Okay, now the essay.  The question I'm curious about is "why is BGC the
only popular cyberpunk anime to write 'fics about?"  There's plenty of
good fan-favorite or evem critic-favorite cyberpunk manga/anime out
there, like GiTS, Appleseed, and Armitage III.  Age doesn't seem to be a
reason at all, as BGC came out quite a while ago, and GiTS is pretty
new.

Um, GiTS isn't all _that_ new.  The film was 1995, I think.


  The most important reason I think, is like in the world of sci-fi

books, "hard" cyberpunk is not popular out of its small core group of
fans (see the works of Bruce Sterling, or Neuroamncer author William
Gibson for examples)

I think that's only part of the reason.  GiTS, for example, is a _single_
complex story, with a definite ending.  This strongly limits the _kinds_ of
fanfics that can be written.

Other series have much more scope.  With (to take the obvious example) Ranma,
you have what is basically a soap-opera setting.  Stories can be fitted in
almost anywhere, new villains introduced, and so forth, all without upsetting
the main Ranma continuity.

The same is true of BGC.  There are less episodes, obviously, but still,
there's no particular end to the story -- there's no real overriding story
at all, but a series of stories instead.  When you take into account the
amount of extra source materiel that's floating around for BGC, it's a
relatively easy milieu to slot 'fics into.

With something GiTS, it's much harder.  There are really only three
kinds of GiTS fanfics that can be written:
  -- Prequels or sequels
  -- Alternate universes
  -- Crossovers
There could be others, but that's all that springs to mind.  The situation is
the same for Appleseed.  (I'm not sure about Armitage; I haven't seen it.)

This doesn't mean that GiTS 'fics can't be written, of course -- your
BGC/GiTS idea sounds pretty interesting -- but there's considerably less
scope.

Another example that's in the same kind of category as GiTS is Evangelion.
At least 90% of all NGE fics are alternate universes or crossovers, usually
with Ranma.  The difference here is that NGE is (a) very recent; (b) confusing
as hell (so people want to add their own explanations); (c) longer and (d)
more popular than GiTS.

All in all, though, it's the series with the most scope that get the most
'fics: Ranma, Oh My Goddess, and Sailor Moon.

Angus




----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Angus MacSpon                                                Allen Gainsford
http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/          http://shell.ihug.co.nz/~macspon/