A man wakes up one morning to find himself slowly transforming into a living hybrid of meat and scrap metal; he dreams of being sodomised by a woman with a snakelike, strap-on phallus. Clandestine experiments of sensory depravation and mental torture unleash psychic powers in test subjects, prompting them to explode into showers of black pus or tear the flesh off each other s bodies in a sexual frenzy. Meanwhile, a hysterical cyborg sex-slave runs amok through busy streets whilst electrically charged demi-gods battle for supremacy on the rooftops above. This is cyberpunk, Japanese style: a brief filmmaking movement that erupted from the Japanese underground to garner international attention in the late 1980s.
(Welcome to
, a regular column dedicated to helping the uninitiated understand and appreciate the world of anime.)
For the past couple of months, this column has explored various mecha anime to showcase the variety within the genre. But when it came time to say goodbye to 2020 and embrace the possibilities of the new year, there was only one show that could take the gargantuan task of encapsulating the bleakness and loneliness, but also the moments of unity, we’ve had this year, all while ending on a rather optimistic note about the future. That’s right! It’s finally time for