Yes, I begin my Real Drive career with a graceless Contact reference. Push past the predictability: it’s perfect for the scene pictured above, and the show in general (based on the first episode).
My friend OGT, whom you probably know, lured me into this here anime-blogging bit (simply by making entertaining posts), and I bring him up at this point because his post about Real Drive is what got me to check out the first episode. I’m glad I did, and I was just a little surprised — he’s not generally a fan of cyberpunk. OGT, correct me if I’m wrong, definitely.
And yes, I would absolutely classify this (again, based on the first episode) as cyberpunk. They’re going around digitizing people’s brains; apparently it’s become so important that they did it to a comatose man without his consent, though perhaps he still had some family around then. Or, more probably, his friend told them to do it.
Warning: I’m still at the point where I can’t remember the characters’ names. So, vague descriptions may crop up. Now you know.
What I’m liking about this iteration of my favorite Gibson (and/or Sterling) -spawned genre is that it seems to be dealing with the effects of cyberization and (possibly) post-Singularity life on the environment.
Just in case you don’t know, let me go into the Singularity and all that stuff. I find it fascinating. Moore’s Law states that technology improves at an exponential rate.
I have no idea what this graph is for, but it’s a positive exponential curve. Moore claims that the speed and efficiency of technology improves, and will continue to improve, along that kind of line. The Singularity is one of the names for the eventual vertical curve of the graph. Eventually every basic exponential line will curve into a straight line, essentially going higher and higher without any time (in our case) passing. Infinite technological growth with no time involved. The practical explanation is that our technology will improve, and we will use that technology to take the next step up the graph. We never start from the ground floor.
This has some obvious and not-so-obvious repercussions. A lot of people believe that one of the keys to the Singularity will be intelligent AI. They will effectively start to design better technology, as they’ll be more capable of design than humans are.
Note — whether you believe this will happen or not isn’t important; it’s a popular idea in sci-fi.
Anyway. Nanotechnology and the like are all considered “post-singularity” tech. That is, designers will actually have to be better than they are now, through technological means, to design functioning nanotechnology. At least, they will need to be if they are to design the stuff we pine for, like houses that build themselves.
Another facet of folks who are into the Singularity is “post-humanism.” They claim that the next evolutionary step for humanity will be technologically driven. We will improve ourselves. That’s an even more common cyberpunk element, with digital brains, cybernetic body parts, et cetera. And post-humanists advocate improvement without disaster. We’re running into problems where people with prosthetics are beginning to be called “more than human.” With post-singularity technology, we could all improve ourselves in safety, as there would be no risk in the procedures, as medical technology will benefit from the upward end of the exponential curve just like everything else.
And so some people think the singularity also holds the answers to environmental issues, especially pollution and climate. Filling our oceans and atmosphere with nanobots that eat pollution and crap water would fix everything, they claim. And, well, yes — it would fix things. The problem isn’t necessarily the technology, but the timeframe. As Karl Schroeder explains far better than I can, the Singularity must have a certain amount of time, or a run-up if you will, and Earth will crap out before then.
Hopefully the connections to Real Drive are reasonably clear, and you’re not just angry at me for dragging you around for no reason. That’s assuming you’re still reading.
Real Drive appears to be in the setting of a typical post-singularity world, possibly with some mystical earth-force involved. Our characters may simply be personifying nature, which is common enough. Either way, we’re dealing with the problems of technology exacerbated by the Singularity. The technology seems to be screwing with nature more, not less. The show also points out an interesting point about tech. reliance: when your infrastructure can be screwed with by bad weather or something, you should build some fucking redundancies.
I think what generally winds up happening with me vis a vis cyberpunk is that I feel the major novels in the genre (Neal Stephenson, William Gibson) are too bleak and depressing. I’ve still only actually read Snow Crash, which I did read through amazingly fast, but I didn’t feel it had much value beyond how cool things in the book were–but this was years ago, and I probably wasn’t paying much attention.
Note that these books may not actually be “bleak” and “depressing”; Neuromancer is probably cheap enough by now (unless they dropped production of a cheap edition in favor of a SPECIAL Xth ANNIVERSARY EDTION that costs three times as much as the book cost when it first came out) that I can pick up a copy for relatively little and give it a shot.
Also, for the record, cute girls make anything go down better–but I watched Real Drive for what it was going to be about, not really expecting a love affair with Nyamo.
That makes a lot more sense — it probably helps that you’re not falling-down tired. : ) I saw more hope in Snow Crash than the typical dystopia, but that’s comparing a scraped knee to the Holocaust, so yeah. And if you’re genuinely interested Neuromancer can be had cheap. I would recommend you hit up half-price books first, though.
Although, maybe you should go with something Gibson did in the 90s instead — they’re not as harsh and dystopian. You might like Idoru. Despite the strange romanization — it’s supposed to be Idol in Japanese, it has fun takes on Japanese idol culture as well as cyberpunk tech. And I remember it being cheerier than the 80s books, of which Neuromancer is one. I wouldn’t mind lending you one of Gibson’s books, by the way. So long as you don’t drop it down a well or rip it up or anything — I assume you can be trusted with books, as that’s sort-of what you do a lot of the time. I have everything but the very newest books, Pattern Recognition and Spook Country.
And I’m still not far enough in the series to have a real opinion on Nyamo. I like her well enough, which bodes well, obviously. I like the contrast between her and the old diver.
Idoru might work better; honestly, I have this inherent wariness towards things that are generally well-known, popular, or generally well-respected. I can’t really justify this in any way, shape, or form, except that whenever I do end up experiencing one of them, I’m underwhelmed and wondering what I’m missing out on.
This has happened to everything, not just books–I watched Dr. Strangelove and got mild amusement out of it (as well as the obvious WAR IS BAD message), my forays with other Kubrick films have been similarly disappointing. It’s happened in anime, too–right now, I’m incredibly mistrustful of things that have been long-standing in Western anime fandom (all those series that were popular in the 90s, for instance, I look at them and they look completely uninteresting. I have gone back and watched Nadia and enjoyed it immensely, but it’s still not “SUPER AWESOME LEGENDARY” status), and I also think that Mamoru Hosoda is better than Miyazaki after seeing one film from the former and four from the latter (apples and oranges etc.). It also happened when I watched Tengen Toppa Gurren-Lagann, because I watched the first episode and suffered from overhype.
Maybe I’m just excessively iconoclastic and find more to enjoy in things that are less well-known, maybe I am (as I have been accused of) simply telling myself I won’t like something simply because I have the preconception that I won’t, which has been busted time and again (Mushishi, Monster, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, and Bokurano). Whatever the reason, I’m unsure whether it’s a failing on my part, or whether I really, truly, just don’t “get it”.
My guess is it probably stems from the fact that when I get into something, I get into something and start digging up things that hardly anyone else likes, or, if they’ve seen it, appreciates it on the same level I do, if at all. I cite Hitohira as an example, but right after that is true tears. Self-generated isolation?
I’ve certainly known people who dislike things because they’re popular — if that’s what’s happening with you, it’s fairly mild. I understand totally what you mean about hype, though. I really like Dr. Strangelove, but I honestly don’t know much about Kubrick in general. Strangelove got better for me as I re-watched it, but that might not be your experience. The thing I’ve pretty much avoided because of the hype is Full Metal Alchemist — but that’s partly the way it’s hyped. Some of the fans are kind-of crazy.
But, in terms of anime, your interests don’t really line up with what ends up mainstreaming in America, right? So I would say you shouldn’t worry so much.
Idoru might just entertain you, though. It’s technically the second book of what’s called the “bridge trilogy,” but I read it first. In fact, aren’t you watching (or re-watching) Macross Plus right now? I thought of that anime a lot as I read the book.
I should note that I don’t “hate” these things because they’re popular; I merely refuse to see/read them on the basis that I think they don’t really appeal to me. If some random guy in the library asked me for some cyberpunk novels, I’d send him packing with Gibson and Stephenson for sure, and probably Counting Heads, which I think is cyberpunk and got lots of praise, although I haven’t read it so I’m not 100% certain, and probably other things as I saw them.
I should probably re-watch Strangelove, but it’s one of those movies that I completely understand the message of, I just didn’t find it very entertaining, although it is fun to reference. I feel the same way about the one episode of Kaiba I’ve seen, which everyone else loves but I still can’t bring myself to watch more episodes of.
In anime, my tastes don’t align with anyone else’s, ever. I don’t know exactly why this is, but that’s how it works.
And, yes, I’m watching (for the first time) Macross Plus, but I’m having a reaction somewhat similar to what most other Macross fans feel when watching Macross 7, i.e. “Get this out of my Macross franchise!” I don’t have a negative opinion of it–it’s quite good, but it’s not really getting me all Macrossed up like I was expecting it to…but, then again, it’s a four episode OVA, so expecting an epic space opera was a bit out of order. I like it, but not as a Macross series, is the best way to put it, I think.
I need to watch Macross 7 sometime. I like Plus — it seems very much an exploration of the dynamic that’s usually the cornerstone of Macross: pilots and entertainers. But the relationship is very different, yeah. I need to watch it again, though, as I can’t remember a whole lot about it.
I think my favorite parts of Strangelove are the performances of Colonel Ripper and Strangelove himself. Also the president. They’re all so very peculiar that it’s fun to watch them. The message has always been secondary for me. But then, I was introduced to it in theater camp, when it was a place to cull interesting speech performances from.
Yes. I love Peter Sellers. Although I’d rather watch The Pink Panther Returns again than Dr. Strangelove again.
Not now, Kato!
Ah, there we are. I’m actually on my netflix page right now, and there’s a movie I need to add to it.
To get an alternate perspective to the Singularity check out this link: Genes, Memes and Temes
[...] I’m more inclined to agree (more) with cuchlann’s initial discussion of the series as a post-singularity tale (which I would also use to classify such works as Yokohama Kaidashi Kikou and Aria). Especially [...]