𝗛𝗲𝘆! Wow, the TH-cam algorythm has really made the rounds with this video! Because this got waaaay more attention than I ever planned, I hope it's OK if I make a few comments and dislaimers～：） 1ー I made this Video Essay on the Origins of Cyberpunk in Japan purely for a University final evaluation and didn't really adapt it for a solid TH-cam viewing experience and format for thousands of people to see. 2ー There's a handful of imperfections in editing, and commentary, where I stumble on my own words while narrating my script and drag certain segments on... I wish I could remaster this video, and I may in the future. For all those constructive criticism comments, I hope this gives some insight! 3ー I had this video sitting on unlisted and 1 year after keeping it under wraps, I decided to make it public... I'm so thrilled that so many of you could enjoy this deep dive on Japan and Cyberpunk, it really puts a smile on my face! 4ー Allow me to address an elephant in the roomー I included some personal anecdotes and information in this video, including my age and growing up on certain films and games originating from Japan; keep in mind this was being presented to a University lecture room full of students, hence why you see age targetted contrasting anecdotes. 5ー I am overjoyed to see such a diverse demographic of people watching and commenting on this video!! From folks who were around in the 80s (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘨𝘦) and experienced hands on this reality of change in society and the emergence of the Punk and Cyberpunk genres, to viewers born after 2000. It's really great to see the interactions in the comments! (𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐'𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘧, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 "𝘬𝘪𝘥", 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 20𝘴, 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥!) 6ー This is just my personal "dumping" channel, where I dump random videos and projects. There's nothing coherent or targetted to grow the channel. I just like Aviation, Cyberpunk and I live in Japan, so those things will pop up on the channel. However, judging from the performance of this video, I'm thinking I could transform this and create Japan/Cyberpunk related content in the future? Still on the table. Let me know what you think if you read this far! 見てくれてありがとう 𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠. ～Callum カラム
Very interesting I think I got recommended this because of a mod for a video game in which it explores cyberpunk themes in the context of a victorious Japan in ww2 in which it sets up a corporate state in china.
Ah ! Ah! TH-cam''s algorithm reached me one day after your comment👍 For your last question, honestly, it will be hard to create or say something new about cyberpunk today, this topic was already deeply explored in past years/decades.
Indeed just got this. Definitely giving it a good watch later when I have more time. The only experience I have with Cyberpunk so far is Cyberpunk 2077 and it was amazing. Liked parts of Ghost in the Shell but not all the time. I am not sure if Psychopass would be considered Cyberpunk. I would think so.
As an artist and creator, you'll find that the things you make that you love the most, and the parts of them you love the most, almost never line up with what the audience ends up loving. Every time you release something, even after going over it with a fine tooth comb, you'll find that the moment its set in stone all of the things you'd change become glaring and apparent. What you did was the right thing. You designed, executed, and finished the project. You didn't agonize over it, you didn't let perfectionism get in the way of completion. Many projects die waiting for impossible perfection. The key is to learn from the inevitable post-release clarity. Expect it, and use it to inform your next work. You'll never gain the experience of walking the path unless you go through all of the steps; imagine, design, execute, release. And the release truly must be that; you put it out, and you let it go. It is what it is now. To whom it speaks, is beyond your control. As far as this video is concerned, you captured the atmosphere fantastically, and the visual motifs keep us steeped in the world you're describing. Your passion for the subject is apparent, so we buy what you're selling. The imperfections in the production endear us to you, because they're relatable. On TH-cam, we've come to expect this form of intimate media, where the viewer and the producer feel closer to equals. Whereas lots of media relies on a relatable character for us to project ourselves onto, vicariously living the story, in this style of self-produced indy media, the relatable character is often the producer themselves, even if the content is not about them at all. If your itch to re-produce this is strong, and you have a vision for it, a sequel which dives into the parts you feel you could expound on more would surely get a second click from a lot of the tens of thousands of people who have watched this. The view count is ultimately meaningless, but the people sitting alone in front of a glowing monitor at 3:00am, drifting into the narrative you're unfolding as their twilight mind readily accepts the surrealistic and liminal concepts and expressions, those people are worth cracking a smile over. You do them a service, media of this variety can be hard to find. As as being targeted and coherent goes, take a look at your favorite youtuber's first videos. 9 times out of 10, this is the way.
So funny, i was born in 1982, in south america, and i have been living in exactly this reality since 5 or 6 years sold, man, you need to move your bar some years early, probably even before me
I paused the video to make the same comment. He started out with something old like Ponyo and that got me. I thought he was gonna saysomething actually old. 😂
Gotta admit, the Japanese cyberpunk I always come back to more than anything else and rewatch on a yearly basis, is the Bubblegum Crisis franchise (though 2040 always is an outlier in that, since it's more of an alternate universe take like many Gundam entries).
@@geemonster9179 That franchise basically comes in two parts, with the newer 2040 taking place in a separate universe, but the original Bubblegum Crisis 2032/2032, Bubblegum Crash, AD Police and Parasite Dolls making up the main universe.
That last song was famous in Latin America due to an 80s boyband called "magneto", with the song called "vuela, vuela", the Spanish version of voyage, voyage by Desireless. Not until recently did I find out it was a cover and probably there are generations who don't know the original one as well. Just a fun fact to share Edit: btw it really fits the cyberpunk genre which I totally missed it way back when 🤣
I've been listening to "Voyage, Voyage" for so many years, it's such a great song with a great melody, with a French-Canadian background, a geek for all things 80s music and as someone who loves to travel the world, this song just had to make it into this video. I had no idea it was an adaption from "Vuela, Vuela" by the Magneto band! Thanks for your comment, wow～
Nice work. The origins of cyberpunk were always rooted in Japan as Gibson and Sterling explained many times back in the 80/90's. I was a fanatic of this genre when I was young.
I've been watching a lot of early cyberpunk videos again lately and listened to the Neuromancer audiobook and this video suddenly popped up in my feed. Really great video essay! Good work!
The only bad thing about this video is that I don't have another 45 minutes of it to watch. Lovely editing and excellent narration and writing. You're off to a good start here mate.
@@jankafka7330 the fk? One, the beauty of one's individual taste in things is that it's theirs. I didn't call myself an expert, I expressed how I felt about this guy's video. Did this guy steal your girl in highschool or something? Don't worry, mate, that girl you watched from across the classroom never liked you anyway and you never had a chance. I'd make that joke about you being fun at parties, but I'd guess you don't get invited to many because you're apparent go to is "random dck for no reason". Did this guy steal your girl in highschool or something? Don't worry, mate, that girl you watched from across the classroom never liked you anyway and you never had a chance. You wanna try to spin me up, find me in a comments thread about geopolitics, otherwise, kindly go fk yourself. You can use your lonely tears as lubricant. 😘 Trolllolololol
" _Like me, born in 2001_ " Heh, you're still a kid. I was born 86' - The year of the TIGER! 🐯 I was molded by sci-fi, cyberpunk and fantasy growing up 🐅 I love all these scenes with trains. The Cyberpunk resurgence started in 2012 with the release of *Shadowrun Returns* , I don't understand why people keep forgetting this.
Year of the Tiger! 🐅 I am just in my early 20s, but you have no idea how interesting and valuable it is to read comments like yours! Thank you so much for your insight and kind words. I could watch the B-Roll of Japanese trains in the 80s on loop forever 😍 It's great to hear the incluence these genres has had on your life～
@@Callum4Eternity - wags cane of age at you - 🤣 But yeah, for me my introduction was Shadowrun on Super Nintendo when I was like 9-10. Later the Sega Genesis version at 13. Matrix but I had no idea it was Cyberpunk at that time, I thought it was ripping off Shadowrun xD Ghost in the Shell freaked me out ( _she ripped her own arms off, and, other, stuff_ ). But when I was 16 and went to a different school, it had a great library there. There I borrowed Cyberpunk anthology book with numerous of authors, as well as Neuromancer. Honestly, listen to BBC radio drama of Neuromancer instead. It cuts out some of the fat and the actors are more engaging to listen to. Oh yeah, I've always wanted to live in an apartment where an overhead train goes right outside the window. Absolutely enamored with trains. There's some great Monorail videos and stuff on TH-cam that shows a full track, they're awesome to watch sometimes.
@@Zeithri ahhh, 1986. You were born the year the NES was released in the states. I didn't get mine till the following year. I was 11. I have to add to this interesting conversation. If the Japanese influence through gaming and anime hadn't come through, I don't think Cyberpunk culture (or Geek culture in the mainstream) would have broke as hard here. To the OG poster: Good video, I hope you received good marks from it. As much as it seems us old crusty bastards might be gatekeeping, it's not exactly true. At least in MY case. I just like presenting the subject from our generational perspective. But it does make me feel old. 😂
It's extremely frustrating having to rely on youtube's stupid algorithm to be seen or see anything new. I should have seen this video over a year ago. Anyway, this is an incredible video; i'm obsessed with this stuff and wish i could have made something this good on this subject myself. Very well done
i think you should’ve mentioned how a lot of films/series (like ghost in the shell, cowboy bebop and akira) were in a large part shaped by the visual landscape of hong kong in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
It seems the algorithm has picked you up. Your cinematography, edits, soundscape, and concise script is great. I hope your channel blows up. Yo shiz deep, bruh.. 🤭 I'm all about it ✌🎃🤘 Edit: wait born in 2001? 😶😶 good job, you get it
Thank you so much! Definitely too humble to accept being categorized in "one of the better Cyberpunk vids", but it means a lot to me! The Cyberpunk vibes in modern day Japanese cities is truly amazing in certain districts, especially at night and in the rain. I have to take a trip up to Ebisu sometime. Cheers for your kind comment!
Its sad that vibe is slowly leaving and changing. Even in terms of architecture that you would see in cyber punk films, those are all being torn down and everything is starting to look the same
Really good, even if I don't agree with everything you said. I think _Tetsuo_ deserves the praise and credit you give it here, it's a strange and underrated movie. It isn't shown much in the US, I've only seen it on my phone, because I bought a digital copy of it.
It does end up on a lot of semi-clickbaity "craziest/weirdest movies" lists, which I think completely undermines how creative and inspired a film it really is. It is strange and probably unpalatable to most tastes, but like all Tsukamoto films it's his singular vision and never weirdness for weirdness' sake.
I’m watching your video for the second time - I came of age in the 80’s. The imagery and concepts you share is both nostalgic and the dream of what’s to come. ❤
beautifully done. this gave me a lot of flashbacks from my time living in tokyo. being in my early 20s, i didn't have an appreciation for the cultural underpinnings that i do now, but spending time in the tokyo punk scene, there was a lot in this i recognized. thank you.
Thank you for your kind words! Living in Tokyo back then in your early 20s must've been an experience, and we don't realize a lot of what was happening and until many years later when the world has changed. I would have loved to be in your shoes! I am in my early 20s right now living in Kyoto, so this comment hit something inside me. Thanks for commenting～
The new cyberpunk style is developing its own personality and if anyone is gutsy enough to reflect the original material I think we are able to make it have the same heart as the original. The internet is no longer new, consumerism is so much a part of our lives that everyone who sees this comment has given into it, commercials are just as much of a part of our childhood as the cartoons that they're based off of. The way I see it the narrative is coming full circle and now the 99% are looking down on the 1% judging by the recent news. They might still be making the money but we've changed A LOT but still not the important things that living conditions. The middle class is shrinking because those who benefited from it( mostly boomers and some millennials ) are getting older. Their kids and grandkids are going to be facing a world unlike theirs: information is available but sometimes behind paywalls( something that used to be free isn't and even if it is it costs time ), printed books are still a thing but living spaces are getting smaller so the paywalls and ads become a norm, instant messaging becomes more immediate and direct, things that used to become proper becomes more linear and direct... the list goes on. When instant messaging became a thing we knew it was going to change our lives but we never knew to what degree much less how the culture or economics was going to adapt to it though I guess the same could be said for those who witnessed the industrial revolution and beyond.
I grew up in the 1980s in America. In 1986-87 we only had a few manga translated to English that were at the comic store it was like the greatest thing I had ever seen. Also the tech aspect that you mentioned was true. Many US house holds had Japanese stereos and Walkmans. Sony was King back then, and we view Japanese tech as the best!
Thats facinating! I absolutely have so much respect and appreciation for the genre NOW, but back then (I'm your age range) I remember being so turned off by it. The visuals were soo kinetic, constant motion, the speed of the panels whipping by....frankly the entire artform was too jarring for me and I ran from it. Its been recent that I have revisited the genre and aesthetics to understand it.
I’m sad no mentions of serial experiments lain it does a great job of contrasting the early cyberpunk works being more cyber then punk and showing some of the swings in culture and of course the rapid growth of the internet
yet the second generation japanese cyberpunk anime like ghost in the shell s.a.c and cowboy bebop who got influenced by blade runner, put meditative distance and reflection forward and better.
I have always been drawn to eclectic non mainstream film makers. Like cult film Erasehead and other subculture American films. Does anyone notice elements of how Japanese people born after WW II were affected by nuclear bombing of Japanese cities? These are only people(so far) which know first hand effects of nuclear weapons. And the drive to rebuild shaped Japan into late 20th century.
I feel like war in general has a way of bringing that out in people. Dark surrealist painters like Zdizław Beksiński and Francis Bacon lived through at least one World War (Bacon lived through both) whereas America had a revolution in gritty cinema post-Vietnam (Eraserhead is a great example of this). I don’t know, I feel like war in general is a morbid-yet-bountiful outlet to explore the darkest parts of humanity artistically, with that of nuclear weapons being a specifically powerful point of reference for those who have experienced them.
@@noinchnails8480 There will be interesting historical cultural analysis of this era: post-COVID, pre-Ukraine War, post-Sillicon Valley bubble, and its affect on literature, films, series and games.
@@juniorjames7076 for sure. We’re living in a very transformative time in human culture right now and it’ll be very interesting to see how it’s reflected back upon by historians. No doubt technology’s impact will be a topic of much discussion with how intertwined it’s become in our lives. Although not to the extent professed by most cyberpunk media, the increasing surveillance, lack of privacy, political tension, depersonalization of human interaction, and overall presence of machinery and AI is all becoming more and more real.
Thanks for a great video. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the thesis, but as a kid who was a big SF reader in the 80s it really feels to me like the term "cyberpunk" initially referred to a style of prose sci-fi kicked off by Neuromancer in '84. I guess the Akira comics were around even before them and they certainly had the aesthetic but I'm not sure anyone called them cyberpunk at the time? (I don't think people called Blade Runner cyberpunk either, until later, but I might be wrong about that.) That said, I loved the video and I think you're spot on that Japanese comics and films of the 80s influenced the aesthetic we now call cyberpunk.
Thank you for this video. The first anime I ever watched was Akira. I had no idea "cartoons" could be so mature. When I got over the mature content, I understood the mature narrative. Akira, will always be a thing of beauty to me
The interview at 2:05 says that "technology is terrifying but still convenient". That's a lesson for today. I saw Bladerunner and AKIRA (and Buckaroo Banzai!) in the theatre. I read "Neuromancer" when it first came out and played the "Shadowrun" pen/pencil RPG in college when it came out. I love cyberpunk, always have. I graduated high school in 1984. I'm 57. Back then we really thought that cyberpunk was they way the future was going to turn out. William Gibson said it best “The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed yet.” As a genre, I'm glad it's still popular. It's dripping with cool.
The fundamental premise here is entirely wrongheaded because you're a kid who has grown up in an era where Japanese culture has permeated your entire life in the western world. You can't seemingly perceive of a time period where such culture wasn't present and so people had genuinely different views. When Cyberpunk was created in the 80s in the west 1) the west was ALSO going through a massive economic boom and facing literally all of the same cultural issues with technology Japan was (Japan largely gained such economic prominence because it was the strongest and best developed western allied nation in east Asia - later economic booms in South Korea and China would occur in the 90s and 2000s), 2) there was a large amount of fear that Japan was going to overtake western markets as their growth seemed unstoppable and this is what permeates the futures of cyberpunk - projecting a trendline that in the moment seemed like it would go on forever, but in reality didn't, when the Japanese economy comparatively collapsed in the 90s, and 3) Japanese culture was intensely different, strange, and unfamiliar to most people as there was very little mass familiarity with it then (watching anime and other Japanese cultural output was *exceedingly* niche in the 1980s-90s). If you want to read a then contemporary story to really understand the fear of potential Japanese economic dominance that underwrites a lot of cyberpunk (or watch a film adapted from it) read Michael Chrichton's Rising Sun. It's really just a standard murder mystery thriller, and was basically outdated by the time it was published, but it captures a lot of the 1980's fear of Japan zeitgeist in its pages. Which is all to say, that it isn't "orientalism" that's embedded in cyberpunk (orientalism is a nonsense word anyway, created by people who wanted to make a new method to complain about things) but a demonstration of alien-ness. That in the future, the culture is going to be totally overtaken by an alien culture you, 1980s reader, don't understand. To make a place you might be familiar with (Los Angeles in Blade Runner, for example) seem as alien as Star Wars' Mos Eisley. As "orientalism" tends to be associated with a fawning obsession with "the orient" this projection of alien-ness and unfamiliarity could hardly be called "orientalist" and whomever told you that was a very superficial person. Next, you just have a lot of factual stuff wrong here. AKIRA has so little cyberpunk in it after the opening scene that it's really hardly a good example of the genre. You state (wildly) that most of the cyberpunk anime films had large Western backed budgets to account for their western influence, which is just completely wrong. The west has stayed (and continues to stay) almost entirely out of anime production until *extremely* recently in the last 5 years with a small number of titles on streaming services, with only Disney and a small number of major studios dipping their toes into distribution starting in the very late 90s and early 2000s, well past when most major cyberpunk anime hits like Ghost in the Shell or Bubblegum Crisis were produced. Finally, you seem to be wanting to make the argument that cyberpunk's origins are Japanese (despite its origins from William Gibson being readily agreed upon by basically everyone who was around at the time and for the subsequent 30-40 years who had delved into this subject), but the vast bulk of the films you bring up are hardly good examples of this. Tetsuo the Ironman is arguably the best example, but it came out in 1989, well after Cyberpunk was already well established as a genre in the west and internationally and imported into Japan via mass media. 964 Pinnochio is '91, even later. Rubber Lovers is '96, even later than that. Everything else is just . . . punk. Which is fine, but punk is not cyberpunk. Moreover, you seem to be missing the fact that punk itself was in many ways a western import to Japan, as punk was first popularized in the west in both the US and UK in the 1970s and then became much more popular in Japan in the 80s, as the Japanese absorbed tons of Western culture. From what I can tell you're falling for the "Thing Japan" fallacy real hard here and ignoring basic causality as a result. Assuming unique Japanese novelty where it doesn't exist, and excluding western influence that pervades it in order to make something you like or find fascinating (in this case, Cyperpunk) more "japanese" and thus "more gooder."
It's important to acknowledge that the most prominent and influential cyberpunk was at its core just film noir with a futuristic coating, flavoring the established aesthetics of film noir with futurism deriving from anxieties of the 80s, the stark black and white contrast being replaced with black and colorful *_NEON_* to distinguish the new movies. The themes were quite the opposite of punk, depicting detectives and policemen doing their detective/police work, and showing how the new high-tech order of this world could challenge peaceful and dignified living from a more conservative perspective. In a way, film noir was like this too, but showing the darker side of urban life in modern, glamorous big cities of the '40s. Perhaps cyberpunk film was more punk in subtext only. But I digress, lol. You mention films, but I suspect cyberpunk was biggest in Japanese video games and anime. And the cyberpunk in those is heavily inspired by Western works such as Blade Runner; it's not like cyberpunk was something that originated in Japan, it was influenced by Japan and then happened to influence it back.
Sub, I am also fascinated by the movie posters of old Japanese movies those really portrait the grittiness of the film. Hope you can share more of those posters. And I really love the vibe of 80's early 90s Japan.
Cyber = technology Punk = Style & attitude Cyberpunk = where the technology is very developed, but the human values get decayed Blade Runner Johnny Nmemonic The Matrix Altered Carbon Blade Runner 2049 Cyberpunk 2077
Well I realise that I watched a lot of Japanese anime and played a lot of games on Sega genesis (my favourite was Streets of rake / Bare knuckles) when I was a child and it might explain why I have some kind of nostalgia for Tokyo like city in the 80's/90's. I loved the big city by night vibe in your video :)
Great video essay! It absolutely felt like a school project in video format, but get the feeling that Callum did this on purpose as well. Oh, it could’ve been so much longer and in depth given that absolutely no animation was ever touched on, save for a brief mention, (Otomo & Kawajiri are respective demigods of anime directors) but still an outstanding gateway into the roots of yet another theme I have grown up with as a Xennial, and grown to love all over again, revisiting it as an adult.
I really wish you included footage of the films you cited. It was kind of hard to understand the significance of these films without getting deeper into it, and so it was hard to follow why they're important or how they reveal the psyche of the Japanese people at the time. Its too loose.
An example of technology being terrifying but still convenient: Robo financial advisers. You pay a company who has taught a computer (The dumbest thing on the planet) how to invest your money. Yet can't teach humans how to do the same...
You make nice use of footage here, although for me it doesn't gel well with the modern retro-futuristic background music. All in all you could have structured this essay better, felt a bit aimless at times and your text didn't connect with the images shown a lot of the time. Also, and I could be mistaken, it looks like you changed the aspect ratio on some movie shots. That's a no-no for me as a visual artist, but that's just a personal pet peeve of mine. Oh, and buy a pop filter for your microphone. Just a bit of constructive criticism, don't take it too seriously.
Thank you for your constructive criticisms, I certainly appreciate them! I did have a pop-filter on my Yeti Microphone at the time of recording, it may have just been the room and position I was in at the time. As far as footage, script structure and editing criticisms go, I have noted them and greatly appreciate it～
@@Callum4Eternity I think you might have been too close to the mic then, haha. No biggie though. I appreciate your handling of criticism. All in all I think you did really well, I just see the potential for more given the fascinating topic. If you haven't you should maybe check out the Japanese noise scene in the late 70s and through the 80s. There's a bit of sonic overlap with the industrial soundtracks to Tsukamoto's movies, and the deconstructivist nature of noise music is very close in spirit to early Cyberpunk.
As somebody who was born 20 years before you I can attest the slow trickle of Japanese media in cartoons was prevalent even in my day and if you ever have been to Japan you will see some parts of Tokyo life still stuck in the 80s. Almost as if some parts of the economic crash prevented them from moving forward.
One interesting example of Western-inspired Japanese Cyberpunk that stands out to me is the 1987 anime Bubblegum Crisis. It coopts a lot of different visual and story ideas of Western works like Blade Runner, but one of the key differences is the central messages surrounding the story and, rather than the story having weird Orientalist elements the way many Western cyberpunk stories did, it instead came across as more reverent of Western pop culture and science fiction and tended to be a lot less cynical towards the world it establishes for itself. It’s markedly more optimistic than contemporary Western works, and is less terrified of the rise of new technologies so much as it is cautious but curious.
Great essay, videos and visuals! Surely about some of my favorite subjects. What's the music starting at 4:30? Footage of city at night looks wonderful 頑張ってね! ＼(^o^)／
I know it's a big ask but if you could name a few of the films in this video of the driving footage. it would be great as I'd like to watch them, many thanks.
Good video, I would request a version with an audio translation of some sort, especially for video essay type content. I often consume it in environments where I cant see the screen to read subtitles. I understand not wanting to white wash ofc l, so im not sure how to handle that but...just a rec
in the 80's and early 90s the west was ensnared in a consumerist technological wave issuing from Japan. Japan was leading technology and the future and Japan's primacy had an intense and dark flavor to it caused by it's extremely rapid ascent leading to the notions that would become "cyberpunk". BUT if you take a broader historical look the picture gets very surreal. looking at the US's occupation and rebuilding of Japan after WW2 and looking further back to when US admiral perry sailed into the bay of medieval Japan and forced the country to open trade at cannonpoint; one can see that the dark dystopic hyper consumerism future depicted in Japanese cyperpunk contains a concentrated reflection of the dark rapacious seed of aught desire that lie at the very core of western imperialism. it's not asiatic or foreign, it causes anxiety in westerners because it's their own internal darkness turned back on them, a fear only previously experienced in western culture when the Vikings and Romans pillaged Europe in a cannibalistic frenzy, conquering their conqueror ancestors. it's primal fear.
Hey theee! Wonderful video and it’s so interesting that it got around in TH-cam recently! And for me, I am so intrigued because I was really getting into thinking about my own story which definitely has cyberpunk parentage. Really going to watch these films now. Hope to talk to you again about sometime soon! All the best to you! とてもおもしろい動画ありがとう！
Cyberpunk is actually an american thing when they were amazed by how advance japan cities were back in the 80s. Bladerunner is the epitome of cyberpunk movie, but the story was written much earlier.
Here's the last place I'd expect to hear "Voyage Voyage", it really surprised me. Then I remembered that our singers often do well in Japan. Cheers from France ;)
Callum, this is fascinting! How do I explore this genre more deeply? I'm in Japan, but of course all the copies I could find at Tsutaya would have no subs or overdubs. How can I contact you? I've got to learn more!
"i guess the universe devours itself to survive... Well, tonight im going black, sooth black, frequency jammer linked to my 4 wheeled chariot, my love, my tilting bicar suit, i guess 2 motorcycles fused, with me in the middle, low to the concrete, can be more than 2 bike... , Tonight, im hunting ... in all black"
My man's out here making me pull up a notes app to mark down all these example movies 😂😂 nothing in the description lol I'm like wait wait I'm trying to get into this subset more 😅
𝗛𝗲𝘆! Wow, the TH-cam algorythm has really made the rounds with this video! Because this got waaaay more attention than I ever planned, I hope it's OK if I make a few comments and dislaimers～：）
1ー I made this Video Essay on the Origins of Cyberpunk in Japan purely for a University final evaluation and didn't really adapt it for a solid TH-cam viewing experience and format for thousands of people to see.
2ー There's a handful of imperfections in editing, and commentary, where I stumble on my own words while narrating my script and drag certain segments on... I wish I could remaster this video, and I may in the future. For all those constructive criticism comments, I hope this gives some insight!
3ー I had this video sitting on unlisted and 1 year after keeping it under wraps, I decided to make it public... I'm so thrilled that so many of you could enjoy this deep dive on Japan and Cyberpunk, it really puts a smile on my face!
4ー Allow me to address an elephant in the roomー I included some personal anecdotes and information in this video, including my age and growing up on certain films and games originating from Japan; keep in mind this was being presented to a University lecture room full of students, hence why you see age targetted contrasting anecdotes.
5ー I am overjoyed to see such a diverse demographic of people watching and commenting on this video!! From folks who were around in the 80s (𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘸𝘩𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘰𝘳 𝘮𝘢𝘺 𝘯𝘰𝘵 𝘣𝘦 𝘥𝘰𝘶𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘮𝘺 𝘢𝘨𝘦) and experienced hands on this reality of change in society and the emergence of the Punk and Cyberpunk genres, to viewers born after 2000. It's really great to see the interactions in the comments! (𝘐'𝘷𝘦 𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘤𝘰𝘮𝘮𝘦𝘯𝘵𝘴 𝘰𝘯 𝘩𝘰𝘸 𝘐'𝘮 𝘺𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘴 𝘧, 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘢 "𝘬𝘪𝘥", 𝘣𝘶𝘵 𝘢𝘴 𝘢 𝘴𝘦𝘯𝘪𝘰𝘳 𝘜𝘯𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘴𝘵𝘶𝘥𝘦𝘯𝘵 𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘺 𝘦𝘢𝘳𝘭𝘺 20𝘴, 𝘐 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘬 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘢𝘳𝘦 𝘯𝘰 𝘣𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘦𝘴 𝘵𝘰 𝘸𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘤𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘦 𝘦𝘹𝘱𝘭𝘰𝘳𝘦𝘥 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘳𝘴𝘵𝘰𝘰𝘥 𝘧𝘳𝘰𝘮 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘵, 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘯 𝘪𝘧 𝘐 𝘸𝘢𝘴𝘯'𝘵 𝘢𝘳𝘰𝘶𝘯𝘥!)
6ー This is just my personal "dumping" channel, where I dump random videos and projects. There's nothing coherent or targetted to grow the channel. I just like Aviation, Cyberpunk and I live in Japan, so those things will pop up on the channel. However, judging from the performance of this video, I'm thinking I could transform this and create Japan/Cyberpunk related content in the future? Still on the table. Let me know what you think if you read this far!
見てくれてありがとう
𝐓𝐡𝐚𝐧𝐤𝐬 𝐟𝐨𝐫 𝐰𝐚𝐭𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐠.
～Callum カラム
Very interesting I think I got recommended this because of a mod for a video game in which it explores cyberpunk themes in the context of a victorious Japan in ww2 in which it sets up a corporate state in china.
Ah ! Ah! TH-cam''s algorithm reached me one day after your comment👍 For your last question, honestly, it will be hard to create or say something new about cyberpunk today, this topic was already deeply explored in past years/decades.
Indeed just got this. Definitely giving it a good watch later when I have more time. The only experience I have with Cyberpunk so far is Cyberpunk 2077 and it was amazing. Liked parts of Ghost in the Shell but not all the time. I am not sure if Psychopass would be considered Cyberpunk. I would think so.
Outstanding work, thank you for making such a comprehensive review of these fascinating films 👍
As an artist and creator, you'll find that the things you make that you love the most, and the parts of them you love the most, almost never line up with what the audience ends up loving. Every time you release something, even after going over it with a fine tooth comb, you'll find that the moment its set in stone all of the things you'd change become glaring and apparent.
What you did was the right thing. You designed, executed, and finished the project. You didn't agonize over it, you didn't let perfectionism get in the way of completion. Many projects die waiting for impossible perfection. The key is to learn from the inevitable post-release clarity. Expect it, and use it to inform your next work. You'll never gain the experience of walking the path unless you go through all of the steps; imagine, design, execute, release. And the release truly must be that; you put it out, and you let it go. It is what it is now. To whom it speaks, is beyond your control.
As far as this video is concerned, you captured the atmosphere fantastically, and the visual motifs keep us steeped in the world you're describing. Your passion for the subject is apparent, so we buy what you're selling. The imperfections in the production endear us to you, because they're relatable. On TH-cam, we've come to expect this form of intimate media, where the viewer and the producer feel closer to equals. Whereas lots of media relies on a relatable character for us to project ourselves onto, vicariously living the story, in this style of self-produced indy media, the relatable character is often the producer themselves, even if the content is not about them at all.
If your itch to re-produce this is strong, and you have a vision for it, a sequel which dives into the parts you feel you could expound on more would surely get a second click from a lot of the tens of thousands of people who have watched this.
The view count is ultimately meaningless, but the people sitting alone in front of a glowing monitor at 3:00am, drifting into the narrative you're unfolding as their twilight mind readily accepts the surrealistic and liminal concepts and expressions, those people are worth cracking a smile over. You do them a service, media of this variety can be hard to find.
As as being targeted and coherent goes, take a look at your favorite youtuber's first videos. 9 times out of 10, this is the way.
"Or if you're born in 2001, like me." Damn, tell me I'm old without telling me I'm old.
I feel like some ancient being despite being a "young adult" with how fast things come and go in the 2020s
So funny, i was born in 1982, in south america, and i have been living in exactly this reality since 5 or 6 years sold, man, you need to move your bar some years early, probably even before me
I paused the video to make the same comment. He started out with something old like Ponyo and that got me. I thought he was gonna saysomething actually old. 😂
👶🏻
In 2001 I died instead.
Gotta admit, the Japanese cyberpunk I always come back to more than anything else and rewatch on a yearly basis, is the Bubblegum Crisis franchise (though 2040 always is an outlier in that, since it's more of an alternate universe take like many Gundam entries).
great series!
Thanks for the recommendation, i love cyberpunk stuff and have since the original Blade runner back in the 80's
@@geemonster9179 That franchise basically comes in two parts, with the newer 2040 taking place in a separate universe, but the original Bubblegum Crisis 2032/2032, Bubblegum Crash, AD Police and Parasite Dolls making up the main universe.
The oldest drawing I have is a bubblegum crisis picture of Priss I drew in 1998. Loved that as a kid.
That last song was famous in Latin America due to an 80s boyband called "magneto", with the song called "vuela, vuela", the Spanish version of voyage, voyage by Desireless.
Not until recently did I find out it was a cover and probably there are generations who don't know the original one as well.
Just a fun fact to share
Edit: btw it really fits the cyberpunk genre which I totally missed it way back when 🤣
Yeah I just found out it was a cover because of you. I heard the song and realized I recognized it. Thanks for the insight
I've been listening to "Voyage, Voyage" for so many years, it's such a great song with a great melody, with a French-Canadian background, a geek for all things 80s music and as someone who loves to travel the world, this song just had to make it into this video. I had no idea it was an adaption from "Vuela, Vuela" by the Magneto band! Thanks for your comment, wow～
@@Callum4Eternity I think it was the other way around. "Vuela, vuela" is the cover. "Voyage, voyage" is the original one.
You would probably be pretty stunned if youd know how many songs are actually "covers"
ja eu conheço do forró kkkkkkkkkkkkkk
Nice work. The origins of cyberpunk were always rooted in Japan as Gibson and Sterling explained many times back in the 80/90's. I was a fanatic of this genre when I was young.
I've been watching a lot of early cyberpunk videos again lately and listened to the Neuromancer audiobook and this video suddenly popped up in my feed. Really great video essay! Good work!
Honestly recommend the BBC Radiodrama over the original Neuromancer novel.
Thank you for your kind comments! I'd love to revisit Neuromancer in audiobook format, you gave me the idea to go ahead and do it～
@@Zeithri Yes i have been listening to that bbc radiodrama one. its great! :D
I moved to Japan in 1988 when I was 27...It was off the charts fascinating for a guy from Vanilla Canada
The only bad thing about this video is that I don't have another 45 minutes of it to watch. Lovely editing and excellent narration and writing. You're off to a good start here mate.
The bad thing about this video is the video. This is crap, 'mate'. You're obviously not in a position to be a competent judge of this sort of thing.
@@jankafka7330 the fk? One, the beauty of one's individual taste in things is that it's theirs. I didn't call myself an expert, I expressed how I felt about this guy's video. Did this guy steal your girl in highschool or something? Don't worry, mate, that girl you watched from across the classroom never liked you anyway and you never had a chance.
I'd make that joke about you being fun at parties, but I'd guess you don't get invited to many because you're apparent go to is "random dck for no reason". Did this guy steal your girl in highschool or something? Don't worry, mate, that girl you watched from across the classroom never liked you anyway and you never had a chance.
You wanna try to spin me up, find me in a comments thread about geopolitics, otherwise, kindly go fk yourself. You can use your lonely tears as lubricant. 😘 Trolllolololol
@@jankafka7330and your qualifications are...
" _Like me, born in 2001_ "
Heh, you're still a kid.
I was born 86' - The year of the TIGER! 🐯
I was molded by sci-fi, cyberpunk and fantasy growing up 🐅
I love all these scenes with trains.
The Cyberpunk resurgence started in 2012 with the release of *Shadowrun Returns* , I don't understand why people keep forgetting this.
Year of the Tiger! 🐅
I am just in my early 20s, but you have no idea how interesting and valuable it is to read comments like yours! Thank you so much for your insight and kind words. I could watch the B-Roll of Japanese trains in the 80s on loop forever 😍 It's great to hear the incluence these genres has had on your life～
@@Callum4Eternity - wags cane of age at you - 🤣
But yeah, for me my introduction was Shadowrun on Super Nintendo when I was like 9-10. Later the Sega Genesis version at 13. Matrix but I had no idea it was Cyberpunk at that time, I thought it was ripping off Shadowrun xD Ghost in the Shell freaked me out ( _she ripped her own arms off, and, other, stuff_ ). But when I was 16 and went to a different school, it had a great library there. There I borrowed Cyberpunk anthology book with numerous of authors, as well as Neuromancer.
Honestly, listen to BBC radio drama of Neuromancer instead. It cuts out some of the fat and the actors are more engaging to listen to.
Oh yeah, I've always wanted to live in an apartment where an overhead train goes right outside the window. Absolutely enamored with trains. There's some great Monorail videos and stuff on TH-cam that shows a full track, they're awesome to watch sometimes.
@@Zeithri ahhh, 1986. You were born the year the NES was released in the states. I didn't get mine till the following year. I was 11. I have to add to this interesting conversation. If the Japanese influence through gaming and anime hadn't come through, I don't think Cyberpunk culture (or Geek culture in the mainstream) would have broke as hard here.
To the OG poster: Good video, I hope you received good marks from it. As much as it seems us old crusty bastards might be gatekeeping, it's not exactly true. At least in MY case. I just like presenting the subject from our generational perspective.
But it does make me feel old. 😂
@@will-love-lvx Age is the beginning of Wisdom. I may be 36 but I feel 25 ;3
I was born in 1961 and moved to Japan in 1988 when I was 27
Bro congratulations this video is fantastic! i was shocked when I saw your subscriber count
It's extremely frustrating having to rely on youtube's stupid algorithm to be seen or see anything new. I should have seen this video over a year ago. Anyway, this is an incredible video; i'm obsessed with this stuff and wish i could have made something this good on this subject myself. Very well done
i think you should’ve mentioned how a lot of films/series (like ghost in the shell, cowboy bebop and akira) were in a large part shaped by the visual landscape of hong kong in the 70’s, 80’s and 90’s.
The footage from the archives in this are...... magical!!
It seems the algorithm has picked you up. Your cinematography, edits, soundscape, and concise script is great. I hope your channel blows up. Yo shiz deep, bruh..
🤭
I'm all about it
✌🎃🤘
Edit: wait born in 2001? 😶😶 good job, you get it
The first "C-Punk I remember seeing was Judge Dredd(2000AD) in 1977.
Number one thing that made me live in Tokyo was the cyberpunk vibe. Ebisu at night has the best cyberpunk feel. BTW- one of the better cyberpunk vids.
Thank you so much! Definitely too humble to accept being categorized in "one of the better Cyberpunk vids", but it means a lot to me! The Cyberpunk vibes in modern day Japanese cities is truly amazing in certain districts, especially at night and in the rain. I have to take a trip up to Ebisu sometime. Cheers for your kind comment!
Its sad that vibe is slowly leaving and changing. Even in terms of architecture that you would see in cyber punk films, those are all being torn down and everything is starting to look the same
i would say hong kong is more cyberpunk than most of japan
@@yurashidathat's highly subjective; I mean, have you (ever) been to cities like Tokyo, Nagoya, Seoul, Taegu, Osaka, or Pusan?
Really good, even if I don't agree with everything you said. I think _Tetsuo_ deserves the praise and credit you give it here, it's a strange and underrated movie. It isn't shown much in the US, I've only seen it on my phone, because I bought a digital copy of it.
It does end up on a lot of semi-clickbaity "craziest/weirdest movies" lists, which I think completely undermines how creative and inspired a film it really is. It is strange and probably unpalatable to most tastes, but like all Tsukamoto films it's his singular vision and never weirdness for weirdness' sake.
I’m watching your video for the second time - I came of age in the 80’s. The imagery and concepts you share is both nostalgic and the dream of what’s to come. ❤
beautifully done. this gave me a lot of flashbacks from my time living in tokyo. being in my early 20s, i didn't have an appreciation for the cultural underpinnings that i do now, but spending time in the tokyo punk scene, there was a lot in this i recognized. thank you.
Wow,that had to be something to see. When was this? You got any photos?
Thank you for your kind words! Living in Tokyo back then in your early 20s must've been an experience, and we don't realize a lot of what was happening and until many years later when the world has changed. I would have loved to be in your shoes! I am in my early 20s right now living in Kyoto, so this comment hit something inside me. Thanks for commenting～
Beautiful. Easy choice to subscribe, keep up the great work, I look forward to seeing another of your videos.
The new cyberpunk style is developing its own personality and if anyone is gutsy enough to reflect the original material I think we are able to make it have the same heart as the original.
The internet is no longer new, consumerism is so much a part of our lives that everyone who sees this comment has given into it, commercials are just as much of a part of our childhood as the cartoons that they're based off of. The way I see it the narrative is coming full circle and now the 99% are looking down on the 1% judging by the recent news. They might still be making the money but we've changed A LOT but still not the important things that living conditions.
The middle class is shrinking because those who benefited from it( mostly boomers and some millennials ) are getting older. Their kids and grandkids are going to be facing a world unlike theirs: information is available but sometimes behind paywalls( something that used to be free isn't and even if it is it costs time ), printed books are still a thing but living spaces are getting smaller so the paywalls and ads become a norm, instant messaging becomes more immediate and direct, things that used to become proper becomes more linear and direct... the list goes on.
When instant messaging became a thing we knew it was going to change our lives but we never knew to what degree much less how the culture or economics was going to adapt to it though I guess the same could be said for those who witnessed the industrial revolution and beyond.
80s Japan is where I'd like to time travel.
I grew up in the 1980s in America. In 1986-87 we only had a few manga translated to English that were at the comic store it was like the greatest thing I had ever seen. Also the tech aspect that you mentioned was true. Many US house holds had Japanese stereos and Walkmans. Sony was King back then, and we view Japanese tech as the best!
Thats facinating! I absolutely have so much respect and appreciation for the genre NOW, but back then (I'm your age range) I remember being so turned off by it. The visuals were soo kinetic, constant motion, the speed of the panels whipping by....frankly the entire artform was too jarring for me and I ran from it. Its been recent that I have revisited the genre and aesthetics to understand it.
Yeah, in terms of tech on display (i.e. tech infrastructure/aesthetics), both, Japan, and Korea are decades ahead of the United States!
Holy shit dude TH-cam must now be noticing you. Showed up on my recommendation. Nice fken video, very professional, like as good as Netflix.
Thank you so much for your kind comment!
The cyberpunk 2077 ost in background never stop giving me chills
🤩
I’m sad no mentions of serial experiments lain it does a great job of contrasting the early cyberpunk works being more cyber then punk and showing some of the swings in culture and of course the rapid growth of the internet
Thats what I was thinking too! But I guess he was more diving into film vs animated stuff....though he did mention ghost in the shell
Absolutely right. Let's all Love LAIN.❤
Would be cool if the description contained a list of the movies you mention. Otherwise, great work!
I will get around to that given the attention this video has gotten! Thank you so much for the suggestion and kind words～
@@Callum4Eternity Yes, please -- I'd like to watch the movies you used as clips for the video. Thank you.
@@Callum4Eternity What is the song that plays at 4:30? Super catchy.
yet the second generation japanese cyberpunk anime like ghost in the shell s.a.c and cowboy bebop who got influenced by blade runner, put meditative distance and reflection forward and better.
>completely forgetting heavy metal magazine in the 70s hell the movie released in 81.
I have always been drawn to eclectic non mainstream film makers. Like cult film Erasehead and other subculture American films. Does anyone notice elements of how Japanese people born after WW II were affected by nuclear bombing of Japanese cities? These are only people(so far) which know first hand effects of nuclear weapons. And the drive to rebuild shaped Japan into late 20th century.
Some really interesting thoughts and insight into nuclear weapons and it's link to the Japanese post-war psyche and urban development.
I feel like war in general has a way of bringing that out in people. Dark surrealist painters like Zdizław Beksiński and Francis Bacon lived through at least one World War (Bacon lived through both) whereas America had a revolution in gritty cinema post-Vietnam (Eraserhead is a great example of this). I don’t know, I feel like war in general is a morbid-yet-bountiful outlet to explore the darkest parts of humanity artistically, with that of nuclear weapons being a specifically powerful point of reference for those who have experienced them.
@@noinchnails8480 There will be interesting historical cultural analysis of this era: post-COVID, pre-Ukraine War, post-Sillicon Valley bubble, and its affect on literature, films, series and games.
@@juniorjames7076 for sure. We’re living in a very transformative time in human culture right now and it’ll be very interesting to see how it’s reflected back upon by historians. No doubt technology’s impact will be a topic of much discussion with how intertwined it’s become in our lives. Although not to the extent professed by most cyberpunk media, the increasing surveillance, lack of privacy, political tension, depersonalization of human interaction, and overall presence of machinery and AI is all becoming more and more real.
The best video on Cyberpunk that i've came across..!!
great video !!!!
Thanks for a great video. Maybe I'm misunderstanding the thesis, but as a kid who was a big SF reader in the 80s it really feels to me like the term "cyberpunk" initially referred to a style of prose sci-fi kicked off by Neuromancer in '84. I guess the Akira comics were around even before them and they certainly had the aesthetic but I'm not sure anyone called them cyberpunk at the time? (I don't think people called Blade Runner cyberpunk either, until later, but I might be wrong about that.) That said, I loved the video and I think you're spot on that Japanese comics and films of the 80s influenced the aesthetic we now call cyberpunk.
Great vid man! I love the cyberpunk subculture and I'm always studying about it. Thanks!
Nice video, I hope you make more of them
Thanks! That's the plan. :3
Thank you for this video. The first anime I ever watched was Akira. I had no idea "cartoons" could be so mature. When I got over the mature content, I understood the mature narrative. Akira, will always be a thing of beauty to me
wow! you just flipped my world.
this was fantastic. i wish it went on for hours. ;) thank you. love the song at the end.
I actually took notes while watching your video. Very interesting thoughts!
Modern high quality example of cyberpunk: „Upgrade“
The interview at 2:05 says that "technology is terrifying but still convenient". That's a lesson for today. I saw Bladerunner and AKIRA (and Buckaroo Banzai!) in the theatre. I read "Neuromancer" when it first came out and played the "Shadowrun" pen/pencil RPG in college when it came out. I love cyberpunk, always have. I graduated high school in 1984. I'm 57. Back then we really thought that cyberpunk was they way the future was going to turn out. William Gibson said it best “The future is already here - it's just not evenly distributed yet.” As a genre, I'm glad it's still popular. It's dripping with cool.
The fundamental premise here is entirely wrongheaded because you're a kid who has grown up in an era where Japanese culture has permeated your entire life in the western world. You can't seemingly perceive of a time period where such culture wasn't present and so people had genuinely different views.
When Cyberpunk was created in the 80s in the west 1) the west was ALSO going through a massive economic boom and facing literally all of the same cultural issues with technology Japan was (Japan largely gained such economic prominence because it was the strongest and best developed western allied nation in east Asia - later economic booms in South Korea and China would occur in the 90s and 2000s), 2) there was a large amount of fear that Japan was going to overtake western markets as their growth seemed unstoppable and this is what permeates the futures of cyberpunk - projecting a trendline that in the moment seemed like it would go on forever, but in reality didn't, when the Japanese economy comparatively collapsed in the 90s, and 3) Japanese culture was intensely different, strange, and unfamiliar to most people as there was very little mass familiarity with it then (watching anime and other Japanese cultural output was *exceedingly* niche in the 1980s-90s).
If you want to read a then contemporary story to really understand the fear of potential Japanese economic dominance that underwrites a lot of cyberpunk (or watch a film adapted from it) read Michael Chrichton's Rising Sun. It's really just a standard murder mystery thriller, and was basically outdated by the time it was published, but it captures a lot of the 1980's fear of Japan zeitgeist in its pages.
Which is all to say, that it isn't "orientalism" that's embedded in cyberpunk (orientalism is a nonsense word anyway, created by people who wanted to make a new method to complain about things) but a demonstration of alien-ness. That in the future, the culture is going to be totally overtaken by an alien culture you, 1980s reader, don't understand. To make a place you might be familiar with (Los Angeles in Blade Runner, for example) seem as alien as Star Wars' Mos Eisley. As "orientalism" tends to be associated with a fawning obsession with "the orient" this projection of alien-ness and unfamiliarity could hardly be called "orientalist" and whomever told you that was a very superficial person.
Next, you just have a lot of factual stuff wrong here. AKIRA has so little cyberpunk in it after the opening scene that it's really hardly a good example of the genre. You state (wildly) that most of the cyberpunk anime films had large Western backed budgets to account for their western influence, which is just completely wrong. The west has stayed (and continues to stay) almost entirely out of anime production until *extremely* recently in the last 5 years with a small number of titles on streaming services, with only Disney and a small number of major studios dipping their toes into distribution starting in the very late 90s and early 2000s, well past when most major cyberpunk anime hits like Ghost in the Shell or Bubblegum Crisis were produced.
Finally, you seem to be wanting to make the argument that cyberpunk's origins are Japanese (despite its origins from William Gibson being readily agreed upon by basically everyone who was around at the time and for the subsequent 30-40 years who had delved into this subject), but the vast bulk of the films you bring up are hardly good examples of this. Tetsuo the Ironman is arguably the best example, but it came out in 1989, well after Cyberpunk was already well established as a genre in the west and internationally and imported into Japan via mass media. 964 Pinnochio is '91, even later. Rubber Lovers is '96, even later than that. Everything else is just . . . punk. Which is fine, but punk is not cyberpunk.
Moreover, you seem to be missing the fact that punk itself was in many ways a western import to Japan, as punk was first popularized in the west in both the US and UK in the 1970s and then became much more popular in Japan in the 80s, as the Japanese absorbed tons of Western culture.
From what I can tell you're falling for the "Thing Japan" fallacy real hard here and ignoring basic causality as a result. Assuming unique Japanese novelty where it doesn't exist, and excluding western influence that pervades it in order to make something you like or find fascinating (in this case, Cyperpunk) more "japanese" and thus "more gooder."
It's important to acknowledge that the most prominent and influential cyberpunk was at its core just film noir with a futuristic coating, flavoring the established aesthetics of film noir with futurism deriving from anxieties of the 80s, the stark black and white contrast being replaced with black and colorful *_NEON_* to distinguish the new movies. The themes were quite the opposite of punk, depicting detectives and policemen doing their detective/police work, and showing how the new high-tech order of this world could challenge peaceful and dignified living from a more conservative perspective. In a way, film noir was like this too, but showing the darker side of urban life in modern, glamorous big cities of the '40s. Perhaps cyberpunk film was more punk in subtext only. But I digress, lol. You mention films, but I suspect cyberpunk was biggest in Japanese video games and anime. And the cyberpunk in those is heavily inspired by Western works such as Blade Runner; it's not like cyberpunk was something that originated in Japan, it was influenced by Japan and then happened to influence it back.
I just finished watching the Cyberpunk anime and... Well, I need MORE of the genre.
The phrase "high tech, low life" always encapsulated what 'cyberpunk' means in a societal way.
Sub, I am also fascinated by the movie posters of old Japanese movies those really portrait the grittiness of the film. Hope you can share more of those posters. And I really love the vibe of 80's early 90s Japan.
Cyber = technology Punk = Style & attitude
Cyberpunk = where the technology is very developed, but the human values get decayed
Blade Runner
Johnny Nmemonic
The Matrix
Altered Carbon
Blade Runner 2049
Cyberpunk 2077
Great video and with very good references to old movie's 👌
Well I realise that I watched a lot of Japanese anime and played a lot of games on Sega genesis (my favourite was Streets of rake / Bare knuckles) when I was a child and it might explain why I have some kind of nostalgia for Tokyo like city in the 80's/90's.
I loved the big city by night vibe in your video :)
Great video essay! It absolutely felt like a school project in video format, but get the feeling that Callum did this on purpose as well. Oh, it could’ve been so much longer and in depth given that absolutely no animation was ever touched on, save for a brief mention, (Otomo & Kawajiri are respective demigods of anime directors) but still an outstanding gateway into the roots of yet another theme I have grown up with as a Xennial, and grown to love all over again, revisiting it as an adult.
Im so glad you made this, ive been thinking about this for a while now
A video essay that is an actual essay.
I really wish you included footage of the films you cited. It was kind of hard to understand the significance of these films without getting deeper into it, and so it was hard to follow why they're important or how they reveal the psyche of the Japanese people at the time. Its too loose.
An example of technology being terrifying but still convenient: Robo financial advisers. You pay a company who has taught a computer (The dumbest thing on the planet) how to invest your money. Yet can't teach humans how to do the same...
When you said fast and then followed up with kinetic, that illustrated it well. I like that 🔥
Takes me back to watching Tetsuo at the Film Society in Bergen, Norway in the early 90ies - I’m that old. What a great movie!
i enjoyed this video so much
Awesome looking video !
good job on the video. now I really want to check some old jp stuff.
Thank you!
14:21 fabulous video, thank you!
This is amazing 😍
You make nice use of footage here, although for me it doesn't gel well with the modern retro-futuristic background music. All in all you could have structured this essay better, felt a bit aimless at times and your text didn't connect with the images shown a lot of the time. Also, and I could be mistaken, it looks like you changed the aspect ratio on some movie shots. That's a no-no for me as a visual artist, but that's just a personal pet peeve of mine.
Oh, and buy a pop filter for your microphone.
Just a bit of constructive criticism, don't take it too seriously.
Thank you for your constructive criticisms, I certainly appreciate them! I did have a pop-filter on my Yeti Microphone at the time of recording, it may have just been the room and position I was in at the time. As far as footage, script structure and editing criticisms go, I have noted them and greatly appreciate it～
@@Callum4Eternity I think you might have been too close to the mic then, haha. No biggie though.
I appreciate your handling of criticism. All in all I think you did really well, I just see the potential for more given the fascinating topic.
If you haven't you should maybe check out the Japanese noise scene in the late 70s and through the 80s. There's a bit of sonic overlap with the industrial soundtracks to Tsukamoto's movies, and the deconstructivist nature of noise music is very close in spirit to early Cyberpunk.
@@nikusenpuki3631 There is not enough discussion of the development of modern Japanese music pre and post WW2. I would be very interested in this.
Strange enough, I've never associated Tampopo with CyberPunk.
You might enjoy Altered Carbon if you liked this
As a 2001 baby...yessssss! I would say both japanese and british media made my Childhood, then as a teen i started watching american cartoons
Great video. Exposing the actual origins of the genre and who we owe thanks.
As somebody who was born 20 years before you I can attest the slow trickle of Japanese media in cartoons was prevalent even in my day and if you ever have been to Japan you will see some parts of Tokyo life still stuck in the 80s. Almost as if some parts of the economic crash prevented them from moving forward.
One interesting example of Western-inspired Japanese Cyberpunk that stands out to me is the 1987 anime Bubblegum Crisis. It coopts a lot of different visual and story ideas of Western works like Blade Runner, but one of the key differences is the central messages surrounding the story and, rather than the story having weird Orientalist elements the way many Western cyberpunk stories did, it instead came across as more reverent of Western pop culture and science fiction and tended to be a lot less cynical towards the world it establishes for itself. It’s markedly more optimistic than contemporary Western works, and is less terrified of the rise of new technologies so much as it is cautious but curious.
This video has really added to my movie watchlist!!!
What music is at the end. Great video btw.
"Voyage, Voyage" by Desireless
Great essay, videos and visuals! Surely about some of my favorite subjects.
What's the music starting at 4:30?
Footage of city at night looks wonderful
頑張ってね! ＼(^o^)／
Shazam pulled up "Star's Name" by Homeboy & Wonstein. But I have a feeling that song is sampling an older 80's song...but if not, that's awesome!
Well done!
I know it's a big ask but if you could name a few of the films in this video of the driving footage. it would be great as I'd like to watch them, many thanks.
Nice post!
Fantastic
Doshisha U? That's where Rallizes Denudes was formed!
That's right! ^_^
Nice video.
cyberpunk 2077 sound track :) I like
Like for Shadowrun.
Good video, I would request a version with an audio translation of some sort, especially for video essay type content. I often consume it in environments where I cant see the screen to read subtitles. I understand not wanting to white wash ofc l, so im not sure how to handle that but...just a rec
in the 80's and early 90s the west was ensnared in a consumerist technological wave issuing from Japan. Japan was leading technology and the future and Japan's primacy had an intense and dark flavor to it caused by it's extremely rapid ascent leading to the notions that would become "cyberpunk". BUT if you take a broader historical look the picture gets very surreal. looking at the US's occupation and rebuilding of Japan after WW2 and looking further back to when US admiral perry sailed into the bay of medieval Japan and forced the country to open trade at cannonpoint; one can see that the dark dystopic hyper consumerism future depicted in Japanese cyperpunk contains a concentrated reflection of the dark rapacious seed of aught desire that lie at the very core of western imperialism. it's not asiatic or foreign, it causes anxiety in westerners because it's their own internal darkness turned back on them, a fear only previously experienced in western culture when the Vikings and Romans pillaged Europe in a cannibalistic frenzy, conquering their conqueror ancestors. it's primal fear.
Interesting video! Is there a complete list of all the background music tracks anywhere? :)
Aaaannd I'm playing Cyberpunk 2077 again.
Good job on that. Very cool
Man, you're young!
👶🏻
As a synthwave and cyberpunk music producer I love this video ! Hit me up ma man
Hey theee! Wonderful video and it’s so interesting that it got around in TH-cam recently!
And for me, I am so intrigued because I was really getting into thinking about my own story which definitely has cyberpunk parentage.
Really going to watch these films now.
Hope to talk to you again about sometime soon!
All the best to you!
とてもおもしろい動画ありがとう！
I grew up with seeing Arika on TV for the first time Europe... That was mind-blowing
Vexille gets a lot of crap for being derivative, but I feel it captures the terror of technology better than more popular contributions in this genre.
Great video! What's the piece of music that starts at 2:45 when the main title comes up? Love it!
Cyberpunk is actually an american thing when they were amazed by how advance japan cities were back in the 80s. Bladerunner is the epitome of cyberpunk movie, but the story was written much earlier.
cyberpunk has its roots in french sci fi comic books
Here's the last place I'd expect to hear "Voyage Voyage", it really surprised me. Then I remembered that our singers often do well in Japan. Cheers from France ;)
i watched an old cyberpunk ova that surprised me at how good it was
a little influenced by akira
Callum, this is fascinting! How do I explore this genre more deeply? I'm in Japan, but of course all the copies I could find at Tsutaya would have no subs or overdubs. How can I contact you? I've got to learn more!
CyberPunk Oldie but Goodie:
*CYBER CITY OEDO 808*
"i guess the universe devours itself to survive... Well, tonight im going black, sooth black, frequency jammer linked to my 4 wheeled chariot, my love, my tilting bicar suit, i guess 2 motorcycles fused, with me in the middle, low to the concrete, can be more than 2 bike... , Tonight, im hunting ... in all black"
Produce this essay again in 20 years.
shadowrun is fun.
My man's out here making me pull up a notes app to mark down all these example movies 😂😂 nothing in the description lol I'm like wait wait I'm trying to get into this subset more 😅
😂😂😂😂
_すべてがアジア人です_
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