Akira style project ** 'Stolen' mech 23.11.16**

[OSHIROmodels]

Never heard of Armitage mate, I'll have a shufty for it when I get home.

I don't mind the dated appearance, in fact I prefer it. Eighties style Neo Tokyo 

cheers

James

[Westfalia Chris]

Never heard of Armitage mate, I'll have a shufty for it when I get home.

It isn't THAT great, IMHO. Decent enough animation, but make sure you get a subtitled version. All dubs I've seen so far of it were atrocious. A mix of Blade Runner and Total Recall, storywise, not the greatest of plots but not too drawn-out.

[YPU]

I don't mind the dated appearance, in fact I prefer it. Eighties style Neo Tokyo 

Agreed there. I only read Neuromancer etc. last year and man do I feel like I missed out on that whole "era" of cyberpunk. Kinda strange what with most of the tech being real today.

[Billchuck]

Marking this so i can keep track of it.

[FramFramson]

Never heard of Armitage mate, I'll have a shufty for it when I get home.

I don't mind the dated appearance, in fact I prefer it. Eighties style Neo Tokyo 

cheers

James

It's technically called Armitage III, if I recall correctly. Mid-90's cyberpunk anime at it's finest. 

Borrows a lot from Blade Runner, I think? been a long time since I've seen it.

Tell the truth, I sure haven't watched much anime in the past few years. Not really a fan of the "schoolkids slice of life"/Bad Gainax ripoffs/moe stuff that seems to be dominating everything at the moment. There's still decent stuff buried deep in the morass, but it's just not worth my time trying to dig for it and Satoshi Kon is gone now anyway 

[FramFramson]

Agreed there. I only read Neuromancer etc. last year and man do I feel like I missed out on that whole "era" of cyberpunk. Kinda strange what with most of the tech being real today.

Of all the possible futures predicted by sci-fi from the 40's through the 90's, it's heartbreaking that the bleak cynicism of cyberpunk was the genre which proved most accurate in its predictions.

[Love_the_Lash]

For anyone wanting to watch Armitage, track down the tv episodes rather than the movie as they include some great extra scenes including one of my favourite sci-if quotes "if humans don't want me then why did they make me?"

[Connectamabob]

There's a sequel movie called "Armitage: Dual Matrix", but it's kind of the very essence of mediocrity, so I don't recommend it. It was made over a decade later (early 00s, IIRC) when more minimalist animation styles were becoming popular and hand-drawn animation was proper giving way to digital drawing, and as a result has a very spartan aesthetic. This combined with a plot where an insufficient amount of stuff happens at a somewhat drawn out pace (and which abandons having actual themes in favor of a shallow generic action story) makes it very bland. It's like the anime movie equivalent of eating a rice cake.

There was a Total Recall TV show in the late 90s that ran for 1 or 2 seasons. Supposedly set in the same world as the Arnie movie, but decades later. Took a lot more cues from Blade Runner and Asimov's "Caves of Steel" than Total Recall though. I remember enjoying it at the time, but haven't seen it since, so who knows if it holds up. Dunno if it's even available to watch in any form now. I know they released the pilot on DVD way back when, but not the rest of the series. Dunno about streaming.

[von Lucky]

And you've just reminded me of 'Serial Experiments Lain' for some reason which I will dig out and watch again.

[OSHIROmodels]

Metal Skin Panic was another one and there were two more I was trying to remember 

cheers

James

[No Such Agency]

Of all the possible futures predicted by sci-fi from the 40's through the 90's, it's heartbreaking that the bleak cynicism of cyberpunk was the genre which proved most accurate in its predictions.

I suppose it beats aliens dropping an asteroid on Rio de Janeiro followed by interstellar war under an ultra-militarist world government, but yeah, I would have to agree.

[FramFramson]

Yeah. There's obviously lots of individually worse stories as well as individually positive cyberpunk stories, but as an entire genre, cyberpunk is frankly very negative, far more so on average than sci-fi genres usually are.

[Connectamabob]

I wouldn't say it's the most accurate. I think post-cyberpunk (like Ghost in the Shell) is better in that regard, but that's kind of cheating as it's been even less time since that genre began.

TBH, I don't think the bleakness of cyberpunk is accurate at all. People see the world as worse than it really is, compared to the past, because all our media loves to play up negatives. Every era has it's own problems-in-progress that are inflated in the mind via immediacy, but in a lot of ways the modern world is overall a flat out better place to be than it was decades ago.

In fact the only thing I can say is really accurate about cyberpunk is the general idea the information technologies would be the most notable area of advancement, rather than, say, transportation technologies. That, and the general assumption that future culture would change in ways that contemporary readers would find distressingly alienating, rather than familiar-feeling derivations of their own culture (note that this not the same as saying culture would degrade, merely that future shock would loom over any intellectually honest attempt at looking forward). But as far as the future being dark and dystopian... no.

But then anticipating social/cultural changes is one of the things science fiction has always had the most difficulty with, IMO (apart from really blanket stuff, like "there will be less mainstream racism").

[Malebolgia]

I think Cyberpunk is about individualism, opportunism, capitalism, extreme reliance on technology (almost enslaving us), the power of choice (with the false idea that you can influence big corps), a sad acceptance of nature being screwed. So from my -current- point of view that is dark and dystopian.

[Admiral Benbow]

Absolutely fantastic work here, Jim. I went through all the pages and you did it better and better. Really hope you'll find the time to finish this great gaming table.