Akira Movie Review

A lavish animation extravaganza produced at a cost of $8 million, this futuristic cyber-punk anime classic was created by writer/co-director Katsuhiro Otomo, based upon the graphic novels he himself had written. His meticulous attention to detail (especially noteworthy are the backgrounds and their enormous details and palette of colors) shows that he approached the task of animating his book as if he were making it as a live-action film. The drawings were so finely rendered that frames were drawn for 70mm film, and legend says he drew most of the thousands of rough key drawings for the character animation himself. He also departed from the conventional techniques of other Japanese studios by pre-recording his dialogue before animating the characters. Otomo and animation director Takashi Nakamura use such 'live' camera techniques as slow motion, focus-pulls, dollying, and tracking, rarely seen in animation at the time.

Set in 2019, in Neo-Tokyo, the reconstructed version of the Japanese capital, previously destroyed in a 1988 nuclear war. The shape of the city has changed but not its problems, as the social fabric is falling to pieces, students organize demonstrations, unemployment generates constant unrest and terrorists conspire to overthrow the government. Two disaffected orphan teenagers, Tetsuo and Kanada, run with a biker gang, trouble grows when Tetsuo starts to resent the way Kanada always has to rescue him and help him out of trouble. Meanwhile, a group of scientists, military men, and politicians were developing a new and powerful source of energy, but through their experiments created children who possess enormous psychic powers, and don't know what to do with these children, including the most powerful one, the rarely seen Akira, whose awakening might well have caused the end of the old world. Tetsuo is visited by these children, who trigger the growth of psychic and physical powers that eventually make him into a telekinetic superhuman.

Akira is one of the few anime titles to have been released theatrically in the States and elsewhere. A remarkable technical achievement in every respect, from the imaginative and detailed design of tomorrow to the booming Dolby effects on the soundtrack, pic's only drawback is the slight stiffness in the drawing of human movement. Tokyo is imagined down to the last noodle shop and intersection, a place of deep night and lurid neon that looks like Blade Runner on spoiled mushrooms. It's no wonder that Akira, first released in Tokyo in 1988, is still playing the midnight-movie circuit in U.S. theaters.

I had first seen the film on VHS in 1990 and my brain was blown wide open. It took a couple more viewings before I could understand the story fully. In 2002 it was re-released on DVD, digitally re-mastered in superior resolution and re-dubbed in English with better voice acting and with the writing clarified in some parts, the story can now even be better interpreted by all. In addition, the film was released on BluRay just last year and has plenty of extras on it. Rightfully considered one of the greatest accomplishments in sci-fi storytelling, you must give Akira a deserving chance, the admirably complex plot is imaginative and serious, and the visuals are without a doubt an impressive achievement.