Anime: Eve no Jikan (Fukuyama Jun, Nojima Kenji, Tanaka Rie)

I’m quite looking forward to this series, Eve no Jikan (Time of Eve, イヴの時間) after stumbling upon the preview on a forum. It is short. Episode 1 of the anime was published free on the web (and iphone) and the quality is superb.

According to Anime News Network, there are only 6 episodes but the 15-minute preview looks really good… and it has one of my favourite themes in science fiction. Human relationships with robots (androids) that become self-aware (or sentient*) as well as the ethics issues involved.

Explanation of sentient (from wiki):

In science fiction, an alien, android, robot or computer who is described as “sentient” is often ascribed qualities such as will, desire, consciousness, ethics, personality, intelligence, insight, and so on. Sentience is being used in this context to describe an essential human property that brings all these other qualities with it.

Summary (from Anime News Network):
In the not too distant future, androids have come into common usage. Taking the androids for granted, humans treat them as if they were common everyday tools, however, some people are unhealthily attracted to the androids due to their human-like appearance (save for a digital ring floating above their heads). This has become a social problem and these people are frowned upon as a result. Rikuo, who has taken androids for granted for his entire life, one day discovers that Sammy, his home android, has been acting strangely and finds a strange phrase recorded in her activity log. He, along with his friend Masaki, traces Sammy’s footsteps and come upon an unusual cafe. This cafe’s main rule is to not discriminate between humans and androids.

This series look really promising and I hope the following episodes don’t disappoint.

Rating: Highly Recommended.
Catch the official English subbed stream at crunchyroll :)
http://www.crunchyroll.com/media-452708/time-of-eve-1/

Official website: http://timeofeve.com/

Main cast:
Fukuyama Jun as Rikuo
Nojima Kenji as Masaki
Tanaka Rie as Sammy

Staff:
Director: Yoshiura Yasuhiro
Music: Okada Tohru
Concept Art: Hotchi Kazuhiro