Witty and lighthearted, mixed with heady Pinocchio-esque concepts about humanity, "Saber Marionette J" succeeds with its story about artificial intelligence where other recent ventures have failed. Like any good Mel Brooks film, the actual plot for "Saber" is less important than the means that drive it along the underlying human issues. Tongue in cheek spoofs of common happenstances, characters and cinematic conventions work in concert with the heart of "Saber's" story arc, which at its heart asks what it means to be human.
Director Masami Shimoda reveals a world that impressionistically serves as a mirror to our own. Artificial life forms, marionettes, initially serve as slave tools to human masters. Add to that an exaggerated patriarchal society in which all marionettes are women and all humans are men. But as the story opens, protagonist Otaru awakens a special kind of marionette that can laugh and show anger just as any human, a situation bound to subvert the establishment. When Otaru subsequently awakens two other special emotive marionettes, the squabbling and teamwork that the three alternately demonstrate, as well as their interactions with him, evince the growth of these artificial life forms. When Otaru finds himself caring for his marionettes, despite common prejudice against doing so, "Saber" affirms that emotion and emotional growth are the main criteria for a human's essential being and inherently dictates that equality between the sexes demands respect and recognition that each sex has the same human qualities.
Though "Saber" deals with serious issues about humanity and equality, the whimsical tone lightens whatever sober mood might take hold. In fact, it is "Saber's" humor that makes the series, and its loftier themes, shine. Though jokes like short-circuiting a main computer with urine may appear crude, it is exactly this infantile humor that gives it the kind of innocence on which "Saber" thrives, that these machines are children who grow in the same way human children grow. But slapstick does not wholly dominate "Saber." Plenty of meta-cinema and irony creep into the mix, drawing attention to the hardier issues the series has to offer.
