ABSTRACT
The association between Japan and technology is an important one and helped establish Japan as cyberpunk’s locus for the exotic and the technological cutting edge. One of the key components of this relationship between Japan and cyberpunk is the notion of techno-orientalism. Western cyberpunk’s appropriation of Japanese culture dominated the mode and reiterated techno-orientalist approaches that were instrumental for cyberpunk’s development, particularly throughout the 1980s. Although Japan no longer looms so large as a cultural and economic villain in the popular imagination due to its post-bubble recession, some of the themes established early in cyberpunk’s history still recur and techno-orientalism remains a core (and highly problematic) motif of cyberpunk.
