May 14, 2025 • 94 mins
Welcome to Mona Lisa Overpod, the show that asks the question "What is cyberpunk?" On each episode, hosts Ka1iban and author Lyda Morehouse dive into the genre that helped define sci-fi fiction in the '80s and break down the themes which remain relevant to our lives in the 21st century. Pull on your mirrorshades, jack into the matrix, and start your run with us today!
Japanese manga, American comics, anime and western cartoons all owe an unpayable debt to Osamu Tezuka and his greatest creation Astro Boy. Astro (or Atom's) adventures were brisk and often silly, but they would subtly comment on more adult topics like discrimination, war, and moral ambiguity. Naoki Urasawa is mangaka who was heavily inspired by Tezuka's work, and in 2003 he released Pluto, an eight-volume mini-series that that took a deeper, darker look at the world of Astro Boy. When both humans and robots are being murdered by a shadowy killer, robot cop Gesicht will need to assemble the pieces of the mystery, as the potential victims try to reassemble their war-torn and shattered lives.
In this episode, we discuss how both Tezuka's and Urasawa's styles reflect their respective eras, compare modern western comics and gekiga, lying as a signifier of sentience, the manga's restaging of the 2003 Iraq war and its depiction of PTSD and survivor's guilt. the families built by both humans and robots in the story, the subtle apartheid present in Astro's world, robots as people as commodities, Asimov's laws as guidleines and not rules, and becoming just "human" enough to kill. We also talk about fresh Shrimp Jesus, larcenous typography, Will Prompt Engineer For Food, being lodged in the canon, hitting on the robot nose, no Aibo left behind, The Killing of a Rest Stop Robot, dating your Roomba, machine gun butts, and the REAL reason Pluto has horns!
Hurt robots hurt robots.
The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/
Read the saga of the "Download a Car" font!
https://www.404media.co/tag/xband/
Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope
Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com
MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq
Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
Japanese manga, American comics, anime and western cartoons all owe an unpayable debt to Osamu Tezuka and his greatest creation Astro Boy. Astro (or Atom's) adventures were brisk and often silly, but they would subtly comment on more adult topics like discrimination, war, and moral ambiguity. Naoki Urasawa is mangaka who was heavily inspired by Tezuka's work, and in 2003 he released Pluto, an eight-volume mini-series that that took a deeper, darker look at the world of Astro Boy. When both humans and robots are being murdered by a shadowy killer, robot cop Gesicht will need to assemble the pieces of the mystery, as the potential victims try to reassemble their war-torn and shattered lives.
In this episode, we discuss how both Tezuka's and Urasawa's styles reflect their respective eras, compare modern western comics and gekiga, lying as a signifier of sentience, the manga's restaging of the 2003 Iraq war and its depiction of PTSD and survivor's guilt. the families built by both humans and robots in the story, the subtle apartheid present in Astro's world, robots as people as commodities, Asimov's laws as guidleines and not rules, and becoming just "human" enough to kill. We also talk about fresh Shrimp Jesus, larcenous typography, Will Prompt Engineer For Food, being lodged in the canon, hitting on the robot nose, no Aibo left behind, The Killing of a Rest Stop Robot, dating your Roomba, machine gun butts, and the REAL reason Pluto has horns!
Hurt robots hurt robots.
The new edition of Lyda's book, Ressurection Code, is out now!
https://wizardstowerpress.com/books-2/books-by-lyda-morehouse/resurrection-code/
Read the saga of the "Download a Car" font!
https://www.404media.co/tag/xband/
Join Kaliban on Twitch weekdays at 12pm for the Cyber Lunch Hour!
http://twitch.tv/justenoughtrope
Put Just Enough Trope merch on your body!
http://justenoughtrope.threadless.com
MLOP is a part of the Just Enough Trope podcast network. Check out our other shows about your favorite pop culture topics and join our Discord!
http://www.twitter.com/monalisaoverpod
http://www.justenoughtrope.com
http://www.instagram.com/monalisaoverpod
https://discord.gg/7E6wUayq
Buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi!
https://ko-fi.com/justenoughtrope
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