Giant Robots, Big Ideas - Exploring the World of Mecha in Japanese Animation

Date

Tuesday 28 April 2026

Time

13:30 - 17:00 hour

Address

University Library
Witte Singel 27
2311 BG Leiden

Room

Kartini Auditorium

From towering mechanical heroes to city-destroying battles, giant robots have become one of the most iconic images in Japanese animation. On 28 April 2026, Leiden University will host Giant Robots, Big Ideas, an afternoon event exploring how these spectacular machines reflect deeper questions about technology, artificial intelligence, war, and the relationship between humans and machines.

Giant robots occupy a unique position in global visual culture, moving between technology and emotion, spectacle and philosophy, fantasy and political imagination. From early postwar robot heroes to the psychological complexity of Neon Genesis Evangelion, mecha have served as powerful tools for exploring identity, embodiment, and the human relationship with machines.

Giant Robots, Big Ideas is open to students, staff, and members of the public.

Entrance is free, registration is required.

Register

In an era shaped by artificial intelligence and automation, these animated machines remain highly relevant. They offer a way to think through questions of control, vulnerability, and what it means to be human in a technological world.

This afternoon event brings together leading scholars in Japanese animation, film and literary studies, and cultural history. Through a combination of focused lectures and discussion, it examines how giant robots function across media, disciplines, and cultural contexts, and why they continue to resonate globally.

Programme

13:15 – 13:30 | Welcome and Opening
- Kurt De Belder, Director Leiden University Libraries
- Nadia Kreeft-Mishkovskyi, Subject Librarian and Curator for Japanese and Korean Collections

13:30 – 14:15 | Caretakers in the Sky: Robots, Bodies, and Emotion in Miyazaki
Susan Napier, Professor of International Literary and Cultural Studies, Tufts University

14:15 – 15:00 | Evangelion at 30: You Can (Not) Understand
Michael Crandol, Lecturer for East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University in Saint Louis

15:00 – 15:30 | Break

15:30 – 16:00 | Robots and Cinema: From Small and Mid-Sized to Giant
Yasco Horsman, University Lecturer, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society

16:00 – 16:20 | Moving Puppets Stories: Spectacle and Literature in Early Modern Japan
Ivo Smits, Professor of Arts and Cultures of Japan, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies

16:20 – 16:50 | Why Do Giant Robots Still Matter? - Roundtable Discussion

16:50 – 17:00 | Closing remarks

Caretakers in the Sky: Robots, Bodies, and Emotion in Miyazaki

Susan Napier, Professor of International Literary and Cultural Studies, Tufts University

Are robots and AI basically the same? Perhaps. Both are immensely powerful, and both seem mysterious in their distance from organic life. Each can perform feats impossible for humans and suggests possibilities beyond a human-centered universe.

This paper argues, however, that a crucial difference remains: the robot has a body, while AI is incorporeal. A robot’s body, whether made of steel, plastic, or some future material, is physical and therefore vulnerable. That vulnerability creates a bridge to humanity and emotion. As Katsuno Hirofumi suggests, the rise of robotics in Japan—from the popular imaginary of 1960s Astro Boy to the scientific embodiments of the 1990s—can be seen as a response to the disembodiment of postmodernity.

This presentation analyzes two forms of giant robots in the work of Miyazaki Hayao. In Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind and Castle in the Sky, robots first appear as threatening artificial beings. Miyazaki complicates this trope. In Nausicaä, the God Warrior forms a tragic bond with the heroine. In Castle in the Sky, robots become guardians and caretakers. In both cases, their physical embodiment enables characters—and viewers—to form an empathetic relationship with artificial life. These examples show how embodiment reshapes our understanding of machines and ourselves.

Evangelion at 30: You Can (Not) Understand

Michael Crandol, Lecturer for East Asian Languages and Cultures, Washington University in Saint Louis

When Evangelion creator Anno Hideaki released the third remake/sequel film to his groundbreaking mecha anime television series in 2012, he gave it the cumbersome English title Evangelion 3.0: You Can (Not) Redo. Thirty tears since the broadcast of Neon Genesis Evangelion’s infamous final episode on March 27, 1996, which jettisoned narrative logic for abstract character introspection, there have been at least three attempts to “redo” the ending, while fans continue to argue over the meaning of the original work. Only one point seems undebatable: three decades later, Evangelion stands as perhaps the definitive work of mecha anime, rivaled only by the Gundam franchise in global popularity.

As a young fan, I published the presumptuously titled article “Understanding Evangelion” in 2002. A quarter-century later, I attempt my own “redo” with the benefit of hindsight and a more academically-minded approach. Instead of dwelling on ambiguous plot points, I wish to consider the role the Evangelions themselves play in deconstructing the unrealistic absurdities of the “giant robot” trope while at the same time serving as literal vehicles to foreground the profoundly felt reality of the show’s characters. Episodes in which the Eva pilots must learn to make their mecha perform coordinated dance routines or leapfrog across aircraft carrier decks to defeat the enemy are, I argue, more crucial to understanding Evangelion’s enduring appeal than attempting to unravel its narrative mysteries.

Robots and Cinema: From Small and Mid-Sized to Giant

Yasco Horsman, University Lecturer, Leiden University Centre for the Arts in Society

This talk opens with a discussion of two classics of animation, Walt Disney’s Pinocchio (Sharpsteen, Luske, 1940) and Osamu Tezuka’s Astro Boy (Tetsuwan Atomu, 1963). By comparing the technical and aesthetic differences between the film and the TV-series – Disney’s use of full animation (and a so-called ‘Illusion of Life-aesthetic) vs Tezuka’s use of limited animation - the talk raises the question how the figures of the robot, the automaton and the puppet are employed by both films to reflect on issues of animatedness, animism, anthropomorphism and technology. The presentation then traces how these themes continue to play a role in more recent depictions of robots and artificial intelligence in live-action cinema (such as Spielberg’s Pinocchio-inspired AI (2001) as well as in animation (Wall-E (Stanton, 2008)) to pose the question: what challenges does cinema face if it seeks to depict non-human form of intelligence? Are the apparatuses of cinema and animation - their formal traditions, narrative conventions, and modes of address - capable of overcoming our tendency to understand intelligence in anthropomorphic, human terms, or can it assist us in coming to terms with the emergence of new, non-human, gigantic forms of intelligence?

Moving Puppets Stories: Spectacle and Literature in Early Modern Japan

Ivo Smits, Professor of Arts and Cultures of Japan, Leiden University Institute for Area Studies

This talk looks into links between literature and mechanical devices in early modern Japan. Already in the nineteenth century early modern mecha forms played a role in storytelling. Moving puppets, both manually and artificially operated, left their traces in popular literature of the period. Revolving stages in kabuki theatre also introduced an element of mechanical wonder in the experience of fictional worlds. The notion of ‘mechanics’, or karakuri, extends to the operation of poetry as well. Prime function of showcasing such mechanical theatrics was, of course, spectacle: to solicit amazement of the audience to enhance the power of the story.