Hammerjack

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.

While it's possible this SPINE game could be good, there's no way it'll get film and TV adaptations. That seems a bit optimistic for game that isn't released yet, has no release date, and no one has heard of.

For what it's worth, here's a gameplay trailer and a cinematic trailer. And it has a Steam page. Like I said, this game could turn out great. And since it's cyberpunk, I'm rooting for it. I'd love a great cyberpunk game. But what little I've seen so far reminds me of Wanted: Dead and that game ended up with Mixed reviews at best.

I read a lot of random cyberpunk novels from the kindle store and I'm always on the lookout for more. Cyberpunk novels are annoyingly difficult to find since the "cyberpunk" category on amazon is nothing but LitRPG, but that's a different rant altogether.

Anyway, I don't actively try to find trans characters in literature (I'm not trans) but I don't avoid books that have trans characters. I figure trans characters actually fit pretty well into cyberpunk universes. So for anyone who is interested in reading cyberpunk stories with trans characters, here are the ones I've read:

Escapology by Ren Warom - The main character is trans but is post-transition so the fact that he's trans isn't even mentioned until ~80% into the book. And it's really only revealed so the villain can make trans-based insults about the main character just to get him riled up. Given that the character is post-transition, I liked the fact that being trans didn't define who he was, it was just something from his past that he didn't really think about anymore. Of course, this also means the reveal of being trans almost felt tacked-on and an after-thought. But in the sequel, Virology, everyone's cyberspace avatars are visible in the real world and the main character has a theory that being trans affected how his avatar behaves. So being trans does eventually have an effect and doesn't feel tacked-on anymore.

The Chimera Code by Wayne Santos - This novel is about a mercenary crew where each person has their role (the leader, the hacker, the muscle, etc.). Their hacker dies so they need to recruit a new one (they even load up the old hacker's consciousness like Dixie Flatline to train the new hacker, so that's fun). Anyway, the new hacker they find is non-binary. This is handled pretty well where every time a new character meets this hacker they ask for the hacker's pronouns. The hacker tells them, and they move on with the story. So the hacker being non-binary is handled throughout the book but it's never a main theme of the story. The plot continues to drive forward regardless of the hacker's gender.

Bang Bang Bodhisattva by Aubrey Wood - This novel is about two characters trying to solve a murder mystery. One acts like he's a hard-boiled detective in a film noir while the other is trans and mid-transition. Now, given that the trans character is mid-transition I'm sure this makes sense, but being trans is a constant topic of discussion. It's like having a character who's vegan constantly telling you they're vegan. Again, I'm not trans, so I don't doubt that someone who is mid-transition constantly has it on their mind. But as a reader, yeah, I get it, she's trans. She's also pansexual and in a polyamorous relationship. I feel like this is more of the focus of the story than the murder mystery. I do like that the author changes writing styles depending on which character is the POV of the chapter. So the detective character always has short, terse sentences while the trans character has more free-flowing sentences. But this is the only novel in the list where I went "ok, this novel isn't meant for me." It feels more like a novel for trans people than just including trans people.

And that's it. Those are the cyberpunk novels I've read with trans characters. I find it interesting how it spans from "almost feels like an after-thought" to "handled, and not a factor" to "ok, I get it, stop talking about it". Honestly, I'm not sure what the "right" way is to handle trans characters so I figure it's good to cover this whole spectrum.

This was mentioned in our discussion of bad cyberpunk movies but I wanted to bring it to a wider audience. Do you consider the 1993 Super Mario Bros movie to be cyberpunk?

I'd say the movie definitely takes place in a cyberpunk city, but are there any cyberpunk themes present?

Here's a trailer. I don't think it's streaming anywhere, but if you watch it I recommend watching with the RiffTrax commentary (Mystery Science Theater 3000 guys) to make it more enjoyable.

Samurai Jack was a great show, there's no question about that. But when I watched the first episode and he arrived in that cyberpunk city, I was really excited. A samurai from the past exploring a cyberpunk future? That sounds amazing.

Of course, as anyone who watched the show knows, he spent very little time in that city. Most episodes took place in the forest or around ancient ruins, and Jack being in "the future" was really just an excuse for him to fight robots so they could make the show as violent as possible and Jack would only get splashed with "oil".

(See? There's no blood! It's safe for kids!)

Sure, there were some episodes that were more cyberpunk, like the rave episode:

And the episode with the robot who just wanted to find his lost dog (Lulu, sweet thing):

But those were exceptions.

Of course, I kept watching the show anyway, because it's great. I was just hoping for more sci-fi/cyberpunk episodes. At least we finally got that last season, which finished the story after over a decade of waiting.

Anyway, here's the intro. You can watch the entire series on Max or Adult Swim.