I was actually going to respond in
http://forums.animemalaysia.com/viewtopic.php?t=339 but as that post is now locked.... here's Pt3 of that same thread.
To recap, "The Future is Here" was a thread about how Sci-Fi Anime and real life coincided. The reason I decided to revive it was because of this news article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/5063572.stmThat's right folks.... Japan is going to broaden the SDF (And it's not Super Dimensional Fortress) and the new Ministry of Defence may very form new branches as a means of creating new taskforces. For those who missed the hidden links in my previous post, I'll put them here again (and cause it's locked you know that they were there from the beggining) ...
Toyota I-Foot:
http://engadget.com/entry/1234000957036737/Official Specs:
http://www.toyota.co.jp/en/news/04/1203_1d.htmlHAL-3:
http://www.newscientist.com/channel/mech-tech/mg18624945.800HAL-5:
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=qw1118117525696R131That post was made almost a year ago... so all those technologies listed are far more mature now.
Japan is once again starting to take part in global affairs. They always used to, economically speaking... but now they're moving towards a more overt role. Clearly the main arguments behind the new Ministry of Defence will be for humanitarian reasons like peacekeeping... which will eventually evolve into information gathering, security services, anti-terrorist activities.... Section 9 anyone? (GITS reference)
The day of the Mecha/Gundam/Robot/Bioroid/Autorave draws ever closer....
