When Did Japan Stop Being The Future?

U.S. science fiction used to be fascinated with Japan, from Blade Runner to Neuromancer. Everything Japanese was cooler, sleeker and shinier than our grubby American aesthetic, and Japan was destined to dominate. And then, Japan's futuristic status waned. What happened?

There's a pervasive urban legend online that William Gibson went to see Blade Runner when he was working on his seminal Japanophile cyberpunk novel, Neuromancer. And Gibson ran out of the theater a few minutes into the movie (or in some versions, just walked out) because he was so shocked by the similarites between that movie's vision of the future and the one depicted in his novel. (In some versions, Gibson is scared that Ridley Scott and co. are actually in his head.)

Gibson is quoted as saying:

Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk. The Japanese themselves knew it and delighted in it. I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns - all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information - said, ‘You see? You see? It is Blade Runner town.' And it was. It so evidently was.

Back in the early 1980s, Japan's ascendance seemed assured — there were a host of business books claiming that Japan had lost World War II, but won the peace through superior economic policies. Books like The Enigma Of Japanese Power by Karel Van Wolferen became unlikely bestsellers. Meanwhile, Japanese politicians like Ishihara Shintaro started flexing their muscles — Ishihara made waves with a book called No To Ieru Nihon, or The Japan That Can Say No (to the United States.)

But also, Japanese technology was clearly better, and Japanese pop culture looked cool. In the early 1980s, U.S. television started being flooded with anime programs like Robotech and Star Blazers0, and U.S. comics fans started discovering Manga. But the one-two punch of Blade Runner and Neuromancer was what settled it: for the next decade or so, Japan was how we viewed the future.

And given that the 1980s was a very neon-happy time in general, and the U.S. viewed Japanese cities as being splashy and full of neon lights, it made sense that Japanese influences crept into everything. Total Recall, for example, features Arnold Schwarzenegger running around a neon-drenched future cityscape, especially once he goes to Mars. It's not specifically Japanese, but it feels Japan-influenced.

In Back To The Future 2, Future Biff works for a mysterious Japanese businessman known as Mr. Fujitsu, and it's hinted that by 2015, Japan dominates the world's economy. (The film-makers pretty much come out and say this on the DVD commentary.)

In the Max Headroom TV series, the world is dominated by the ZikZak Corporation, which despite its non-Japanese-sounding name, is actually a Japanese company. And the dystopian cityscape (around a minute in) looks very Blade Runner inspired

In the early 1990s, Marvel launched its futuristic "2099" titles, with Rampage 2099 and Spider-Man 2099 among others. And one of the things that was futuristic and different about the world of 2099 was the fact that Tony Stark's company, Stark Industries, had turned Japanese, and was now known as Stark-Fujikawa.

And the U.S. got its own home-grown anime program with 1991's Aeon Flux, airing on MTV. Around that same time, we started to see a lot more Asian influences in animation, including shows like Batman: The Animated Series.

To some extent, any movie with "virtual reality" or "cyberpunk" influences kept bringing back a Japanophile vibe, like 1995's Virtuosity, which had one of its crucial scenes between Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe's virtual killer take place in a sushi bar

And the politically correct, scrubbed San Angeles of 1995's Demolition Man was a blend of L.A. and Tokyo, in both its buildings and its fashions

Famously, the cyberpunk trainwreck Johnny Mnemonic featured a whole slew of scenes and subplots that took place in Japan, revolving around the character of Mr. Takahashi, played by popular actor Takeshi Kitano. These scenes are still only available on the Japanese DVD

Sadly, Japan's economic hegemony ran out of juice in the early 1990s, when their real-estate bubble burst (sound familiar?) and the country spent an entire "lost decade" mired in stagnation. The vision of Japan as future economic uberpower was replaced by a creeping irrelevance — but Japanese pop culture remained as influential as ever, maybe even more than during the powerhouse days.

And because nothing in science fiction ever really goes away, there are still plenty of examples of Japanophile influences in recent SF. Take Steven Spielberg's A.I., whose future city looks a lot like Tokyo.

When we visit a future Batman, who's trained by an aging Bruce Wayne to wear a Bat-exoskeleton, in Batman Beyond, the future Gotham is covered with Japanese kanji

Joss Whedon made waves with his show Firefly and the sequel movie Serenity, which take place in a sort of vaguely pan-Asian future where everybody peppers his/her speech with a kind of pidgin Chinese. (Although there are no actual Asian people around.) And this Fruity Oaty Bars commercial has a pronounced anime vibe

Additional reporting by Alexis Brown.

Original Artical - Mr Son

Impossible triangle in Perth (Australia)

An exciting new landmark has been created for Perth, in a unique collaboration between a leading WA artist Brian McKay and architect Ahmad Abas. Destined to become a bold icon for Perth, the "Impossible Triangle" has been erected in Claisebrook Square, East Perth.

In 1997, a number of local artists were invited to enter submissions for a major commission for the East Perth redevelopment. Each artist was given a comprehensive brief for the project. The submissions were shortlisted to three. One of the outstanding submissions came from Brian McKay and Ahmad Abas. It was accepted with one amendment. In order to create a bold and visible landmark for the wider community, the size of the sculpture was increased from the planned height of 9 metres to 13.5 metres.

The design striations on the polished aluminium reflects both sunlight and artificial lighting and changes dramatically between sunrise and sunset.

Brian McKay

Brian McKay was born in Northam, Western Australia, in 1926. His work spans six decades.

After representing Australia in the Children's Art Exhibition at New York's World Fair in 1939, Brian's work has featured in numerous local, national and international exhibitions.

Among his many accolades, Brian was awarded the prestigious Australia Council Emeritus Fellowship in 1990 and the Order of Australia medal in 1991, for services to contemporary art and education.

Brian has been commissioned for many major works over the years, including internal art works for the Central Park Complex in Perth city and two large works for the Reserve Bank of Perth.



Ahmad Abas

Ahmad Abas is an award winning Perth architect who has had a strong local involvement in the arts, since 1990.

In addition to working on major commercial architectural projects both locally and overseas, Ahmad has worked prolifically in design and construction on numerous plays, sculptures, exhibitions and events, often working in collaboration with other leading local artists.

Clarkson on political correctness

Thanks to the example set by the increasingly powerful Health and Safety Executive, staff at BBC Radio Sheffield have been given booklets on how to boil a kettle: “Under no circumstances empty the contents over your head”

Four separate pieces of legislation – on age, sex, race and disability – mean that if British Nuclear Fuels wants a person to monitor the reactors at Sellafield, it is duty bound to consider someone whose CV reveals them to be a hormonal Afghan school-leaver with a keen interest in Middle East politics, a degree in chemistry and epilepsy

Who are the busybodies who say that we can’t smoke foxes or smack our children? The nitwits who say that we should have a new bank holiday to celebrate traffic wardens and social workers? Where do they meet? Who pays their wages?

When I was at school, teachers spoke with pride about how a little island in the north Atlantic turned a quarter of the world pink, but now all teachers talk about is the slave trade and how we must hang our heads in shame

In the past, crying only happened abroad. No more. We were ordered to weep like Americans when Diana died, and no local news report is complete today without some fat oik sobbing because his house has fallen over

A question. It’s addressed to all the equal opportunity, human rights, diet carbon, back room, bleeding heart liberals who advise the government: “I am English. Why is that a good thing?” I bet they don’t have an answer. And until they can come up with one, chances are we’ll never win at football again

The Met Office, spurred on by the chance for a bit of bossiness, agrees that we should stay at home whenever it’s windy, and possibly move to the cellar with some soup until the all-clear is sounded

Mention the war and you’ll be told by an outreach counsellor that we must empathise with the Germans, who are coming to terms with their mistakes of the past. “And you know, children, it was actually the British who invented concentration camps...”

Jeremy Clarkson

It Begins

To begin, i have never understood the whole prospect of blogging, to me it just seems like a public online diary to me. For anyone that reads this and follows my posts i will assure you that this is not a substitite for emphisising my life and passing my experiences onto other people. 

That being said i will be using this space for a collection of articles, images, information and events that appeal to me as being worthwhile. Anyone is welcome to follow my posts and comment on what is placed here. I hope that some of this gives people a larger insight into the world and expand their knowledge of the things around them even if it resorts to picking appart what i post.

Enjoy.

I-will-son