Eisuke Hirota
With the anime released, I thought it'd be great for me to introduce Dead Dead Demon's Dededededestruction (DDDD) next. This is a manga made by esteemed author Inio Asano, famous for Solanin and his masterpiece, Oyasumi Punpun. This work is not as depressing as his other works (which is, in some sense, a good thing), but still conveys a great depth of existential dread so I'd highly recommend reading it.
Pretty much, this story follows a few high school students and their daily life after an alien spaceship starts hovering around Japan to which the government (and much of Earth) deem it as a threat to human existence, leading to a humans vs alien cold war. Life is not so bad, but the constant reminder of aliens existing right above you with potential technology that surpasses yours leads you to wonder how your next days are marked, and if there's even a point in focusing on school, college, and other social norms and pathways created by society not tainted by war.
If you end up reading this, you'll realize that this story has no Ai nor robots (only aliens and tech), so you might wonder why I've chosen to write about this. But actually, there is one bit about Ai and robots - an homage to Doraemon!
Doraemon is one of the most famous children's manga/anime; every Japanese person knows of this. It follows Nobita, a wimpy boy who's lazy, weak, and a sore loser, and how one day, Doraemon, a robot cat humanoid from the future, comes out of his desk drawer and takes out fancy future gadgets from his pocket (that has infinite space and compresses any item to fit inside of it) to help Nobita with his problems. It's a great comedy manga with little lessons to teach kids how to become better individuals.
Interestingly, DDDD pays homage to Doraemon. Inside DDDD's world, there's a manga called Isobeyan with many features that make it so obviously a reference.
Firstly, the premise is the same: Isobeyan is akin to Doraemon, where he's an alien from a future civilization that came to the present to help Debeko by using his fancy future gadgets. Next, the art style and settings are the same: the humans from both Doraemon and Isobeyan have similar stylistic appearances and we often see both Nobita and Debeko just lounging away in their tatami style bedrooms. Lastly, they are both comedies: each chapter in Doraemon and Isobeyan follow (1) Nobita/Debeko complain about a problem (2) Doraemon/Isobeyan provide a gadget (3) Nobita/Debeko use the gadget and become overzealous (4) Nobita/Debeko face the consequences of their actions.
However, while Doraemon continues at the same pace as a children's comedy manga, DDDD is definitely not one for children to read. Asano takes a huge twist to Doraemon and asks the question: "What would happen if Doraemon gave a bad gadget?" Specifically, Asano asks: "What if Doraemon gave a weapon?" This little question snowballs into a mountain of intense audience engagement in the story and is precisely why I wanted to talk about this piece of fiction.
While Isobeyan is only a manga within DDDD, it sets up a crazy foreshadowing within the main plot of the story. Isobeyan is an alien that gives gadgets to a struggling child. Well, in DDDD both aliens and struggling children exist. This is why I had goosebumps when an alien benevolently gives one of the story's protagonist a weapon. This alien only had good intentions of providing gadgets to help a child, but now she has access to state-of-the-art weapons. No one can confidently believe a child will maintain control and be trigger-disciplined.
Hence, now I come back to Doraemon and ask myself: "Do I even truly want a Doraemon in my life?" He offers many gadgets and help: a propeler that you can attach to your head to fly, a door that is a portal, bread that you can eat to easily retain memories, etc, and as a kid, I would often think how convenient life would be if Doraemon exists. But looking back at such technology now, Doraemon poses a serious threat to our world (though as I write this I find it funny how I'm equating Doraemon to the likes of Terminator). Such a robot-helper should definitely not be easily available to the general public, and especially not for lazy children who want shortcuts to their answers.