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A review by frasersimons
Otaku by Chris Kluwe
4.0
While not diverging too much from a frenetically paced cyberpunk action thriller, focusing on a black woman character, specifically in gaming is particularly bold, interesting, and new.
Essentially a group of women who are at the top of the main gaming platform, which uses 1-to-1 tech from player to character (meaning whatever they can physically do is translated to the game, so they have to be actually athletic and build real twitch reflexes, etc.), uncover a plan where a tech giant develop a headset that’ll takeover the gamer’s mind completely and weaponize them in the real while they think they’re just playing the game. They gotta save the world IRL by using the skills the developed in the game.
What really stood out was raising awareness in a no nonsense way regarding the bullying of women in gaming today, and how society as a whole perpetuates this particular kind of abuse. I think using cyberpunk for this is absolutely genius.
It mostly pulls off a fun plot; sometimes it’s a bit of an eye roll but the character work and personal relationships/history is better than expected all ‘round and the action sequences are pretty fun, I have to say. There’s a lot of jargon that might alienate people. Stuff from cyberpunk vernacular as well as various online gaming stuff and technology. As you might have guessed from the game there’s some problematic areas in the setting concerning orientalism. Kind of weird that Otaku, which I’ve only heard of in terms of like someone who watches a lot of anime, is applied to gamers? And there’s a bunch of other sort of typical CP setting stuff that can’t let go of Asian cultural elements that seem to be mostly aesthetic.
Exceeded expectations so 4 stars~
Essentially a group of women who are at the top of the main gaming platform, which uses 1-to-1 tech from player to character (meaning whatever they can physically do is translated to the game, so they have to be actually athletic and build real twitch reflexes, etc.), uncover a plan where a tech giant develop a headset that’ll takeover the gamer’s mind completely and weaponize them in the real while they think they’re just playing the game. They gotta save the world IRL by using the skills the developed in the game.
What really stood out was raising awareness in a no nonsense way regarding the bullying of women in gaming today, and how society as a whole perpetuates this particular kind of abuse. I think using cyberpunk for this is absolutely genius.
It mostly pulls off a fun plot; sometimes it’s a bit of an eye roll but the character work and personal relationships/history is better than expected all ‘round and the action sequences are pretty fun, I have to say. There’s a lot of jargon that might alienate people. Stuff from cyberpunk vernacular as well as various online gaming stuff and technology. As you might have guessed from the game there’s some problematic areas in the setting concerning orientalism. Kind of weird that Otaku, which I’ve only heard of in terms of like someone who watches a lot of anime, is applied to gamers? And there’s a bunch of other sort of typical CP setting stuff that can’t let go of Asian cultural elements that seem to be mostly aesthetic.
Exceeded expectations so 4 stars~