Totally agree. That’s also why I dislike any cyberpunk story that has a revolution/rebellion in it. Any attempt to actually change/fix the system goes against the cyberpunk themes of how futile that is. Cyberpunk stories are about trying to survive with the hand you’ve been dealt, not enacting societal change.

I guess I’m willing to accept space in cyberpunk as long as it’s dirty and broken down and not military-based. For example, I think the belters in The Expanse series could be the basis for a cyberpunk story. The Expanse isn’t cyberpunk, but I think you could easily tell a cyberpunk story in that world.

Interesting, I would’ve said Aliens was less cyberpunk due to the military being the main characters. The first Alien is the only one that centers around a group of nobodies, which I think makes it more of a candidate to be cyberpunk.

So even though they don’t particularly like or trust the corporation, the fact that they’re employees of a major corporation is enough for you to say no? That’s an interesting distinction. So if they owned their own ship and were hired as mercs by the corporation to pick up some unknown artifact would you consider it cyberpunk?

The income doesn’t prove its worth, but it does give me an idea of how well-known the movie is. So I figure most people probably haven’t heard of this one.

Ha, thanks! You definitely remember more of Lain than I do. 😁

I’m not disagreeing with you, this is simply me probing for more details.

Why do you think social media makes Lain more relevant? I thought Lain focused more on the wonder and magic of what The Internet could mean for humanity, rather than the social problems that can arise from actual internet usage. They definitely touch on someone portraying a different personality online compared to the real world (which is absolutely relevant regarding social media) but I thought that was more a function of Lain’s deteriorating mental state than a cautionary aspect of The Wired. Granted, it’s been a while since I’ve watched Lain, so I could be misremembering.

Totally agree. Texhnolyze isn’t as slow as Lain, but it is extremely depressing. I thought it was going to be about how sweet cybernetic limbs could be but instead it was more about the trauma of having limbs amputated. Definitely a good anime, but it wasn’t what I was expecting (or what I wanted it to be).

Personally, I always watch anime with subtitles. I never do dubs, even when they’re well-made. So I’m not really the right person to ask regarding this particular dub.

Yes, Hulu and Crunchyroll both have sub and dub versions of the anime.