Akira

Let's make one thing clear right off the bat: this review is gonna be positive. Akira is not only my favorite anime but my favorite animated film bar none and one of my favorite films in general. Katsuhiro Otomo has crafted an animated sci-fi actioner for adults that's good, great in fact, a rarity since the vast majority of "adult" animation fails miserably by relying on dopey sex jokes and idiotic plot rather than solid storytelling and likable characters. Otomo's film weaves together themes of friendship, honor, betrayal, the deadly consequences of playing God, gang war, espionage, corruption, and the abuse of power while maintaining a breakneck pace throughout its running time. Throw it all in a blender and you've got one of the greatest, if not the greatest animated film of all time, a classic in every sense of the word.

On July 16, 1988, Tokyo was obliterated in a massive explosion, setting off World War III. In 2019, Tokyo has been rebuilt as Neo-Tokyo, a megalopolis crawling with malignant crime and governed by corrupt politicians where 16-year-old Shotaro Kaneda (Cam Clarke in the 1988 Streamline dub, Johnny Yong Bosch in the 2001 Pioneer dub, Mitsuo Iwata in Japanese) is the tough, cocky, skirt-chasing, and bullheaded leader of the Capsules, a biker gang that's currently at war with the Clowns, a band of savage rapists. Kaneda's gang consists of his friends, 15-year-old Tetsuo Shima (Jan Rabson, Joshua Seth, Nozomu Sasaki) who's like a brother to him, 15-year-old Kai (Bob Bergen, Anthony Pulcini, Takeshi Kusao), and 16-year-old Yama (Tony Pope, Michael Lindsay, Masaaki Okura) and a few others. During a brawl with the Clowns, students are protesting and an odd-looking boy named Takashi (Barbara Goodson, Cody Mackenzie, Tatsuhiko Nakamura) with psychic powers has been abducted. After Tetsuo takes down a Clown, his bike explodes upon nearly ramming Takashi. The boys arrive to find a battered Tetsuo. The army, led by Colonel Shikishima (Pope, Jamieson P...

It has been said that when Oppenheimer witnessed the first atom bomb test, he said, "Now I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds." This may actually be a mis-translation of the Bhagavad-Gita, which deals with illusion and impermanence. Nevertheless, the sentiment that great achievement in science, like great power, carries great responsibility, remains true.

Yet to date, homo sapiens has consistently shown that it is not ready for this dilemma. The string of films and sci-fi novels that deal specifically with this subject is long and varied with many excellent examples: Lang's Metropolis, Robert Wise's The Day the Eartch Stood Still, The Terminator, Blade Runner, and Ex-Machina to name just a few.

Akira is another, very well-done, classic in this field. The story-telling, the themes, the action, and especially the jaw-dropping animation are masterful, and likely unequaled in the genre. The animation alone is a magnus opus.

Technically very good, but so confusing that it doesn't work.

I'm 33 years old and my childhood saw the popularization of Japanese anime in Europe and the West thanks to hits like “Dragon Ball” and others. However, I have to say that, even as a child, I hated this type of highly stylized animation, so different from what I was used to seeing.

Even so, it is necessary to grant this film some value. The animation it brings us is of excellent quality and very well designed, and the perfectionism typical of Easterners is clearly evident in the attention given to the smallest details, scene by scene. As has been the hallmark of modern anime, it has a lot of action and moves in a futuristic, dream-like environment, much to the liking of the Japanese. In fact, it is quite remarkable that they are a people so attentive to the future and so respectful of their own traditions and their past... a good example of how both things are not incompatible, quite the contrary, a sign that we can build the future without cut with the past.

The problem with this film is that, until now, I haven't been able to understand the story. It's confusing, and the feeling I got is that the creators focused so much on the action and technical execution of the drawings that they totally forgot to do all of this based on a logical story, capable of being followed without difficulty. Is there something that I, with a Western mindset, have not been able to understand? I don't know. I just know that this film, regardless of its technical value, didn't work for me.