Cyberpunk is an alternative genre with a bleak aesthetic and focus on real world anxieties. In America cyberpunk is a bit of niche market with occasional movies like the matrix becoming cult classics. But before there was The Matrix there was Neuromancer(1984) and Blade Runner(1982) which displayed dystopian futures which treated data as commodity and relayed cultural anxieties surrounding the tech revolution. What these two pieces of pop culture have in common is their depiction of Japan and the east in the social and political climate of the 80’s.
Chiba city in Neuromancer and the sprawling billboards of geishas in Blade Runner reflect the image of japan as a rapidly developing country.
- “Given that 1980s Japan served as a symbol of technological advancement, it seems only logical that cyberpunk authors depicted a future in which Japan remained an important international power.”
These themes of cyberpunk are even more present in Japan’s underground media with cult classics like Tetsuo the Iron Man, Akira, Ghost in Shell, and the ever present mecha theme in their visual culture. I think its interesting to note the stylistic differences in how media from Japan reacted to its own transformation in a much more grotesque way. The focus on how the body and ephemeral data and technology are mediated is much more visceral. Other than just being interesting visuals they deal with themes of the shifting of power to information, government corruption, rebellion, technological transmogrification, and gender politics among a number of other ideas. Some are more accepting of the tech revolution than others. This, of course, is just a cursory glance at what makes Japanese Cyberpunk so distinctive and the motives beg]hind it, but I think its an interesting subject to consider.
On a lighter note, Akira is being crowd sourced and redrawn by over 500 artists in the west wherein all the original characters are drawn as Simpsons characters, an iconic cartoon in the west and being displayed in an exhibition in Tokyo. Seems like an interesting dialogue between two distinctive classics.
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