Fuse "Blade Runner" with a Playboy cartoon and the result points in the direction of Masamune Shirow's animation. Imagine a dystopian sci-fi world, in which a strong female character both kicks ass and busts juicily out of her hi-tech body suit. Muscled sexuality flies everywhere as she defeats all t

Catastrophe, Dystopic, Sexy, Spiritual, Technology, Urban, Voluminous

Hayao Miyazaki (宮崎 駿, Miyazaki Hayao) is a prominent director of many popular animated feature films. He is also the co-founder of Studio Ghibli, an animation studio and production company. He remained largely unknown to the West, outside of animation communities, until Miramax released his

Anime & manga, Dark, Dystopic, Layered, Mythic, Pioneering

Bei Dao is a dangerous man. After long days working his state-assigned construction job outside Beijing, he would spend his nights writing poetry. While other citizens slept, he and his friends would secretly meet to discuss poetry and then sneak out to paste up their poems throughout the city. Bei h

Angry, Dystopic, Lyrical, Misty poets, Spare, Spiritual

In 1961, seven years after J.D. Salinger began his lifelong, self-imposed exile from public life, John Updike described the author as "a uniquely relevant literary artist." Whether Salinger thought Updike's statement was a compliment or a slight is irrelevant. Criticism, publicity, or praise -- Salin

Angry, Dark, Dystopic, Post-war literature, Psychological, Rebel