Akira

Story

This movie has one of the most complex yet simple stories going, if you don’t know what I mean just watch for yourself. Akira has so much content that it fits nearly 4000 pages of the manga in one movie, so it takes a couple of watches to fully understand the hidden meanings, Easter eggs and the ending to in its entirety. The movie goes from hooligans in a biker gang, to post war terrorism anarchy violent on the public and government to hallucinations to psychic experiments to running from the military to the psychic powers in Tetsuo going out of control and multiplying so much that he turns into one with the universe. Yes, see what I mean, it starts off with a simple interesting and new concept and then progressively gets more detail just like the art and soundtrack of this show

The impact of Akira

Akira is very reminiscent of modern societies as well with its political military aspects, homeless youths, gangsters, hooligans and psychic old children, nah I’m just joking lol and transforming these elements in a futuristic sci-fi setting. The show I think it set in alternative 60s Tokyo where it’s the opposite result what happened in real life which destroyed the world and turned it into a post dystopian world. The anime shows a lot of government corruption which happens in the real like war crimes of inhumane medical experiments on children which is seen with the Benjamin Button psychic kids which went on to inspire Kinji Fukasaku's Battle Royale.

Akira shows the effects of war as it was made after the atomic bombings of Japan, this also seen in another movie called barefoot gin. It inspired Batman because of the clown biker gangs you can see in DC’s Batman and marvels X-Men. Akira is very inspired by western pop culture as well it being a very Americanised comic style environment, the creator of Akira had a passion for western media which you can see in the anime even rumoured to have the great Satoshi Kon that work on some of the art, of course you know it was messed up parts. Every element of the movie is incredibly done

Art & Animation

Akira being made in the 80s which didn’t have as much technology for animation and 2d/3d art but Akira for being in a time with limited equipment makes it more inventive as the art in this is absolutely incredible for its time as every single frame of this anime is well detailed and breath-taking, in most anime the backgrounds of them are usually just static shots of something simple but with Akira the background is beautifully drawn and not only that it is one the greatest animated movies of all time, it must of taken hundreds of hours to achieve this masterpiece, back then animation had to be down frame by frame and to think how detailed this show is just boggles my mind.

The last scene in the stadium is based on an Olympic based setting because in 1964 Tokyo held the Olympics which is based on that exact stadium, in the 60s it was a post-war country so this fit the theme of the anime; all these little details make the anime so much greater as just everything about this show is truly amazing. Not to mention the animation is amazing as well, the animation is very fluid and natural with buildings collapsing, masses of people running for their life’s are well done as they feel like how real people would run in hysteria and the bike scenes are the magnum opus of this show the way the anime animates the bike like how it focuses on the environment and world building as well as showing the futuristic bikes races with the lens flares to top all off is a lot of eye candy, a great watch.

Original Soundtrack

Geinoh Yamashirogumi

The Original Soundtrack for Akira is very experimental and unique for its time, it uses a lot of tribal themes which makes it sound very trippy when used in the anime as it sounds like the music is getting to your head especially on the track “battle of the clowns” when Tesuo’s biker gang encounters the other one clown biker gang as the tracks are very all of the place with drums in panning both ears with the tribal “who hahs” (idk what to call them) or tribal breathing, I guess you could call it; makes it sound very 80s and psychedelic in a way which fits perfectly in this dystopian cyberpunk world as it path a way for the whole Japanese cyberpunk subgenre. Sometimes sounds very industrial and out of this world or futuristic while also sounding old timey which is hard to put into words but if you take a listen you’ll understand as this soundtrack is better to understand if you listen. With the use of bongos like drums, flutes, ambient, what sounds like loud humming bass, strings, choir, brass and many other instruments makes the soundtrack one of the best of all time to listen to as it influenced many western media.

Geinoh Yamashirogumi is a collective hundreds of other people, actually the people who worked on this aren’t even musicians but people from all walks of life which goes to show that you don’t need talent to make music but have passion and determination for it which shows in these tracks because it sounds like it was well thought out and worked hard on. This Avant-Garde progressive music fits the show as it being progressive it builds up tension and “progressively” helps reach a climax of psychological suspense and action. The soundtrack definitely has the most going on in the tracks as how many people were being recorded for it, which make it one of the greatest soundtracks in anime history. This group while being progressive avant garde it uses elements of traditional music and folk to create its own aesthetic which is one of a kind. Dolls polyphony is easily the best creepiest track of the ost as it uses a weird ambient aesthetic with it saying prom prom prom over like Yoshi which makes it perfect for a hallucinationiginic trip which happens in the anime where the main character hallucinates dolls moving which make the scene way better because of the music.

Tetsuo

Tetsuo is a young youth that is lost in this post war world, the world as it being very dystopian, he has forced into trouble by being peer pressured into a biker gang which all started his demise. I feel that he is very misunderstood person as he just wants to be a normal kid even have normal relationships as can be seen with Kaori, but the power of Akira and society doesn’t let him become normal. He just the catalyst for the military experiments and Akira’s powers to evolve into something beyond our dimension which happens at the end when he dies but he actually isn’t dead but living in different plain of existence, one in tuned with universe.

The only downside

The only thing I think that is wrong with this movie is that the fact is very convoluted and hard to understand, maybe it is the studios fault on this one or just poor production choice but the manga being 6 volumes long and over 4000 pages, Akira has so much story that it couldn’t all fit into the movie a lot of stuff was cut from the full length movie of 2 hours it's almost impossible to do that and it is incredible how much the movie actually put in but a lot of stuff seems very rushed or brushed over but not because of poor story writing or anything like that but because of the limited amount of time that it had to put in this movie. Apparently, there is going to be a sequel or remake coming soon so hopefully they do it more justice, but I don’t think it can surpass the production, art, animation and soundtrack of Akira, in my opinion

Thanks for reading!