Apocalyptic post-human and techno-religious transcendence in Casshern

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe article explores the imagery of the post-human in relation to the interplay between technoscience, religion and gender through revisiting Donna J. Haraway's notion of the cyborg in the Japanese science fiction/fantasy film, Casshern (Kiriya, 2004). The human—machine hybrid in Casshern is attached to the notion of post-human, which describes the situation where the limitations of human embodiment are transcended. The transcendence of human physical limitations is embedded within patriarchal religious values and traditions. Casshern reflects the difficulties and dilemmas of abandoning patriarchal ideology in the imagining of post-human within the Japanese post-war social context. The techno-apocalyptic narrative plays out gender politics not only in the ambiguous form of a male fantasy of transcendence through the technological transformation of the body, which is at the same time an expression of anxiety about a (masculinist) humanity that may be taken over or destroyed by the cyborg.