New Spaces for Old Motifs? The Virtual Worlds of Japanese Cyberpunk

Arts

Denis Taillandier¹ 

[1] College of International Relations, Ritsumeikan University, Kyoto 603-8577, Japan;

关键词: Japanese science fiction;    cyberpunk;    techno-Orientalism;    Masaki Gorō;    Tobi Hirotaka;    virtual worlds;    intertextuality;   

DOI  :  10.3390/arts7040060

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

North-American cyberpunk’s recurrent use of high-tech Japan as “the default setting for the future,” has generated a Japonism reframed in technological terms. While the renewed representations of techno-Orientalism have received scholarly attention, little has been said about literary Japanese science fiction. This paper attempts to discuss the transnational construction of Japanese cyberpunk through Masaki Gorō’s Venus City (Vīnasu Shiti, 1992) and Tobi Hirotaka’s Angels of the Forsaken Garden series (Haien no tenshi, 2002–). Elaborating on Tatsumi’s concept of synchronicity, it focuses on the intertextual dynamics that underlie the shaping of those texts to shed light on Japanese cyberpunk’s (dis)connections to techno-Orientalism as well as on the relationships between literary works, virtual worlds and reality.

【 授权许可】

Unknown