Cyber Punk

The cyber punk genre directly plays with the possible transition or mixing of man and machine, along with plausible dystopian futures thrown in there as well. For that week instead of a read I decided to watch Akira.    

Some stories in cyber punk have the underlying tone of man making a large evolutionary step through technology. I’ve always found this to an interesting theme and certain aspects of it are starting to present themselves in real life today. We see mechanical limbs becoming more advanced and phones becoming almost an extension of the body.  Some major examples of this are Blade Runner and Ghost in a Shell that really play into the combination of man and machine. What I like about Akira is that it goes straight into man’s next evolutionary step without having body modifications being the direct cause. It’s more future driven technology chemically transforms Tetsuo, the main character, into a telekinetic that rapidly becomes to powerful for his own good, which as a result causes him to inevitably “ascend” to a higher form of being. This all happens while he has a full on power trip essentially destroying much of the city.  This basically causes him to evolve beyond his physical form. This all takes place in the usual cyber punk setting of neon lit, post-apocalyptic city of Neo Tokyo and makes for a thought provoking animated feature that has become a great classic.