Japanese cyberpunk refers to cyberpunk fiction produced in Japan. There are two distinct subgenres of Japanese cyberpunk: live-action Japanese cyberpunk films, and cyberpunk manga and anime works. [1]
Japanese cyberpunk cinema, also referred to as Extreme Japanese Cyberpunk, refers to a sub-genre of underground film produced in Japan, starting in the 1980s. It bears some resemblance to the 'low-life high-tech' cyberpunk, as understood in the West; however, it differs in its representation of industrial and metallic imagery and an incomprehensible narrative. The main directors associated with the Japanese cyberpunk movement are Shinya Tsukamoto, Shozin Fukui, and Sogo Ishii. [2] The origins of the genre can be traced back to the 1982 film Burst City , before the genre was primarily defined by the 1989 film Tetsuo: The Iron Man . [3] It has roots in the Japanese punk subculture, which arose from the Japanese punk music scene in the 1970s, with Sogo Ishii's punk films of the late 1970s to early 1980s introducing this subculture to Japanese cinema and paving the way for Japanese cyberpunk.
Japanese cyberpunk also refers to a subgenre of manga and anime works with cyberpunk themes. This subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of Katsuhiro Otomo's manga series Akira , with its 1988 anime film adaptation (which Otomo directed) later popularizing the subgenre. Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as Ghost in the Shell , Battle Angel Alita , Cowboy Bebop , and Serial Experiments Lain . [4] Cyberpunk anime and manga have been influential on global popular culture, inspiring numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games. [5] [6]
Japanese Cyberpunk generally involves the characters, especially the protagonist, going through monstrous, incomprehensible metamorphoses in an industrial setting. Many of these films have scenes that fall into the experimental film genre; they often involve purely abstract or visual sequences that may or may not relate to the characters and plot. Recurring themes include: mutation, technology, dehumanization, repression and sexual deviance. [7]
In contrast to Western cyberpunk which has roots in New Wave science fiction literature, Japanese cyberpunk has roots in underground music culture, specifically the Japanese punk subculture that arose from the Japanese punk music scene in the 1970s. The filmmaker Sogo Ishii introduced this subculture to Japanese cinema with his punk films Panic High School (1978) and Crazy Thunder Road (1980), which portrayed the rebellion and anarchy associated with punk, and went on to become highly influential in underground film circles. Crazy Thunder Road in particular was an influential biker film, with a punk biker gang aesthetic that paved the way for Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira . Ishii's next film was the frenetic Shuffle (1981), an unofficial short film adaptation of a manga comic strip by Otomo. [8] According to Paul Gravett, when Akira began to be published, cyberpunk literature had not yet been translated into Japanese, Otomo has distinct inspirations such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama's manga series Tetsujin 28-go (1956–1966) and Moebius. [9]
Ishii's most influential film was Burst City (1982). [8] Since its release, it has had a strong effect on the underground Japanese film scene. [10] It starred Shigeru Izumiya, who would, four years later, go on to direct his own cyberpunk film, Death Powder , in 1986. The early short films of Shinya Tsukamoto, such as The Adventures Of Electric Rod Boy (1987) [11] and The Phantom of Regular Size (1986) [12] (which Tetsuo was a remake of), are often credited as precursors of the movement.
Some defining films in the genre include: [13]
Related films include:
Japanese cyberpunk also refers to a subgenre of manga and anime works with cyberpunk themes. This subgenre began in 1982 with the debut of the manga series Akira , with its 1988 anime film adaptation later popularizing the subgenre. Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as Ghost in the Shell , Battle Angel Alita , Cowboy Bebop , and Serial Experiments Lain . [4]
Cyberpunk themes are widely visible in anime and manga. In Japan, where cosplay is popular and not only teenagers display such fashion styles, cyberpunk has been accepted and its influence is widespread. William Gibson's Neuromancer, whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba, one of Japan's largest industrial areas.
Cyberpunk anime and manga draw upon a futuristic vision which has elements in common with western science fiction and therefore have received wide international acceptance outside Japan. "The conceptualization involved in cyberpunk is more of forging ahead, looking at the new global culture. It is a culture that does not exist right now, so the Japanese concept of a cyberpunk future, seems just as valid as a Western one, especially as Western cyberpunk often incorporates many Japanese elements." [14] William Gibson became a frequent visitor to Japan, where he came to see that many of his visions of Japan were a reality:
Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town." And it was. It so evidently was. [15]
Akira (1982 manga) and its 1988 anime film adaptation have influenced numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games. [5] [6] Akira has been cited as a major influence on Hollywood films such as The Matrix , [17] Dark City , [18] Chronicle , [19] Looper , [20] Midnight Special , and Inception , [5] television shows such as Stranger Things , [21] and video games such as Hideo Kojima's Snatcher [22] and Metal Gear Solid , [4] Valve's Half-Life series [23] [24] and Dontnod Entertainment's Remember Me . [25] John Gaeta cited Akira as artistic inspiration for the bullet time effect in The Matrix films. [17] Akira has also been credited with influencing the Star Wars franchise, including the prequel film trilogy and the Clone Wars film and television series. [26] Akira has also influenced the work of musicians such as Kanye West, who paid homage to Akira in the "Stronger" music video, [5] and Lupe Fiasco, whose album Tetsuo & Youth is named after Tetsuo Shima. [27] The popular bike from the film, Kaneda's Motorbike, appears in Steven Spielberg's film Ready Player One , [28] and CD Projekt's video game Cyberpunk 2077 . [29] Deus Ex: Mankind Divided video game developer Eidos Montréal also paid homage to the film's poster. [30]
Ghost in the Shell (1989) influenced a number of prominent filmmakers. The Wachowskis, creators of The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, showed the 1995 anime film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell to producer Joel Silver, saying, "We wanna do that for real." [31] The Matrix series took several concepts from the film, including the Matrix digital rain, which was inspired by the opening credits of Ghost in the Shell, and the way characters access the Matrix through holes in the back of their necks. [32] Other parallels have been drawn to James Cameron's Avatar , Steven Spielberg's A.I. Artificial Intelligence , and Jonathan Mostow's Surrogates ; [32] Cameron cited Ghost in the Shell as an influence on Avatar. [33] Ghost in the Shell also influenced video games such as the Metal Gear Solid series, [34] Deus Ex , [35] Oni , [36] [37] [38] and Cyberpunk 2077 . [39] [40]
The original video animation Megazone 23 (1985), with its concept of a simulated reality, has a number of similarities to The Matrix, [41] Dark City, and Existenz . [42] Battle Angel Alita (1990) has had a notable influence on filmmaker James Cameron, who was planning to adapt it into a film since 2000. It was an influence on his TV series Dark Angel , and he is the producer of the 2018 film adaptation Alita: Battle Angel . [43] Comic book artist André Lima Araújo cited cyberpunk manga and anime such as Akira, Ghost in the Shell, Evangelion and Cowboy Bebop as a major influence on his work, which includes Marvel comics such as Age of Ultron , Avengers A.I. , Spider-Verse and The Inhumans . [44]
Cyberpunk is a subgenre of science fiction in a dystopian futuristic setting that tends to focus on a "combination of lowlife and high tech", featuring futuristic technological and scientific achievements, such as artificial intelligence and cyberware, juxtaposed with societal collapse, dystopia or decay. Much of cyberpunk is rooted in the New Wave science fiction movement of the 1960s and 1970s, when writers like Philip K. Dick, Michael Moorcock, Roger Zelazny, John Brunner, J. G. Ballard, Philip José Farmer and Harlan Ellison examined the impact of drug culture, technology, and the sexual revolution while avoiding the utopian tendencies of earlier science fiction.
Ghost in the Shell is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on the seinen manga series of the same name written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. The manga, first serialized in 1989 under the subtitle of The Ghost in the Shell, and later published as its own tankōbon volumes by Kodansha, told the story of the fictional counter-cyberterrorist organization Public Security Section 9, led by protagonist Major Motoko Kusanagi, and is set in mid-21st century Japan.
Katsuhiro Otomo is a Japanese manga artist, screenwriter, animator and film director. He is best known as the creator of Akira, in terms of both the original 1982 manga series and the 1988 animated film adaptation. He was decorated a Chevalier of the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in 2005, promoted to Officier of the order in 2014, became the fourth manga artist ever inducted into the American Eisner Award Hall of Fame in 2012, and was awarded the Purple Medal of Honor from the Japanese government in 2013. Otomo later received the Winsor McCay Award at the 41st Annie Awards in 2014 and the 2015 Grand Prix de la ville d'Angoulême, the first manga artist to receive the award. Otomo is married to Yoko Otomo. Together they have one child, a son named Shohei Otomo, who is also an artist.
Battle Angel Alita, known in Japan as Gunnm, is a Japanese cyberpunk manga series created by Yukito Kishiro and originally published in Shueisha's Business Jump magazine from 1990 to 1995. The second of the comic's nine volumes was adapted in 1993 into a two-part anime original video animation titled Battle Angel for North American release by ADV Films and the UK and Australian release by Manga Entertainment. Manga Entertainment also dubbed Battle Angel Alita into English. A live-action film adaptation titled Alita: Battle Angel was released on February 14, 2019.
Yukito Kishiro is a Japanese manga artist born in Tokyo in 1967 and raised in Chiba. As a teenager he was influenced by the mecha anime Armored Trooper Votoms and Mobile Suit Gundam, in particular the designs of Yoshikazu Yasuhiko, as well as the works of manga artist Rumiko Takahashi. He began his career at age 17, with his debut manga, Space Oddity, in the Weekly Shonen Sunday. He is best known for the cyberpunk series Battle Angel Alita.
Shinya Tsukamoto is a Japanese filmmaker and actor. With a considerable cult following both domestically and abroad, Tsukamoto is best known for his body horror/cyberpunk film Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), which is considered the defining film of the Japanese Cyberpunk movement, as well as for its companion pieces Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992) and Tetsuo: The Bullet Man (2009).
Mamoru Oshii is a Japanese filmmaker, television director and writer. Famous for his philosophy-oriented storytelling, Oshii has directed a number of acclaimed anime films, including Urusei Yatsura 2: Beautiful Dreamer (1984), Angel's Egg (1985), Patlabor 2: The Movie (1993), and Ghost in the Shell (1995). He also holds the distinction of having created the first ever OVA, Dallos (1983). As a writer, Oshii has worked as a screenwriter, and occasionally as a manga writer and novelist. His most notable works as a writer include the manga Kerberos Panzer Cop (1988–2000) and its feature film adaptation Jin-Roh: The Wolf Brigade (1999).
Akira is a 1988 Japanese animated cyberpunk action film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō, and written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, based on Otomo's 1982 manga of the same name. Set in a dystopian 2019, it tells the story of Shōtarō Kaneda, the leader of a biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo Shima, acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex amid chaos and rebellion in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo.
Akira is a Japanese cyberpunk post-apocalyptic manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. It was serialized biweekly in Kodansha's seinen manga magazine Young Magazine from December 20, 1982, to June 25, 1990, with its 120 chapters collected into six tankōbon volumes. It was initially published in the United States by Marvel Comics under its Epic imprint, becoming one of the first manga works to be translated in its entirety into English. It is currently published by Kodansha Comics in North America. Considered a watershed title for the medium, the manga is also famous for spawning the seminal 1988 cyberpunk anime film adaptation of the same name and the greater franchise.
Since the advent of the cyberpunk genre, a number of cyberpunk derivatives have become recognized in their own right as distinct subgenres in speculative fiction, especially in science fiction. Rather than necessarily sharing the digitally and mechanically focused setting of cyberpunk, these derivatives can display other futuristic, or even retrofuturistic, qualities that are drawn from or analogous to cyberpunk: a world built on one particular technology that is extrapolated to a highly sophisticated level, a gritty transreal urban style, or a particular approach to social themes.
Tetsuo: The Iron Man is a 1989 Japanese science fiction horror film directed, written, produced, and edited by Shinya Tsukamoto. The film centers around an unnamed Japanese salaryman who wakes up to find pieces of metal sprouting from various parts of his body and becomes haunted by visions of metal-oriented sexual fantasies. As the man steadily becomes a hybrid of man and machine, he develops a connection with a victim from a hit-and-run accident, who is undergoing a similar transformation.
Science fiction is an important genre of modern Japanese literature that has strongly influenced aspects of contemporary Japanese pop culture, including anime, manga, video games, tokusatsu, and cinema.
Ghost in the Shell is a 1995 adult animated neo-noir cyberpunk thriller film directed by Mamoru Oshii and adapted by frequent Oshii collaborator Kazunori Itō. The film is based on the manga of the same name by Masamune Shirow. It stars the voices of Atsuko Tanaka, Akio Ōtsuka, and Iemasa Kayumi. It is a Japanese-British international co-production, executive produced by Kodansha, Bandai Visual and Manga Entertainment, with animation provided by Production I.G, with the screenplay by Kazunori Itō.
Akira may refer to:
Death Powder is a 1986 low-budget science fiction/horror film with body horror elements, written and directed by Japanese poet/folk singer Shigeru Izumiya.
Cyberpunk 2077 is a 2020 action role-playing video game developed by CD Projekt Red and published by CD Projekt, based on video game designer Mike Pondsmith's tabletop game series. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk universe, the player assumes the role of "V", a mercenary in the fictional Californian city known as "Night City", where they deal with the fallout from a heist gone wrong that results in an experimental cybernetic "bio-chip" containing an engram of the legendary rock star and terrorist Johnny Silverhand threatening to slowly overwrite V's mind; as the story progresses V and Johnny must work together to find a way to be separated and save V's life.
Akira is a proposed American cyberpunk action film based on the Japanese manga of the same name by Katsuhiro Otomo, and was set to be the second film adaptation following the 1988 anime version. The film was written by Taika Waititi and Michael Golamco.
Akira is a Japanese cyberpunk media franchise based on Katsuhiro Otomo's seminal manga, Akira, published from 1982 to 1990. It was adapted into a 1988 anime film and two video games. A live-action feature film has also been in development since 2000, and a new anime television series by Otomo was also announced in 2019.
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners is a 2022 cyberpunk web anime series based on the video game Cyberpunk 2077 by CD Projekt Red. The series was animated by Japanese animation studio Trigger under the supervision of Polish CD Projekt and premiered on Netflix in September 2022. Set in the Cyberpunk universe created by Mike Pondsmith, the anime serves as a prequel to the game and takes place about a year before the events of Cyberpunk 2077.
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