In the not too distant future, there is a very real problem: too many people are elderly. The economy and healthcare system cannot keep up, and nobody wants to look after their elderly relatives, especially since there's no money in it.
So the public health department showcase their new idea: Z-001, an automated hospital bed, care system and nurse all in one. It feeds! It cleans! It bathes! It entertains! It's run by a complex AI and nuclear core!
Wait what?
The patient chosen to test run this system is one Kijuro Takazawa, a widower signed off by his next of kin and cared for by student nurse Haruko Mitsuhashi, and it becomes very quickly clear that this will lead to a dehumanisation of care services and relegate people to useless vegetables and "problems", a problem which has totally aged terribly...
Then things start to go off the rails, and the machine takes on a life of its own, the life of Takazawa's deceased wife Haru, more specifically...
Written by Katsuhiro Otomo (and you can tell) and directed by Hiroyuki Kitakubo ("Blood: The Last Vampire" and "Golden Boy), with art by legend and mastermind Satoshi Kon, it's a sprawling comedy adventure about age and clash between humanity, technology and the view of elderly people as "a problem"; and with a side order of militarisation by insidious right wing elements for good measure.
It's a brief watch, and very much a product of 1991, but still bites hard and is great fun throughout. For years it wasn't available on DVD, so I'm glad to finally have a copy. If you get a chance, give it a go: the humour may not be for everybody's tastes (you can tell it's from the maker of "Golden Boy") but it's got that Osamu Tezuka charm and the aforementioned themes going for it.
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