Cyberpunk

It's tentatively titled The Ghost In The Shell. To be produced by Science SARU, if that means anything to you.

https://www.animenewsnetwork.com/news/2024-05-25/ghost-in-the-shell-gets-new-tv-anime-series-in-2026-by-science-saru/.211152

I know what you're thinking: "WTF do I want with a dissertation about cyberpunk, I just like playing the games / watching the movies?"

Well the thing about dissertations is, they usually have a "history and definitions" section. In this document, it's pages 11-27, which contains things like:

The term “cyberpunk” was originally popularized by a 1985 Washington Post article by Gardner Dozois, who borrowed the term from the title of Bruce Bethke’s 1983 short story (Dery 75). In the article, “cyberpunk” referred to work by authors like William Gibson and Bruce Sterling, who were writing stories about isolated hacker heroes fighting against faceless international megacorporations in a gritty, high-tech near- future. The word was embraced as a marketing tool by science fiction publishers, and Sterling himself enthusiastically espoused it in 1986 by editing the “cyberpunk reader” Mirrorshades. However, Gibson, the crown prince of the cyberpunk movement, has acknowledged that the term “is mainly a marketing strategy – and one that I’ve come to feel trivializes what I do” (McCaffery interview 279). It is somewhat ironic that a genre movement claiming to deride the alienating nature of capitalism was, in fact, partly defined by the capitalist needs of its publishers...

So let's say you're having an online argument, or decide to write a cyberpunk-related paper for school, now you have a well-referenced source of the basic relevant facts. Plus, it also mentions a bunch of stories and films which you may want to check out. Finally, the dissertation's argument sounds interesting, though I haven't read it all the way through.

Anyway, here's the disseration home page, in case the pdf direct link is changed or something: https://escholarship.mcgill.ca/concern/theses/cc08hj32d

Chiptune Metal/Industrial Synthwave.

This is by the same guy who made the VirtuaVerse game that was mentioned here a couple months ago. Here's the soundtrack to that, btw:

• https://masterbootrecord.bandcamp.com/album/virtuaverse-ost

cross-posted from [email protected]

! ! ! Neo-Tokyo is about to E. X. P. L. O. D. E. ! ! !

Looks like someone took the video from an anime streaming site, uploaded it to youtube, and described it as a slime video. Appropriate, since slime plays a big part in the movie: in the sewers, and in Tetsuo's "meltdown."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akira_(1988_film)

Here's the youtube link in case Invidious is under attack again:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4_yho6mxfk

Here's what happens immediately after this scene:

• https://yewtu.be/watch?v=u9rJ_Xdtd_U
• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u9rJ_Xdtd_U

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium_(film)

It's possible that this is actually a post-apocalyptic world vs a fantasy world and I'm just seeing cyberpunk and solarpunk because that's what I want to see, but the original kickstarter for this movie calls it a cyberpunk world so I don't think I'm too far off.

Since this movie is the result of a kickstarter, I actually don't know how close it is to release or if it'll get a wide distribution. I mean, the most recent kickstarter update says they're hoping to release this June but who knows what will happen.

I know the description calls this a "sci-fi black comedy", but needing to watch an ad in its entirety before being allowed to enter your home feels like a perfectly cyberpunk satire to me.

I guess it's just a 40-minute short film that will be making the rounds at film festivals this year. Hopefully they'll post the full thing to youtube when those festivals are done though. It looks fun.

I've posted before about Mullet Mad Jack, back when the demo became available. Well, the full game is now available on Steam. It's a ridiculous game where you die if you go more than 10 seconds without killing a bad guy, but it's drenched in early 90s cyberpunk anime aesthetic.

Slyth is a movie about a group of high-tech low-lifes who happen to be the best e-sports team for some virtual reality first-person shooter. All of the establishing shots over the city show that the movie takes place in a cyberpunk world, but the plot is actually about the team hitting someone with their car which gives that person amnesia. They bring him to their house to help him, he falls in love with the main character, and then joins the e-sports team because (of course) he's a natural at this VR game he's never played before.

Now, because they're the best e-sports team ever, they're given an opportunity to beta test some new VR game. Unfortunately, that "VR game" is actually a portal into a different dimension. And then the lizard people show up.

This movie was made in Thailand, so I assume the exaggerated overacting is just part of Thai cinema. And everyone in the movie is a beautiful twenty-something, which gives it a very "young adult" feel. This isn't a dark and gritty noir, it's a fun action romp. The CGI and production value are pretty good though. It doesn't feel like a big budget American movie, but it doesn't feel like some small indie Thai movie either. Overall, the setting may be cyberpunk, but the themes and plot aren't. I've definitely seen worse movies, but I don't know if I'd call that a recommendation.

Here's a trailer, although I warn you, it spoils a lot of the movie. The lizard people don't show up until half-way through the movie yet this trailer makes it seem like a war with the lizard people is the entire plot. You can watch it on Netflix though, and I'm always a sucker for more cyberpunk content.

A couple things:

1. Wat's up with these series recaps? I specifically mean the ones with AI-generated narrators, that have crazy names and that summarize several hours of a show in 10-20 minutes. I just came across them a couple months ago and while they're convenient, they somehow seem... icky. Not sure how to express it. I linked to the youtube version so the corpos get their blood money from people not using adblocks, but here's an inviduous link: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=bwijp0n9yV4

2. The series looks interesting, somewhat cyberpunk (dystopia, corporations, a focus on the oppressed, subversive use of technology). From the recap, it seems like it suffers from the miniseries format, expanding an interesting idea just a bit too much to create a "soap opera"-like focus on characters that aren't written that well, and producing an unsatisfying ending because they were hoping for a season 2 (which of course was not granted.) In other words, an interesting recap, but perhaps not worth a full watch?

More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporated_(TV_series)

This was mentioned in passing a couple months ago. Not great, but an interesting watch. With a bit more work it could have reached a "Videodrome" level of excellence. As it is, it's a decent cult film.

The Italian dub of the full movie is available: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EAAtCMtl0dA Not sure where else it's available, ask your pirate friend or check your library.

Features cameos by Iggy Pop, Carl McCoy from Fields of Nephilim, and Lemmy from Motorhead!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardware_(film)

This trailer reminds me of the Black Mirror episode "Playtest" so it's probably more cyberpunk-adjacent than actually cyberpunk but that doesn't mean it'll be bad.

Darksynth is a sub-genre of Synthwave. And within darksynth, there's a sub-sub-genre for cyberpunk synth music. So if synth music feels cyberpunk to you, these recommendations are a good starting point.

Here's a higher-res version of the image (also here). This guide was created by khroshan over on reddit, I just wanted to share it.

It might be hard to tell from this crazy kinetic trailer just what the hell KILLTUBE is. Well, apparently it's a movie with a target release date of 2026. The creators are calling it "Edo-punk" and sure, why not. It still looks cyberpunk-adjacent to me.

Here's the best description I could find:

It depicts Tokyo's Shibuya and Shinjuku districts in a parallel world, where the Edo shogunate has closed off Japan for over four centuries into 2026. In this isolated, stratified society, the only way to change one's standing in life is through duel battles streamed on KILLTUBE.

The battle entertainment story unfolds when an unlikely trio from the lowest depths of society withstand ridicule and aim for the top. As they win over the general public, they discover the hidden truth behind the KILLTUBE system.

Hopefully this movie actually gets released. I can understand why it might take 2 years to animate though if this trailer is any indication.

Usually when I make these "is it cyberpunk" posts, I try to pick movies that are popular enough that I can assume most people have already seen them. I'm not sure if Summer Wars is at that level but I wanted to ask this question anyway. Because really, there's only one aspect to this movie that could be considered cyberpunk and that's the inclusion of cyberspace.

It seems to me there are two types of cyberpunk: the hard-boiled detective in a futuristic city of neon lights, and stories involving cyberspace. For example, Tron and Lawnmower Man don't have any aspects of cyberpunk in the "real world" parts of the movie, yet both heavily rely on cyberspace. So both movies (I believe) are considered cyberpunk.

I'm taking that distinction and pushing it to the extreme with Summer Wars. In the real world parts of the movie, this is a slice-of-life story about a girl going to a family reunion and trying to convince her family that a friend of hers is actually her boyfriend. They're a middle-class family meeting up in a rural region of Japan. Basically as far from cyberpunk as you can get. But then there's the cyberspace part of the story, where a virus is threatening to take over the entire world. And that part would absolutely be considered cyberpunk in any other context.

So what do you think? Is the inclusion of cyberspace enough to consider something to be cyberpunk?

Here's a trailer. I don't think it's streaming anywhere right now but if you get a chance, I think it's worth watching. Even if you don't consider it to be cyberpunk, it still has great animation and writing.

Also, if you enjoyed Summer Wars, the director made a similar movie called Belle. Belle is also a slice-of-life story in the real world with a monster attacking cyberspace. It's a different world entirely (not a sequel), just similar themes. And Belle is streaming on Max.

I might as well jump on the May the 4th bandwagon and post something Star Wars related too. Here's some test footage from 2005 for a potential Star Wars TV show called Underworld, which would've been set in the lower levels of Coruscant (you know, the cyberpunk part of the Star Wars universe).

If you've never heard of it, here's a bunch of information about what it would've been and why it was abandoned.

There's a new cyberpunk animated movie releasing today in the US... but it isn't getting a "wide" release. So maybe you'll be able to see it in theaters, maybe not.

Amazon has been trying to recommend this book to me for awhile but I've always ignored it. My main issue is the title of the book, Cyberpunk City. That's so generic the author might as well have called it "My Cyberpunk Story". And while the cover art looks great, it's also your generic "person looking out over a cyberpunk city" motif, which is everywhere. So neither the title nor cover gave me any clues as to what this book is about, other than a generic cyberpunk cash-grab.

But, I happened to stumble upon a review of this book outside of amazon and I was intrigued. So I gave it a try. And I loved it. Figures, amazon was right all along.

While this book is full of your standard cyberpunk tropes, the author fits everything together so well it doesn't feel forced. Of course, cyberpunk tropes are what I want from a cyberpunk story, it's just that usually if the author's only goal is to write "a cyberpunk story" then it turns out bland. And that isn't the case here.

So yes, this book is about a hacker getting a crew together for a heist. There's your standard megacorps, AIs, black market dealings, cyberspace, cybernetic augmentations; it checks all the boxes. But the writing is good and I enjoyed myself. Honestly, now that I've read it, the only downside is it's only 260 pages long. That's pretty short for a heist story, which means most of the planning actually goes off without a hitch. There aren't constant distractions and side-quests the characters have to resolve before getting back on track. That doesn't mean the heist is entirely what it seems, though...

There are 5 books in the series, and each book is less than 300 pages. I enjoyed the first book so much I immediately bought the second. So far the second book's plot isn't as interesting, but the writing is still good and I'm still enjoying myself. In the end, that's all I really want.

This song and video are perfectly cyberpunk, I've always enjoyed it. I really liked the first couple songs from Scandroid (Datastream and Salvation Code) but by the time he made an entire album he leaned too far into the 80s aesthetic and love songs for my taste so I stopped listening. It's a shame too, it's rare for a band to create intentionally cyberpunk songs, rather than just music that may give listeners a cyberpunk "feel".

Rez Infinite is a modern remake of the game Rez, originally on Playstation 2 and Dreamcast. Rez is about a hacker breaking through firewalls in cyberspace to reach a malfunctioning AI. The gameplay involves flying your character through cyberspace and targeting multiple AI defenses at once to chain your attacks.

The game was big on rhythm and synesthesia. So the game is trying to get you basically into a trance. And as you play, your character transcends forms the longer you last, with each form gaining more detail:

Each time you die you start out at level 1. If you get hit, you go down to level 0. So you have to level up multiple times and not get hit to see any of the later forms. I've never made it beyond the level 3 form.

Another weird thing about the original game was, in an attempt to really push for synesthesia, the game came with a "Trance Vibrator" which you could plug into the console to further enhance the haptic feedback on the controller. It was a vibrator. Even the game creator admitted it could be used for sexual stimulation. I don't know how they actually got that manufactured and claimed it was for anything else.

Here's a trailer. You can play it on Steam, Playstation, and Xbox. And it has VR support.

Also, the creator made a spiritual successor called Child of Eden but I've never played it.