FLESH AND METAL
Children piloting giant mechanical war machines. Repressed adults turning into writhing mounds of scrap metal. Worlds where humans can electronically plug themselves into each other… A casual observer might pick up on some kind of peculiar interest in technological body horror within Japanese film and television. If that’s the case, one might wonder from where this cinematic obsession with the combining of flesh and metal derives.
The answer lies in the roots of Japanese cyberpunk and in a wave of films that sprung up in the ’80s and ’90s. Anxieties about the influence of technology have been represented in Japanese film and television prior to and beyond the advent of Japanese cyberpunk. Anime films such as Satoshi Kon’s 1997 Perfect Blue and 2006’s Paprika, as well as shows like Serial Experiments Lain from 1998, are known for their contemplations on the invasive potential of the web, chronicling the ease of access to the lives of others – with or without consent.
Stories about human bodies being or 2021’s , both directed by Mamoru Hosoda and each with protagonists who live a second, almost entirely separate lives within a virtual space. Before and after Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 epic , the relationship between man and machine also found populist representation in anime shows about mecha such as , , , , and their own predecessors such as and .
