The movie I see people point to the most is Wild Wild West
Did that Leviathan anime ever drop? That story had biological super-science but it existed in a steampunk setting
this post was submitted on 15 Feb 2026
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Steampunk
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What is Steampunk?
Steampunk is a science‑fiction and speculative‑history sub-genre imagining an alternate past (usually the 19th century) in which advanced technology is powered by steam, clockwork, and Victorian‑era engineering. Often described as “elegant machinery and anarchic adventure,” Steampunk stories explore societies transformed by retro‑futuristic inventions, with characters, inventors, and rogues navigating worlds where brass, gears, and steam drive both progress and social conflict.
Steampunk characteristics include:
- Alternate historical or Victorian‑inspired settings where steam power and clockwork tech are dominant
- Visible, mechanical technology: brass, gears, pressure gauges, airships, clockwork prosthetics, and elaborate contraptions
- Characters who are inventors, engineers, explorers, artisans, or social outsiders familiar with mechanical craft
- Aesthetic influences from Victorian fashion, gaslight streets, and period design mixed with imaginative machinery
- Themes exploring industrialization, class disparity, the ethics of invention, nostalgia for craftsmanship, and questions about progress versus human cost
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It's so weird for Wild Wild West to be the biggest steampunk movie when it takes place in the Wild West period of American history and the only real steam-powered device is that giant spider (I guess trains are also steam-powered but those are real so they don't count!). Again, Wild Wild West is totally unrelated to the steampunk world the DIY community makes with their cosplay so it's weird for it to be the most popular (most successful?) steampunk movie.
That Leviathan anime did get released on Netflix. But is it primarily steampunk? I would've thought it was a mix of biopunk and dieselpunk. Maybe I just have too narrow of a definition of steampunk and that's my problem.
Same. I think it caught me off guard the first time I heard it because I didn't think steampunk should be American. Or have that vibe. But it was kind of in that setting, the Confederate guy made all kinds of impossible alternate history technology, and he was planning on building a country using them.
I guess I tend to conceptualize x-punk genres as alternate history because of what they're doing with their setting and narratives. Like, it's about the people and about industry so more things can fit in the guidelines. But I get once you start doing that you end up with the whole Punnett square of "tech agnostic/theme traditional" meme of discourse, so no shade to anyone for not wanting to see it that way.
Oh hell yeah I've been waiting for it. Loved those books as a kid. Yeah I'd say it definitely counts. The Allies are using bio-tech but that's part of the source of the conflict and it's exploring people's relationships to both technologies. Most of the world is on only mechanical technologies. Maybe I'll feel different though after I watch. It's been 15 years
The American wild west (1865-1895) and Victorian era (1837-1901) were during the same time period.
The aesthetics may normally be different, but there were certainly people who lived in Victorian England who then moved to America during that time. And they most likely kept their Victorian e belongings when they moved, since they were still in the victorian era.
So I don't find it far fetched that someone from Victorian steampunk England could have brought their stuff over to wild west steampunk America.