Steam Punk

It wasn't until my wife introduced me to Epbot that I really knew what Steam Punk was. Jen, who writes that blog, usually has something Steam Punk related, especially since she went to Dragon Con, the East Coast equivalent to our West Coast Comic Con. There are a few things that I have noticed to verify Steam Punkness.

1. Goggles
2. Leather
3. Metal Gears
4. Boots
5. HUGE Weapon!

As the gears were turning in my head, I noticed in a lot of Steam Punk writers never mention anime as a popular visual medium for Steam Punk. Most Americans can recognize Steam Punk with movies like (the wickady wickady ) Wild Wild West, League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, or the Robert Downey Jr. Sherlock Homes. As for anime...

Last Exile is a pretty cool story pack with Steam Punk-itude. It follows a pilot-navigator combo through an adventure that ends a war, begins a revolution, and changes the tactics of warfare for their world. It has super cool aircraft called vanships. There are general aviation and military vanships. They start as couriers and turn into fighters as the story progesses.
     The history is based in the 1920s-1930s revolution in military flight tactics. These tactics are based on Billy Mitchell's theory of air supremacy, aerial bombing, and air support. Too bad it took Hitler in Spain and the Pearl Harbor attack before anyone in the USA listened to him.

Steamboy! Common, steam is even in it's title! If you look at some of the screenshots and pictures from the actual film, you'll see it's jam packed with more Steam Punk-ocity! I especially love all of the mecha. It's set in the 1890s-ish turn of the century timeframe. All of the mecha is usually steam powered. It ranges from a motorcycle based on one huge ring (someone made a real version), a steam jet platform thingie that flys the main character around, a huge steam powered truck, flying machines, exo-armor, mechanical body parts, and a World Fair house out of Henry Adam's The Virgin and the Dynamo dreams. All in all, the visuals and conceptual ideas are fantastic.




And of course... Hayao Miyazaki, The Walt Disney of Japan.

There are Steam Punk elements throughout these works. Most often it has to do with large cannons and other very WWI type weapons. In his works, there is often a blending of the mechanical and the magical. Hell, in Porko Rosso, he has a pig flying as a fighter pilot. He uses the idea of 'Lost Technology' that sprinkles cross genere from Trinity Blood to Stargate.

But then I also have to give big props to the real Walt Disney... Or really the guys that green lighted this...

I have to say this is my FAVORITE Disney movie, the Mouse consumes enough of my money. I love the Steam Punk-ness of this movie. It has cool submarines and equipment and flying things and adventure and ancient mystic technology and myth and funny and Tommy Lee Jones being evil and AWESOMENESS! It may be domestic, as if we don't make cool stuff too, but it is worth watching. And in my case, over and over and over.

There are many other anime out there that have Steam Punk elements in it i know I've forgotten. 

Leave a comment about a favorite.