Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga

This paper attempts to meditate upon the transpacific imagination of cyberpunk by reconstructing its literary and cultural heritage. Since the publication of William Gibson’s multiple award winning first novel, Neuromancer (1984), the concept of cyberpunk has been globally popularized and disseminat...

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Main Author: Takayuki Tatsumi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: MDPI AG 2018-03-01
Series:Arts
Subjects:
Online Access:http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9
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author Takayuki Tatsumi
author_facet Takayuki Tatsumi
author_sort Takayuki Tatsumi
collection DOAJ
description This paper attempts to meditate upon the transpacific imagination of cyberpunk by reconstructing its literary and cultural heritage. Since the publication of William Gibson’s multiple award winning first novel, Neuromancer (1984), the concept of cyberpunk has been globally popularized and disseminated not only in the field of literature but also in culture. However, we should not forget that cyberpunk is derived not only from the cutting edge of technology but also from “Lo Tek” sensibility cultivated in the Gibsonian picturesque ruins or dark cities such as a major extraterritorial zone in Hong Kong “Kowloon Walled City” nicknamed as “a den of iniquity”, “The Casba of the East”, and “a hotbed of crime”, which was destroyed in 1993, but whose images captured by Ryuji Miyamoto inspired Gibson to come up with the spectacle of the destroyed San Francisco Bay Bridge to be stormed by ex-hippies and former homeless. From this perspective, this chapter focuses on the works ranging from Katsuhiro Otomo’s directed anime Akira (1988), Gibson’s Bridge Trilogy (Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), and All Tomorrow’s Parties (1998)) in the 1990s through Project Itoh’s post-cyberpunk masterpiece Genocidal Organ (2007).
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spelling doaj.art-f0892624aff045cb8e37fc5410abcb162022-12-21T18:56:37ZengMDPI AGArts2076-07522018-03-0171910.3390/arts7010009arts7010009Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and MangaTakayuki Tatsumi0Department of English, Keio University, Tokyo 108-8345, JapanThis paper attempts to meditate upon the transpacific imagination of cyberpunk by reconstructing its literary and cultural heritage. Since the publication of William Gibson’s multiple award winning first novel, Neuromancer (1984), the concept of cyberpunk has been globally popularized and disseminated not only in the field of literature but also in culture. However, we should not forget that cyberpunk is derived not only from the cutting edge of technology but also from “Lo Tek” sensibility cultivated in the Gibsonian picturesque ruins or dark cities such as a major extraterritorial zone in Hong Kong “Kowloon Walled City” nicknamed as “a den of iniquity”, “The Casba of the East”, and “a hotbed of crime”, which was destroyed in 1993, but whose images captured by Ryuji Miyamoto inspired Gibson to come up with the spectacle of the destroyed San Francisco Bay Bridge to be stormed by ex-hippies and former homeless. From this perspective, this chapter focuses on the works ranging from Katsuhiro Otomo’s directed anime Akira (1988), Gibson’s Bridge Trilogy (Virtual Light (1993), Idoru (1996), and All Tomorrow’s Parties (1998)) in the 1990s through Project Itoh’s post-cyberpunk masterpiece Genocidal Organ (2007).http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9cyberpunkLo Tekoutlaw technologistextraterritorialKowloon Walled CityHyperart Thomassonvirtual idolpost-apocalyptic narrativenuclear politics
spellingShingle Takayuki Tatsumi
Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
Arts
cyberpunk
Lo Tek
outlaw technologist
extraterritorial
Kowloon Walled City
Hyperart Thomasson
virtual idol
post-apocalyptic narrative
nuclear politics
title Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
title_full Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
title_fullStr Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
title_full_unstemmed Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
title_short Transpacific Cyberpunk: Transgeneric Interactions between Prose, Cinema, and Manga
title_sort transpacific cyberpunk transgeneric interactions between prose cinema and manga
topic cyberpunk
Lo Tek
outlaw technologist
extraterritorial
Kowloon Walled City
Hyperart Thomasson
virtual idol
post-apocalyptic narrative
nuclear politics
url http://www.mdpi.com/2076-0752/7/1/9
work_keys_str_mv AT takayukitatsumi transpacificcyberpunktransgenericinteractionsbetweenprosecinemaandmanga