AKIRA. 35 Years Later it’s Still The Greatest Animated Movie Ever Made.
AKIRA
The name refers to both a limited manga comic series and a feature long animated film. I encourage you to both watch the movie and read the manga, in that order. The comic, sadly will only make you disappointed about what could have been. A sheer masterpiece, rivaled maybe by only Alan Moore’s Watchmen. Akira is one of, if not the, best comic ever made. In the realm of animated movies, it is also the best of all time. The same creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, was responsible for both. It created a near-perfect fluidity between the animation and the art found in the manga. It looks exactly as it should. The plot is the first two mangas plus a very truncated version of the last. Akira is five volumes.
The movie started production before the original manga had been completed. This is why the movie is missing so much content. However, Katsuhiro Otomo also made his own alterations. The manga lacks what you would call a main character. It could be argued that Kei, a female political revolutionary, is the main character. In the movie, however, Otomo makes the main character Kaneda , a character who is absent for much of the manga, the quintessential wise-cracking hero lead. Something in the vein of a latter-day Star-Lord. Entire sections and characters are missing from the movie. Most notably Akira himself. Also, gone is the part where the characters live in a post-Akira-bomb Neo Toyko, a wasteland run by gangs loyal to Testuo, and his Darth Sideous, Akira. The movie loses all this, sadly, but it is still a masterpiece.
When we talk about great films it usually results in a list of some great American classics, Casablanca, Godfather, Goodfellas, Apocalypse Now, The Exorcist, and Fight Club. Akira needs to be in this discussion more often. We often overlook foreign films, as well as animation, as being a lesser category. It is true that America owns that market, and intelligent film criticism is often focused solely on the live-action realm. In my opinion, the animation is not a separate category and meant to be treated as such. Films are not subordinate for merely being the product of animators and voice acting rather than on-screen performances. Akira is the most perfect example of why.
First, while the age of the intended audience also should not be a determining factor, Akira is in no way for kids. This was not made to sell action figures or Disney theme park princesses. The movie features nudity, blood, attempted rape, sexual assault, actual assault, body horror, gruesome in-camera deaths. This film in no way hides away. At the one hour mark we get a grusome climatic scene where Tetsuo, after escaping from his hospital room is encountered outside by the orderlies and a doctor. He responds with a psychic pulse that rips everyone around him apart into a bloody mess.
Tetsuo goes on to terrorize Neo-Toyko in a psychic rage. Destroying all the military and tanks who opposed him, as well as callously murdering his followers. As the movie progresses the body horror only progresses, resulting in the tragic death of Tetsuos’ girlfriend. Kaneda, on his iconic red motorcycle, rides in with Kei, as well as a comic relief friend who does nothing, and they are able to defeat Kaneda, even though he ends up destroying over half the city.
This is a violent and difficult movie at times. Highly tragic. Although people are killed it doesn’t happen capriciously, well feel the tragedy of the losses. Most random military men killed are shown giving their last lines in valiant last stands.
The film is also very class conscious. The film and manga were published on the verge of Japan’s “lost generation” and you really see the rising gaps between the rich and the poor. In one of the film’s epic chase scenes, we see a motorcycle go out of control and kill a rich patron by crashing into his head. The poor and the rich are colliding in deadly ways. We also see the military on the verge of taking total control amidst a government that is falling apart, becoming feckless, greedy, corrupt, and ineffectual. It really deserves a watch right now, feeling more and more relevant as the days go by.
It’s also very historical and cultural. It may be a too obvious statement to say Akira’s spherical exploding black hole is a reference to Hiroshima and Nagasaki. In my opinion part of why this film took so long to develop a cult following in the United States is because Americans, being the cause of the event in question, and being foreign to such an event ourselves, don’t feel the same culturally and the message doesn’t resonate as much. Even the film’s view on youth culture is very different from how we often picture ours. Biker gangs in the United States tend to be stereotyped as old on film. However, our unfamiliarity with the cultural cues should not blind us from the attention this film deserves, which is more.
The film is also a crowning achievement of animation. It is highly detailed. Insanely so. One-shot includes two characters walking across a bridge, and the detail used for a far background view of the city, through the sliver of two buildings is astounding.
On top of the insane attention to detail, Akira was animated using 24 frames per second. By contrast, your average Disney film uses roughly 12. This film is double that number of frames, again adding to how monumental an undertaking this film is.
The animation is just very fluid. This is because the backgrounds were also animated separately, so the background and foreground moves in a symphonic rhythm. A great example of this is the biker chase that opens the film.
The music is especially palpable in this scene. The song is Kaneda by Geinoh Yamashirogumi (composer), and it is amazing. This is music I listen to in my spare time, especially when I’m driving. It’s a whole mood, that’s all anyone can say about it. Many great films have great scores and this is no exception.
Kaneda’s infamous bike stop has received tributes in many animations and live-action movies since. His bike has even shown up in live-action and animated forms. It’s clear people who make film love this movie. The stamps of it are everywhere. Eleven from the fan-favorite show Stranger Things is a clear reference to Tetsuo from Akira. Chronicle, a career-changing film from legendary writer Max Landis, clearly takes inspiration from Akira via Andrew Detmer’s (Dane Dehaan) mental breakdown and similar powers. Many other superhero films have played with some of their ideas as well. People who love film and work on film love Akira.
It’s also worth noting it’s inclusion in the Cyberpunk genre, that is currently experiencing an insurgence with Cyberpunk 2077 and the phoenix-like career of Keanu Reeves — guess he really is “the one”. Whoa. Cyberpunk is starting to be recognized as a legitimate and artistically dominant film subgenre. I’d say today it occupies the same space Noir did in its heyday. While it’s had great and poor entries, it’s great entries, like Akira have shown it has a lot to offer. I am not giving credit to Akira for starting the subgenre, but it certainly improved the brand. It is one of its early greats.
I don’t think this is a film that should be touched or remade, but maybe if Otomo was allowed total control, and it was a Lord of the Rings length trilogy perfect adaptation of his work done in English with Japanese actors and filmed in Neo Toyko (not Neo New York as had previously been purposed), I could get behind live-action. Without question a full-length of the manga animated. That is one thing that makes this movie difficult to judge — yes, it really could have been just that much better. However what we got, incomplete as it is, is one of the greatest films of all time. As genre-defining and amazing as a film like Taxi Driver or No Country For Old Men. I feel like we should be less afraid to claim animated films shouldn’t be on that same, yet very lofty footing.
Akira is that film.