I’ve watched a bunch of sci-fi anime over the years, and I’ve seen quite a few futuristic user interfaces.  No self-respecting quasi-intelligent supercomputer or giant robot would ever use anything as pedestrian as a keyboard, after all.

80s anime liked to have weird keyboards and LOTS of switches that of course had to be toggled in sequence, with extra points given if they lit up as they were toggled, while 90s anime trended toward VR helmets and articulated tentacle-like cables that came out of (or were inserted into) the user.   The advent of smartphones (and Minority Report, of course) has inspired a bunch of different touch-based interfaces, and of course the “user is floating in some sort of electronic void” style of interface is evergreen.

Most of these are not reproducible in real life, though I’d be lying if I said that I didn’t want to find some way to incorporate a bunch of switches above my monitor that I can flip to do… something.  It doesn’t matter what they did, as long as they lit up while they were being flipped really.

With that said, I have recently started watching Guilty Crown, and it has opened my eyes to new frontiers in interface design.

I have prepared a short video clip to illustrate:

Oh, Japan, we really need to have a talk sometime.