Abstract
The paper explores why US authors of the cyberpunk genre imagined a future rich in Japanoid imagery in their fiction. By tracing the zeitgeist of the 1980s, which was characterized by the prevalence of affordable Japanese technology in everyday US life – often associated with fears of an economic threat from Japan – it is possible to explain why cyberpunk fictions explicitly depict Japanese technology. Furthermore, mechanisms of techno-orientalism that link high-tech to images of premodern Japan and thus diminish this specific cultural environment as subordinate to modern Western societies are evident within cyberpunk fiction. Analyzing Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner (1982) as a founding text of cyberpunk and the recent computer game Cyberpunk 2077 (2020) as well as the subsequent anime series Cyberpunk Edgerunners (2022) as examples of contemporary fiction, I argue that Japanoid images continue to be employed in a condescending manner within the cyberpunk genre, affirming an inherently Western perspective.
Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
