What other cyberpunk media do you recommend to someone looking to dive into the genre?
We’re a cyberpunk themed instance and I have feeling we might see these questions asked all over the fediverse. What are you recs for people who want to explore media in the genre further?
Mine are:
Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick
The Ghost In The Shell by Shirow Masamune
Origin by Boichi
Bladerunner and Bladerunner 2049 are great choices as well
Music by Grimbeard, especially his album ‘Pure Acid Hell’
These are the first few things that come to the top of my head.
You know, the newest Robocop ( 2014 ) felt like it belongs in the cyberpunk genre to me. While I don’t think it did anything new or bold, I think it did a good job of playing up the evil Megacorp angle, questions about technology and human integration, etc.
It’s been a while since I’ve seen the older 80s original. Memory serves that it also is squarely a cyberpunk movie.
And one more movie for the fun of adding on ( though there are many more ), Dredd ( 2012 ) has such a horrific and dire depiction of a Megabuilding, it would be a damn shame to miss out on it.
Though, it is hard to argue that these are ‘punk’ when it follows a literal instrument of the state… but man, the setting so good.
I’d offer the following on addition to what has already been mentioned:
Shadowrun source books
Cyberpunk 2020/Red source books
“Hackers” - don’t laugh; while it’s hyperbolic and silly, it does present a general picture of the cyberpunk ethos. Just be sure to explain that it’s an extremely stylized picture.
Burning Chrome by William Gibson
Channel Zero (graphic novel)
Snowcrash, by Neal Stephenson (for a different vision of cyberspace)
I think the punk aspect comes from the otherside. Dredd is about being the law and maintaining it. Which in its own way is punk because of his judgement call for it. He’s always at stake with the system, which is largely what cyberpunk attempts to talk about.
That said really loving all the recs in the thread so far. I think this is a great reaource for anyone new or deep into the genre.
as i feel cyberpunk primarily as a literary genre, i think anything by william gibson would be a good start. for me, neuromancer and count zero really kickstarted my love for the genre, when i wasn’t that into it before.
also, i would recommend the movie strange days (1995) by kathryn bigelow as well as the song strange days by HEALTH. (i don’t know if they actually have anything to with each other, but i really like both)
concerning the movie, i would especially recommend it if you’re into cp2077/edgerunners, because i feel like it is referenced quite a bit.
Man, I always forget about Strange Days! I dunno why, because it was a great movie! I’m betting that’s where the idea of braindance came from in the first place, because it’s the first time I recall ever seeing the concept.
And speaking of which, on the music front, that does bring Lords of Acid to mind. They had tracks in Strange Days, Virtuosity, and (I think) Johnny Mnemonic. Their music has a pretty raw cyberpunk sound - good mix of synth tech, straight ahead rock, and girl power vibes. That being said, the content of their music is fairly rough - similar to the “sex rhymes” hip-hop genre. So if that’s not your thing, be forewarned. But the music is slammin’ though!
I havr seen people say Tetsuo The Iron Man is cyberpunk but I haven’t seen it myself to know.
For music Chromatics, Niky Nine and Kick Puncher are good exmaples as well. Electric Six has some cyberpunk ish songs or songs that I feel like would be common in the dystopian future like Danger! High Voltage and I’m the bomb
Replying to this thread to not clog up the board with similar posts/topics. But I think the manga Origin and Wallman are fantastic entries into the cyberpunk genre. This and the creator’s anthology series “Hotel” is very enjoyable. I believe I recommended Origin in my OP but posting it here again as I was reminded about it when talking about it with a buddy of mine.
Additionally the anime Ergo Proxy is worth a watch if you enjoy movies like Bladerunner 2049 or A.I. Plus the endding song is Radiohead’s Paranoid Android which gives a similar feeling to Serial Experiments Lain’s Opening; mainly because these are anime with western songs in them that totally fit the theme of the entire show.
The original post was edited to change the category by @SynAck to test out their new moderation powers. The original category for this was “Drop Point” before we really had to the categories fleshed out with descriptions, and I just moved it to “Cyber Culture” which I thought was more appropriate. The content of the post was left unchanged; only the category was massaged a little bit.
If this causes any problems, let me know and I’ll undo the changes I made.
I like my cyberpunk to have an “almost already here” feel to it. Snowcrash and Bladerunner were early influences, but for something that hasn’t already appeared on the list I give you a great example of a dirt cheap, gritty, and techie friendly cyberpunk world in the amazing and only an hour long Max Headroom: 20 Minutes Into The Future. Where else can you find ripper docs, sentient AI, an evil corporation, and deadly commercials? It’s got it all, and also launched Max Headroom into popular culture, leading to his own talk show series, Coke commercials, and before Anonymous borrowed from V for Vendetta there was the famous case of a Max fan hacking a tv station!
I know that this topic has been dormant for a little bit, but I think that there have been some new “standards” (or what will become standards) that have cropped up in the last year that I figured deserved a mention and a thread revive.
Pantheon (anime)
Tokyo Override (anime)
Mars Express (French anime movie)
Cyberpunk: Edgerunners (obviously)
Global Frequency (Warren Ellis, comic)
And I don’t think this has been mentioned before, but Transmetropolitan by Warren Ellis & Darick Robertson (comic/graphic novel) is pretty damn cyberpunk but sorta couched in a journalism veneer. I think the main character, Spider Jerusalem, is most definitely punk, and the fact that the storyline is setup in a techno future dystopia seems to meet the criteria.
Glad you resurrected this! If anyone is looking for Podcasts, Neoscum is a shadowrun podcast that was great. I’ll also toss in 36 streets (or any book by T.R. Napper), they have a pretty classic cyberpunk feel.