"Humans sometimes have trouble thinking about things logically. That is why they need us robots to help them."
—Mina
My Wife Has No Emotion (Boku no Tsuma wa Kanjou ga Nai) is a Slice of Life manga series, written and drawn by Jiro Sugiura, and published in the magazine Monthly Comic Flapper since 2019. Since 2021, the manga has been officially published in English by Seven Seas Entertainment.
The protagonist, Takuma Kosugi, is a lonely salaryman whose only company is his cheap house robot, Mina. One night, a drunk Takuma playfully asks Mina to be his wife. To his surprise, Mina interprets this as an earnest command and embraces her new role as Takuma's wife, filling his life with newfound companionship. The manga mostly focuses on the evolving bond between Takuma and Mina, but also introduces other characters to explore broader themes of human-robot relationships.
An anime adaptation
by TMS Entertainment is currently in the works.
This series features the following tropes:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: The technology and culture in the series mostly resembles our world, except for the existence of highly advanced, intelligent robots.
- Beach Episode: In chapters 8-9, Takuma and Mina go to the beach; this, of course, presents an opportunity to show several female characters in swimsuits (including the voluptuous Super Mina introduced in these chapters).
- By the Eyes of the Blind: Astral projections, or as robots call them, "visitors", can only be seen by robots that have modes of vision beyond the visible spectrum.
- Catapult Nightmare: Takuma wakes up crying and screaming in the first chapter, after a nightmare where Mina, having literally interpreted his claim that he likes her the most, prepares her own head as a meal.
- Gory Discretion Shot: As much as "gory" applies to robots. In Chapter 33, Mina removes her faceplate briefly, and remains off-panel for the duration — presumably seeing her without a face would be unsettling.
- I Want Grandkids: Takuma's parents seem to take it in stride when they learn he's married a robot, but they don't take this relationship very seriously, and half-joke that it'd be great if Takuma could make them some grandkids. In the end, however, Takuma's dad states that he's fine with Takuma living the way he wants.
- Laser-Guided Amnesia: Robots who change owners have all memories of their previous owner wiped, as a privacy measure. This is used for dramatic plotline at one point: a dying man orders his household robot to buy him a drink which is no longer available for sale, because as long as she's still trying to fulfill that one last order, she will not consider the ownership terminated and will not forget him.
- Obvious Rule Patch: By default, a cooking-model Mina robot is only supposed to cook. It can be ordered to do other chores, but this plays an obnoxious looping advert shilling a domestic housework plug-in. Takuma figures that he can just ask Mina to do some housework while he's not home, and even wonders how could her manufacturer have missed such an obvious loophole... only to find out that this simply delays the advert, and once the owner returns, it is played for the full accumulated duration.
- Our Ghosts Are Different: After Takuma moves to a new home, Mina and Mamoru find out the new house is haunted by a ghost, which appears as a pale, slightly monstrous-looking, humanoid creature. It is invisible to humans, who however can feel its presence as a sudden fall in temperature. As it turns out, the "ghost" is more of an accidental astral projection of a senile, old woman.
- Paper-Thin Disguise: A side subplot concerns an alien stuck on Earth, who is pretending to be a household robot to get by. The alien itself resembles a multi-tentacled, soft-bodied creature with a toothy mouth in the crown of her head, and her robotic disguise is unconvincing at best from up close. Subverted, though; it's heavily implied that the few people interacting with her can all see through her disguise, but they play along just to be nice, since the alien is obviously pitiable and harmless.
- Robot Girl: The titular character, Mina Kosugi, as well as other robots from the Mina series. Most of Mina's body is metallic and silvery (although usually covered by an apron), but she also has a humanlike (if mostly immobile) face and hair. More advanced robots, "Super Minas", are externally almost indistinguishable from humans.
- Robotic Spouse: The trope that the manga revolves about. Takuma, a lonely man, enters a common-law relationship with Mina, his housework-bot, who has rather more of a personality than her programming requires. Takuma admits he couldn't find a human girlfriend, but also that he does truly love Mina. On Mina's side, she's still learning about herself, and hasn't been in love before, but those who interact with her think she loves him. Takuma's not the first to treat a robot as family, but he is apparently the first to treat one of Mina's model that way, because they weren't made for that, they were designed to be unexpressive and have visibly robotic features.
- Sliding Scale of Robot Intelligence: An in-universe scale of this kind exists in the setting. "Class 0" robots are incapable of independent reasoning, and are not allowed into most public facilities (including cinemas — since such robots are tantamount to recording equipment). "Class 1" robots have about the intelligence of a small child, and are allowed to enter facilities if accompanied by a human. "Class 2" robots have humanlike intelligence, and are allowed to walk around without human supervision. "Class 3" robots have superhuman intelligence; in certain dangerous areas, humans are not allowed without being supervised by a Class 3. Robots are assigned a class by taking a standardized test, and typically carry an identification card which gives their class. As for the main characters, the house-bot Mina is Class 2, while the child-like robot Mamoru initially is graded a 1 but quickly develops into a Class 2.
- Three Laws-Compliant: Mina is unable to attack humans on her initiative, but is capable of subduing humans if it's necessary to protect her owner. The three laws of robotics are also explicitly mentioned by Mina in Chapter 16:In accordance with the three laws of robotics, our robots shall prioritize the safety and health of their masters above all else, which can support or even limit their personality program.
