A squelching noise. A disturbing scar. A boil pulsating on the skin. It’s not something your average person would be fond of seeing. But if you apply it to a world-build and weird technology a whole sub-genre springs up. This my friends is Biopunk and it lends well to the animation medium.

What is Biopunk?

Biopunk is a subset aesthetic that stems from Biological Horror stories but with a very specific difference. In “body horror” stories such as David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” the change and horrific effects and changes in human flesh are an anomaly typically forced onto the person experiencing it. The transitional terror of your body undergoing an unstoppable and horrific change tied to a universal fear in all of us. The fear of change. And in some cases, it represents a re-birth and new beginnings.

Biopunk however embraces the dark idea of changing your very biology as an accessory, a product, a direct and deliberate change in our way of life. Just as steampunk explores the idea of fossil fuels being replaced with steam and clockwork technology, Biopunk puts humans on the path of using our flesh as tools. It’s close to Cyberpunk in that we modify our bodies but using genetic engineering rather than cybernetics or metal parts. This of course lends to the same themes found in Cyberpunk properties, exploring the blurred lines of what it means to be human in the face of scientific advancement and the cost of wrenching the very fabric of human DNA into twisted deformations. Typically to the point of losing oneself.

AKIRA (1988): The Defining Biopunk Anime

So anime obviously lends well to this genre and I think the most famous example is the classic anime movie AKIRA from 1988. The idea for this article came about on my latest re-watching of this classic film when the Pioneer 4K re-release hit theaters this September. Tetsuo is subjected to a psychic bio experiment that he has little concept of understanding let alone controlling. The movie goes so far as to equate his newly found power as though an amoeba had the power of a human being. A power far beyond the empowered beings’ understanding is a most dangerous thing as the movie displays.

In a fit of rage and confusion Tetsuo ends up killing thousands of people including his own girlfriend in a rather gruesome moment. All of which lends to some of the most impressive technical pencil and paper cell animation ever committed to film. The crawling biological mass erupting from Tetsuo’s body is, though disgusting on purpose, resides in a category of beauty when you think of the labor and ability it took to render such fluid motions. For more discussion on Akira feel free to listen to Episode 326 of the Animation Destination Podcast.

Suffice it to say Akira is by far the high standard of Biopunk horror depictions in anime. Some other well known or cult names in the genre include:

• Guyver: Bio-Booster Armor (1989)
  This is possibly the second most popular entry in anime that fits the Biopunk label. Before the weird low budget American live-action movie of the same name and premise, the anime version brought a creepy, well animated tone for this action packed fight anime where a teen uses biological armor to gore out alien threats.
• Bubblegum Crisis (1987)
  In a CYBERPUNK world a renegade girl group called The Knight Sabers battle the conspiracies and the use of Bio-Mechanical weapons known as Boomers. Though this anime is more attributed to Cyberpunk the Biopunk visuals of the Boomers make this a real good entry. We also run an episode for BGC on Anime Movie Night on the AD Podcast. Go check it out: Episode 428. Anime Movie Night: Bubblegum Crisis
• Roujin Z (1991)
  More of a satire of the genre and coming off the heels of AKIRA’s super dark and super serious look, in this anime we get a grandpa trying to extend his life through the use of bio mechanical melding with his experimental hospital bed. He soon becomes a mass of running machinery as his family tries to intervene and stop his rampage while he happily just tries to extend a little extra time for his life.
• Parasyte (2015)
  A popular entry from more recent years would be Hitoshi Iwaaki’s Parasyte. The morbid subject matter of a person being taken over by an alien being becomes a true battle of survival for a young teen in Japan as he has to team up with the alien inhabiting his body to fight off other parasidic aliens who have invaded the planet. Survival of the fittest and symbiotic relationships are the themes to follow in this newer classic.

Scorn: The Biopunk Video Game

Taking many pages from HR Giger’s designs for Alien (1979) the developers at Ebb Software brought to life a surreal first person shooter in 2022 that put you in the place of an unnamed protagonist that has to make his way through an alien world. Along the way you unravel the mysteries of old and ancient monolithic structures, giant alien creatures and haunting engineering that depicts you and fellow humanoids as lab rats for some higher beings.

The use of gigantic structures in the distance and disgusting biological weapons that use your body as a trigger mechanism. The game is grungy, pale and grossly unpleasant, so it’s remarkable that I find it so enthralling to play. And I think that gets into the more thematic tones that come from these visuals of body horror and tones of oblique omnipresent Godhood that overlaps these projects. Scorn is of course more of a use of video game culutre but he animations utilized in the game are none-the-less spectacular, especially the minute details that go into the reloading animations with your weird bio-guns. So it was worth a mention.

THE SEED OF JUNA Animated Pilot

Scorn holds a fun spot in my experience with Biopunk because of it’s interactive nature, but also the deep overtones of being lost in something alien, menacing and ultimately dauntingly huge. A lab rat trapped in a cage with beakers and unknown surroundings. Not knowing if it’s a place of danger or an true look at the truth of everything. That is the feel I get from the indie animation THE SEED OF JUNA by Mayhem Mirror Studios.

The short borderlines on a religious experience for the protagonist. Probably not a good one. But the overpowering tension of things larger and seemingly more omnipotent that yourself staring down at you from the heavens leaves a pit in my stomach. Maybe that’s just me. Still THE SEED OF JUNA really tackles the heavy themes of biopunk, the horror in your own body being different or alien, the overwhelming vibe of an unknown force controlling you or causing these near hallucinogenic experiences.

It mimics the idea of a sentient being having a rebirth. A small infant does not remember the moments of it’s birth and thus the likely scarring experience does not come to the forefront. But it’s possible that experience lingers in our subconscious, waiting to be pricked upon by horror writers and animators. There is always this lingering idea is projects like SEED and Scorn that there was something BEFORE the protagonist awoke. They have sapience, they know the things they see are unfamiliar. And yet they are pulled further in a direction of change, and the unknown. They are set to confront a base fear in all of our instincts. Which makes the genre all the more powerful when done well.