When exploring Japanese media such as anime, manga and video games, you’re quite likely to come across a term that is infrequently used in the West, “Esper”. It’s a word that is actually quite easy to understand but, due to our lack of familiarity with the term, many can still be quite confused. Therefore, I thought it might be interesting to take a look at what espers are and their prevalence in Japanese media.
Let’s start with what an esper is. An esper refers to someone who has ESP (Extrasensory Perception), hence the first three letters in the word esper. ESP refers to any ability to obtain information outside of the five senses with examples including telepathy, clairvoyance, precognition etc. Note that the term only refers to the ability to receive information, not the ability to affect the world around such as telekinesis, levitation, astral projection etc. However, as we are going to see, espers in Japanese media are not restricted by this and are often depicted as being capable of exerting force using their psychic abilities.
The word esper is claimed to have been first used by American sci-fi author Alfred Bester but I am unable to fully verify this and I certainly don’t know how the word came to become so prevalent in Japanese popular culture. However, one of the earliest examples of espers in Japanese media is a manga from the late 1970s that’s often translated as “Mami the Psychic” but whose original title is “Esper Mami”. Notably, the main character, Mami, is capable of using telekinesis and levitation, in addition to other abilities, which already sets an early precedent for the possession of abilities beyond those of ESP.
Since then, we have seen espers appear in numerous Japanese works such as Cyborg 009, Akira, Haruhi Suzumiya and Mob Psycho 100, often as people who are capable of using various psychic abilities that go beyond ESP. A particularly interesting example is the concept of Newtypes in the Universal Century timeline of Mobile Suit Gundam who display abilities such as telepathy, precognition etc. that I’d associate with espers. However, Yoshiyuki Tomino, the creator of the Gundam franchise, has rejected the comparison, stating that he views Newtypes as the next stage in human evolution rather than a superhuman like in many media.
However, one of my personal favourite examples of espers in Japanese media comes from a video game series called Zero Escape. One of the primary aspects of this franchise is that of the pseudoscience of the morphogenetic field which was developed by Rupert Sheldrake which states that all organisms have a telepathic connection with one another. Within the Zero Escape games, characters, usually the mains, are able to transfer information between each other not just in the present but also through the past, future and even alternate histories. These espers, which is a term that is used several times in the franchise, must gather information from various timelines in order to solve the problems facing them and don’t exhibit any psychic abilities that go beyond ESP. Not only is this an intelligent use of espers that makes use of the unique storytelling opportunities of video games but I also consider it to be a more accurate representation of what an esper is and how they’re different to psychics.
How the term esper became so prominent in Japanese popular culture remains a mystery to me and they’re often depicted as being no different to psychics in other media but they are nonetheless fascinating and very much worth learning about if you’re enthusiastic about Japanese media. Let me know your thoughts on espers and their prevalence in Japanese media, interesting examples that you’ve come across and any additional information you might have on the topic.
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