5

Robots That Teach Us How to Love

People in Japan don't like to have sex. That might come as a surprise to you if you live basically anywhere else in the world as, from an outsider's perspective, it seems like everything they export is actively trying to rape everything else they export. But it's true: They just don't. They have one of the lower birth rates in the world, and it's estimated that only 34 percent of Japanese couples have sex on a weekly basis which… actually explains everything about Japan perfectly, come to think of it. So what are they doing to fight it? Manufacturing new and presumably jellyfish flavored aphrodisiacs? Offering classes in the art of love-making? Perhaps just focusing more on the effectiveness of fertility drugs, so that what twisted, crying, tentacle-based biannual sex does occur will result in more babies? Nope, none of the above! The answer is somehow robots. Terrifying, terrifying robots:

This is Yotaro, and aside from drifting through the vast emptiness of space, devouring the life-force of all planets he stumbles across, he's also meant to help combat the low birth rate problem in Japan. But… how? Anybody with a strong opinion and a girlfriend can tell you that make-up sex happens, but is fearsex a thing? Are the inventors hoping to terrify young males so much that the blood will flee from their heads, occupy their boners, and try to hide inside the nearest vagina? According to Hiroki Kunimura, the inventor of Yotaro, that hideous monstrosity up there is meant to “trigger human emotions, so humans want to have their own baby.” Listen, man: That logic only works if you subscribe to the belief that the only thing that can kill a baby is another baby, and you're hoping the citizens of Japan will start procreating solely to build a wave of toddlers that will swarm over and destroy Yotaro by sheer numbers alone.

"YES. MORE JUICE. OBEY THE SADISTIC WHIMS OF YOTARO."

Also, please notice the phrasing in Mr. Kunimura's quote: “Trigger human emotions… so humans want…” Notice at no point does he say “we” or “ours” – he says “human” and “humans,” as though he is totally disconnected from our species. When the tsunami of babies finally jams Yotaro's Flesh Harvesting Core and this terrible apocalypse is at last averted, just try to act surprised when Hiroki Kunimura rips off his mask to reveal another glowing, dead-eyed porcelain moonface and starts sweeping his sonic deathscreams over the gathered crowd.

4

Robots That Take Care of Us

The National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science and Technology have built a robot named Taizo; a machine capable of crossing cultural barriers… in that he terrifies people afraid of unearthly robots equally as much as those with a phobia of inhuman clowns.

"I've got it! What if we combined all the lovableness of clowns, with the unblinking stare of a shark?"

Also, he's meant to be used by old people. That's right: At last there's a robot for the demographic that's afraid of remote controls and simply “doesn't trust the look” of the TiVo. And to help further set their minds at ease, they built it to look like the mascot from