The lonely promise of cute robots
- lastmansurfing
- 7 hours ago
- 1 min read
Inboxing Mirumi is like traveling back in time. It’s late 2025 when it arrives on my doorstep in a box that looks like a shopping bag. Inside sits a fluffy pink robot with an owlish face and surprisingly strong slothlike arms.
It’s soft to the touch, and then suddenly, I’m transported back to Tokyo, Japan, in 2011. I’m a lowly editorial assistant at an English-language trade magazine for the American Chamber of Commerce, sitting in a cramped office near Roppongi Hills.
I’m on the phone with a professor of robotics, speaking in a pidgin of Japanese and English about technological culture — specifically the difference between American and Japanese robots.
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