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=== Setting === {{multiple image | direction = vertical | width = 175 | footer = [[Shibuya]], [[Tokyo]], Japan<ref>{{cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/17/travel/17tokyo.html|title=Hidden Tokyo|first=Julia|last=Chaplin|date=17 June 2007|newspaper=The New York Times}}</ref> (the latter three images depict the [[Shibuya Crossing]]). | image1 = Shibuya Nights, Japan -- 2017-05 (unsplash.com).jpg | image2 = Shibuya crossing night.jpg | image3 = Shibuya Crossing at night (14738088849).jpg | image4 = Shibuya Crossing, May 2017 1.jpg }} {{multiple image | direction = vertical | width = 175 | footer = Life in [[Kowloon Walled City]] has often inspired the dystopian identity in modern media works. | image1 = KWC - Alley.jpg | image2 = KWC - Night.jpg | image3 = Kowloon Walled City - 1989 Aerial.jpg }} Cyberpunk writers tend to use elements from [[crime fiction]]—particularly [[hardboiled]] [[detective fiction]] and [[film noir]]—and [[Postmodernism|postmodernist]] prose to describe an often [[Nihilism|nihilistic]] underground side of an electronic society. The genre's vision of a [[Dystopia|troubled future]] is often called the antithesis of the generally [[utopia]]n visions of the future popular in the 1940s and 1950s. Gibson defined cyberpunk's antipathy towards utopian science fiction in his 1981 short story "[[The Gernsback Continuum]]", which pokes fun at and, to a certain extent, condemns utopian science fiction.<ref>{{cite book |last1=James |first1=Edward |author-link=Edward James (historian) |last2=Mendlesohn |first2=Farah |author-link2=Farah Mendlesohn |title=The Cambridge Companion to Science Fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=55wUHXiay-gC&pg=PA221 |publisher=[[Cambridge University Press]] |year=2003 |page=221 |isbn=978-0-521-01657-5}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Campbell |first=Neil |title=The Cultures of the New American West |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=bG3H3kxLhU4C&pg=PA159 |publisher=[[Routledge]] |year=2000 |page=159 |isbn=978-1-57958-288-3}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |last=Seed |first=David |title=Publishing |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=HO_z5WFKwpoC&pg=PA220|publisher=[[Wiley-Blackwell|Blackwell]]|year=2005 |page=220 |isbn=978-1-4051-1218-5}}</ref> In some cyberpunk writing, much of the action takes place [[online]], in [[cyberspace]], blurring the line between actual and [[virtual reality]].<ref>{{cite web|url=http://cyberpunk.asia/index.php?lng=us|title=Cyberpunk 2021|access-date=2011-04-20|archive-date=2009-12-12|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091212155752/http://cyberpunk.asia/index.php?lng=us|url-status=dead}}</ref> A typical [[Trope (literature)|trope]] in such work is a direct [[Brain–computer interface|connection]] between the human brain and computer systems. Cyberpunk settings are dystopias with corruption, computers, and computer networks. The economic and technological state of [[Japan]] is a regular theme in the cyberpunk literature of the 1980s. Of Japan's influence on the genre, William Gibson said, "Modern Japan simply was cyberpunk."<ref name="cyberpunk1">{{cite magazine|url=http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1956774,00.html|title=The Future Perfect|magazine=Time|first=William|last=Gibson|date=30 April 2001}}</ref> Cyberpunk is often set in urbanized, artificial landscapes, and "city lights, receding" was used by Gibson as one of the genre's first [[metaphor]]s for cyberspace and virtual reality.<ref>{{cite book | title=Neuromancer | url=https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs | url-access=registration | first=William| last=Gibson |date=August 1984 | publisher=Ace Books |page =[https://archive.org/details/neuromancer00gibs/page/69 69]| isbn=978-0-441-56956-4}}</ref> The cityscapes of [[Hong Kong]]<ref name="ags">{{cite book | title=Liquid Metal: The Science Fiction Film Reader | publisher=Wallflower Press | author=Redmond, Sean | year=2004 | pages=101–112}}</ref> has had major influences in the urban backgrounds, ambiance and settings in many cyberpunk works such as ''[[Blade Runner]]'' and ''[[Shadowrun]]''. [[Ridley Scott]] envisioned the landscape of cyberpunk [[Los Angeles]] in ''Blade Runner'' to be "Hong Kong on a very bad day".<ref>{{cite book |last= Wheale |first= Nigel |year= 1995 |title= The Postmodern Arts: An Introductory Reader |publisher=Routledge |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=8dGfKmubQIgC&pg=PA107 |page= 107 |isbn= 978-0-415-07776-7 |access-date=July 27, 2011}}</ref> The streetscapes of the ''[[Ghost in the Shell (1995 film)|Ghost in the Shell]]'' film were based on Hong Kong. Its director [[Mamoru Oshii]] felt that Hong Kong's strange and chaotic streets where "old and new exist in confusing relationships" fit the theme of the film well.<ref name="ags" /> Hong Kong's [[Kowloon Walled City]] is particularly notable for its disorganized hyper-urbanization and breakdown in traditional urban planning to be an inspiration to cyberpunk landscapes. During the [[British Hong Kong|British rule of Hong Kong]], it was an area neglected by both the British and Qing administrations, embodying elements of liberalism in a dystopian context. Portrayals of East Asia and Asians in Western cyberpunk have been criticized as [[Orientalism|Orientalist]] and promoting racist tropes playing on American and European fears of East Asian dominance;<ref>{{cite web|first1=Kazuma|last1=Hashimoto|access-date=2021-09-24|title=The cyberpunk genre has been Orientalist for decades — but it doesn't have to be|website=[[Polygon (website)|Polygon]]|url=https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/30/22255318/cyberpunk-2077-genre-xenophobia-orientalism|date=30 January 2021}}</ref><ref>{{cite news|first1=George|last1=Yang|access-date=2021-09-24|title=Orientalism, 'Cyberpunk 2077,' and Yellow Peril in Science Fiction|url=https://www.wired.com/story/orientalism-cyberpunk-2077-yellow-peril-science-fiction/|newspaper=Wired|issn=1059-1028|via=www.wired.com}}</ref> this has been referred to as "techno-Orientalism".<ref>{{cite web|first1=Saba|last1=Gharagozli|access-date=2021-09-24|title=Detriments of Techno-Orientalism |work=[[Imprint (newspaper)|Imprint]] |date=19 May 2021 |location=[[University of Waterloo]] |url=http://uwimprint.ca/article/detriments-of-techno-orientalism/}}</ref>
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