropomorphize machines is critical to understanding their embrace of technology in the postwar era. As a result of considerable cultural and spiritual indoctrination from educators, artists, writers and the government, the machine in Japan has become an ally, a friend, a partner. And what a loyal companion it has been during the past 50 years. Making machines turned Japan into an exporting giant. Perfecting them made Japan the center of the electronics industry.


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