My theory is that it has much to do with a culture that grows up expressing ideas pictorially. During my (admittedly short .. just 1yr) time in Japan, I noticed that people don't just write in Kanji, they think in Kanji. They pun in Kanji - one way to pun in Japanese is to use a word that can resolve to alternative Kanji combinations whose combined meanings are funny in context. If they're fishing for an idea or brainstorming, they start drawing Kanji in the air with their fingertips.

And to me the cultural effect of this pervasive visual thinking nearly-since-birth is cool aesthetics. For example, the average "How-to" book in a Japanese book store is chock-full of diagrams and flow charts, with various sections outlined in garish colors like blue and orange, and different fonts for each different type of idea. (Also notice that China, whose characters Japan shares, has very cool aesthetics of its own. Both countries have beautiful landscapes, which probably contributes something as well).

Also, anyone who goes to Japan notices, that they go for totally-over-the-top-ness (for example, the Tokyo reggae subculture is populated by people with really huge dreadlocks).

So combining heavy orientation towards visual stimuli and color, a love of over-the-top-ness, and a healthy dose of anime with its romantic-teen-angst-cool, you get that awesome cyberpunk stuff. But I think it's not easy to characterize analytically as the Zen aesthetics, where the visual form is meant to represent a well-defined state of mind and personal character.