Neon Genesis Evangelion is one of the most well-known anime series of the nineties, as well as one of the most influential. While this isn’t the first appearance of a robot girl in fiction (Hoffmann’s 1816 short story The Sandman featured a similar gynoid character), Hoshi’s does seem to have been one of the predecessors to an archetype that would end up becoming quite popular in Japanese comics and animation. A sort of futuristic folk tale, it combines dark humour and wordplay, with a clever and totally unexpected ending.
In the Shinichi Hoshi short story Bokko-Chan (which, for those interested, can be found in The Best Japanese Science Fiction Stories), a “bar-master” constructs an emotionless robot girl, who soon becomes the object of many of his patrons’ affections.