*** TO JAPANESE GOG'ers ***

What is the movie genre "japanese cyberpunk" called in japan?

The first computer I encountered was a Mattel Intellivision. I don't remember when we got it - it was probably soon after I was born.

In about 1988 or '89 my cousin got himself a PC and passed his old Spectravideo SV-18 down to our family. That was an interesting experience - you got a keyboard which you plug into your TV, and then plug a tape deck into the keyboard. You boot the computer into an interactive BASIC interpreter. To play a game you put a tape into the tape deck, rewind it, type "load" and press play. Then you wait for the game to be loaded from the tape and type "play" to start.

In my second year of school, 1990, my brother and I saved up enough to buy something labelled "Family Computer", which may or may not have been made by Nintendo. (I don't have it anymore so I can't verify if it was genuine - "generic" Nintendo-compatible console were typical in SA, but they generally had their own branding and weren't outright imitations. Every one I've seen since then was labelled "Ending Man", "Golden China", "Reggies", "Toys-R-Us", etc. so I have my doubts that Nintendo ever actually sold Famicoms here)

My father bought a second-hand PC-compatible computer later that year (the word "PC" still had some lingering IBM-specificity back then). It was a 286, I think - might have been a 386. In 1993 we got to a 486, and moved with the times from there.

I get your point! But not sure it applies here, since Japanese cyberpunk is a specific subgenre that has almost nothing to do with cyberpunk.

CYBERPUNK: dystopian scifi books with cyberspace, nanotech and evil corporations.
JAPANESE CYBERPUNK: dystopian scifi movies with stories that are impossible to interpret, little or no dialog, MTV-cutting and prolonged puking scenes. Body horror and isolation are common themes.

The difference is easy to notice:

Trailer for BLADERUNNER:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KPcZHjKJBnE

Trailer for 964 vPINOCCHIO:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJI_szKnDbo

Well, the same can be said about JRPGs and RPGs (these genres really are fundamentally different). Concerning cyberpunk it's all just speculation on my part but knowing the way the Japanese imitate and transform stuff from the West I wouldn't be surprised if to them Japanese cyberpunk simply is cyberpunk. The fact that the English term for this genre is "Japanese cyberpunk" kinda suggests so.

But well, maybe someone who knows his stuff will reply here. I just saw another Japanese user comment on an anime in a different thread, but I can't find it anymore and don't remember his nickname. Anyway, I'm sure he'd know.

You need a summoning ritual of xa_chan or bansama ?

Yarp, xa_chan was the one I meant and was looking for.

You prepared the offerings for my coming? ^_^

Ooookay, well, cyberpunk is cyberpunk. It's actually not a really popular genre around here. Most of the anime/movies are not cyberpunk. And I think that producers use the work cyberpunk quite liberally, because "cyberpunk" can range from Akira to Tetsuo (see what I did there? ^_^), while also including Psycho-pass or Appleseed.

I think the genre "mecha" is far more popular here with Gundam and all its copies than the genre "cyberpunk".

Some examples of "japanese cyberpunk" as i understand it:

Tetsuo : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uROMTzJsfOI

Appleseed Alpha : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sNDb2J6DIwg

Avalon : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8TTgzumaI0w (sorry for the poor quality)

Cyber City OEDO 808 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dwBXPsetOHM

As you can see, pretty different things... Hell, even Evangelion could be considered as "cyberpunk"!

To me cyberpunk is pretty strictly pretty much Cyberpunk 2020 (pnp).

So stuff like

Games:
-Deus Ex
-Shadowrun
-Dreamweb
-Blade Runner

Movies/series/manga
-Johnny Mnemonic
-Ghost in the Shell movies and series
-Blade Runner
-Tsutomu Nihei drawn alot of cyberpunk aspected stuff.
-Stuff written by Gibson of course.
and so on.

I wouldnt consider Gundam or NGE really Cyberpunk. They are scifi for sure, but there is not that "High tech, low life" + dystopia aspect what I (!) think make the core of cyberpunk. Besides the mending of man and machine ofcourse.

Even Akira is bit borderline case, as its really more about psionics and action in future setting.

I really like mecha stuff - but to me mecha and cyberpunk are very different genres. They can ofcourse overlap, for example "Maximum Metal" was one of my favorite cyberpunk books

edit:
has anyone played this: http://www.cabrerabrothers.com/

Onpnp games, you also had Mekton Z that was overlapping between mechas, japanese anime and more traditional sci-fi.

I'd say that Gunnm (Battle Angel Alita I think, in english) would also qualify for cyberpunk. Too bad the anime is crappy...

I just made the standard sacrifice : I drowned a sugar in a coffee, I dissolved it and ate it , and there you are ;-)

Thanks for upgrading my brain! I have never been much into cyberpunk myself, but likes the visual feast of Tetsuo and similar. I had never considered this, but the body horror in Japanese cyberpunk fits into the man/machine theme of 'general' cyberpunk.

I have played it a bit. I wanted to read an electronic note ... so I tried:

> TURN ON NOTE
syntax error

> TURN ON ELECTRONIC NOTE
please be more specific

> TURN ON THE ELECTRONIC NOTE
syntax error

Finally I ended up looking it up in the manual. It appear that I should have written:
> TURN NOTE ON

... So the game suffers from a really pedantic engine which caused me to ragequit. I think they underestimated the works required to build a text parser from scratch. Also, some elements only makes sense if you read some .pdf that followed with the game. This is done on purpose, to make the extra stuff supplied and the game itself suplement each other.

This is a shame, because the visuals and the always-on-top location description is really an improvement of the genre. But this game is solely for hardcore text adventure fans.

heh, ive been thinking about trying it out some day. Maybe when/if it eventually ends up in gog...
Alita and the Last Order are very good series in my opinion. But.

High on cyber - low on punk. Gets close, but not close enough for "purist" like me ;)

Alita is pretty superhero sort of character and the cyberpunkish dystopia isnt really there. Well, its sort of there, but it doesnt really play such big part in the overall series. The focus is strictly on Alita.

--

"Original" cyberpunk (genre) shared alot with noir. Thats also something you dont really see these days.

Dreamweb did that part exceptionally well. We have Bloodnet here on gog, which i assume has lots of cyberpunk in it, but havent yet had the time to try it out nor have i watched gameplay.

I don't remember if I've asked this before...

In many US movies, when people travel in subways, the lights go off and on every now and then while people are inside. That effect is especially used in action or horror movies like Predator 2 (IIRC) and The Midnight Meat Train (great movie, I liked it).

Is that merely a trick for movies, or is that normal in e.g. some New York subways, older ones? Is it because the vans don't have constant contact to electricity? Is it really that bad as in the movies, the lights seem to go on and off quite constantly?

Just reminded me in the Meat Train movie, because the subways here are nothing like that. Well, except the fact that there was some crazy axe murderer in one subway here like one or two decades ago, a bit like in that movie (that's why they later added unbreakable glasses behind the seats so that no one can hit you from behind if you sit, so you can enjoy a safe trip without an axe in your skull).

I've only been on a subway a small number of times, but iirc, the lights change when going into (or out of) a tunnel and/or going underground. For instance, I live in New Jersey and I can get to New York by taking the train. Where I'm at in New Jersey, the train is above ground. As we get closer to New York, it goes under ground because there are so many more buildings that would just be in the way of an above-ground rail track.

Maybe someone who lives in New York City and uses the train/subway system more often could shed a little more light on this.