Moe Anime could Revive Utopian Science Fiction

[MithrandirOlorin]

The reason Utopian Science Fiction died out is because the Western World's tastes became increasingly over fixated on the importance of things like "Conflict" and "Stakes" and "Character Development". So settings where our major problems have already been solved are considered "uninteresting" and "boring".

Now there is also the common claim it was also killed by the World Wars and the Holocausts and then further the tragic events of the late 60s and 70s make people less willing to believe that a Utopia is possible. But I disagree with that, horrible events only make it desire optimistic fantasies more.

The most well known and popular work of Utopian Sci-Fi was early Star Trek, but it was never purely Utopian, presumably Earth and other core Federation worlds were, but the stories kept revolving around conflicts with and explorations of more flawed societies. And in time Star Trek refused to stay even that Utopian and so it betrayed it's roots over and over again till we wind up with dreary depressing shows like Picard and Discovery, or cynical edgy parodies like Lower Decks.

However Anime via the Slice of Life and Cute Girls doing Cute Things Genres has discovered how to make us enjoy fiction that is actually utterly free of any real conflict. From Lucky Star to K-On to Yuru Yuri and so many others. And we've also seen a sub genre of Isekai translate that formal into a Fantasy Setting like the 300 Slimes show.

So what we need is a show about Cute Girls doing Cute Things in a High-Tech Futuristic Communist Utopia where Climate Change has been solved and Scarcity eliminated. And it can be fun and Cute but also educational about how such a society could work.

https://mithrandirolorin.blogspot.com/2 ... ience.html

[stryke]

or cynical edgy parodies like Lower Decks.

This is at once an entirely correct take if you base it on early season 1, but also an entirely wrong headed sad take based on most of the rest of the show that it really gets me down.

In an attempt to get back to the actual topic I fully support anime when it takes on classic sci-fi for inspiration. People talk a lot of shit about Darling in the Franxx, but I loved it so so much as in the background of the robots fighting dinosaurs it was nailing the themes and feel of classic sci-fi novels like Brave New World or The Sheep Look Up. That's another show where the reaction got me down as it everyone who complained about the 'exposition dump' of ep17 apparently had paid no attention to all the bits of the show that had been setting it all up with that ep being the payoff. Most annoying as anytime you want to tell people that they're watching a show wrong or badly is so, so not a good idea or expect that to go well.

[clearspira]

I think "revive" is a stretch given how niche the magical girls genre is. But it could still make for a good show.

[BBally81]

Well, anime did play a big part in popularizing science fiction with elements like "Conflict" and "Stakes" and "Character Development", look at Sci-Fi war-themed anime like Gundam, Votoms and Legend of the Galactic Heroes or classic anime like Astro Boy where part of its core themes is the shaky Human-Sentient Robot relations, which is used as allegory for class conflicts or bigotry.

So it only makes sense somebody would want to make a Utopian Sci-Fi anime in response to that.

[CharlesPhipps]

I don't think Utopian science fiction went anywhere.

[hammerofglass]

Utopias are about the hardest thing to tell an interesting story about. Especially in something as standardized as corporate TV.

[Thebestoftherest]

I think it might work if the story about how the place is good if flaw, or to have it effects the character.

[tyrteg]

Interesting opinion - but no. Utopias didn't go anywhere. We still have The Orville

[MithrandirOlorin]

Utopias are about the hardest thing to tell an interesting story about. Especially in something as standardized as corporate TV.

The point of my argument is that we have a whole Genre of Anime that is actually Utopian, they only lack the Science Fiction part.