LNELecture Notes in Education, Arts, Management and Social ScienceTBA2705-053XBio-Byword Scientific Publishing Pty. Ltd.10.18063/LNE.v3i10.1106ArticleHuman–Machine Boundaries, Ethics, and Identity in Japanese Mecha and Anglophone Cyborg Narrativeshttps://artdesignp.com/journal/LNE/3/10/10.18063/LNE.v3i10.1106ZhengXiaoyang20253102025-11-26This article develops a comparative framework for Japanese mecha narratives and Anglophone cyborg narratives by operationalizing the human–machine boundary as a narrative architecture that organizes agency, risk, and responsibility. Rather than explaining ethical differences through pre-given cultural values, it examines how boundary logics generate ethical problem-spaces and thereby shape identity as a criterion of narrative viability. Two recurring configurations structure the comparison. In many Japanese mecha texts, the boundary is staged as an interface—through piloting, synchronization, and embodied control loops—so that conflict arises within conditions of already-established coupling; ethical stakes tend to center on negotiated interdependence and distributed accountability. In many Anglophone cyborg narratives, the boundary is coded as a threshold that secures personhood through separation; mediation is acceptable only insofar as it remains reversible and consented to, and narrative tension peaks when the boundary is breached via coercion or irreversible inscription. By tracing boundary-conditioned ethics and identity across representative texts from the postwar period to the present, the article offers a mechanism-based account of cross-cultural variation without resorting to simplified cultural binaries.Japanese mecha, Cyborgs, Human–machine boundary, Technological ethics, Narrative identity, Science fiction studies, Cross-cultural comparison

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