Now, I doubt you've heard of this one, and up until just a few years ago, neither had I. For the most part, this was not a genre I really dealt with much, as I felt it was either over-the-top, wierd, childish, or just plain gross. But I kept hearing this film's name cropping up when people talked about the "rebirth" of the genre, and my curiosity was piqued when I discovered it was based on a 2,182 page epic, so I decided to take a look, not really knowing what it was about. I got more than what I had expected, and with far more blood than I ever would have anticipated. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...Akira!
Cast: Mitsuo Iwata as Shotaro Kaneda
Nozomu Sasaki as Tetsuo Shima
Maimi Koyama as Kei
Yuriko Fuchizaki as Kaori
Masaaki Oruka as Yamagata
Takeshi Kusao as Kai
Kasuhiro Kamifuji as Masaru
Tatsuhiku Nakamura as Takashi
Fukue Ito as Kiyoko
Taro Ishida as Colonel Shikishima
Mizuho Suzuki as Doctor Onishi
Plot: On July 16th, 1988, a powerful explosion detonated over Tokyo, marking the beginning of World War III. 31 years later, the powerful city of Neo-Tokyo now stands in what was once Tokyo Bay. The Olympics has been picked the city to be its destination for next year, and the Japanese government has decided to build the stadium right over the remains of Old Tokyo, in an effort to forget about the war. However, Neo-Tokyo is a dystopian city full of violence and corruption, with protestors almost at war with police on a regular basis. As the lawlessness continues, biker gangs have sprung up in the local youth. Kaneda, young teen and leader of the Capsules, a biker gang, leads his forces against their rivals, the Clowns. The violence spreads out into the ruins of Old Tokyo and, in a freak accident, Kaneda's friend Tetsuo is involved in an accident with a mysterious child. Soon after, Tetsuo begins to experience strange powers, powers that start to bring Neo-Tokyo to its knees...
Review: I've said it already: I don't really care much for anime. As a kid, I grew up on a fairly steady diet of Pokemon and Digimon, but as I grew older I wasn't looking back on them with much fondness. That, combined with having come across some rather wierd anime titles(Which is not too bad considering there's some awful stuff to find in the genre), not to mention the stigma surrounding anime made me a little leary of watching an entire movie of the stuff. So when I sat down and watched Akira on the computer I had the mindest of just seeing what all the fuss was about.
It took me forever to finish the movie due to loading the clips, but I didn't stop till it was over. I was completely riveted.
First off, the movie simply looks great. Though anime had made some leaps on design and animation, Akira still looks better than just about any that I've seen(Which, granted, isn't much), and the details are fine, all the way down to the smallest lines on a building.
You might be thinking that, judging by the plot description, you've seen a movie like his before. And odds are, you probably have. However, Akira was a first of its kind, trailblazing a path for many animes to follow, and even many American dystopian worlds have been based off the creation. Need proof? In the TV series Batman Beyond, the city is called Neo-Gotham.
I'll talk more on this later, but the violence is well directed. Early on in the film, before it gets really brutal, they slowed some of the action down to make it look more intense. Trust me, it works.
One thing I enjoyed about the film is that even when it's deadly serious, I still got a laugh out of it every now and then. The film's humor matches its plot(dark) but it manages to get a quick laugh out of you.
And this is solely on a critical level, the score is powerful and unique. Shoji Yamashiro, who was in charge of the music, blends a strange yet excellent mix of organic sound as well as orchestral. It's not something I would buy, but there's no denying it fits the film.
One thing I dislike about animes sometimes is their ability to be completely ridiculous. Think cat-lady-witch-demon and you probably have an anime character without realizing it. Thankfully, Akira skips these cliches and instead has believable characters that function well. Their origins may be slightly different from their manga counterparts(Example: Tetsuo was abandoned by his parents, but his mother is mentioned in the first volume of the manga), or they may have different deaths then they did in the manga, but I still enjoy it.
A great part of the film, and a key point of the plot, is the tension between Tetsuo and Kaneda, and the resentment Tetsuo has for his friend. Though the anger was inherent with him already, it's something to see that anger blow out of control and onto the screen. It's powerful, and more than a little creepy if you think about it. But more on that later.
And now, we turn to our star, Kaneda. He's brash, he's kind of a dirtbag, and little more than typical high school prison scum. Sure, he's fun to watch and darn cool but that doesn't stop him from being scum(I had the exact same complaints with Chris Pine's Captain Kirk up until the latest Star Trek release). But as we delve further into the film, you see a change start to begin when he meets Kei, and tries to protect her. His growth is accelerated further when he loses a friend, and we see a boy have to become a man, and quick.
The Bottom Line: I watched the movie before I ever read the manga. I mean, 2000 pages plus was a lot to cover, and I didn't have a lot of time to do it. That, and the manga was only fully released very recently, so I had a hard time tracking it down. Eventually, I found all six volumes at my local Barnes & Noble and sat down to give them a read. Simply put, Akira is the greatest graphic novel to ever exist, and brings up some complications in regards to the movie.
The manga is way better. Why? Not because the movie is bad, but because the movie can't possibly fit the whole manga into two hours. A big problem with the film is that you can say a whole lot it DOESN'T do. It doesn't have all the characters, it doesn't go as in-depth with the characters, and the plot is nowhere near as thick. Seriously, if you were to stand each volume of the manga on top of one another, they're thicker than three Bibles put together. The film simply can't cover that.
However, the film DOES work in a different way: Katsuhiro Otomo, writer and director of the film, is the writer and creator of the manga, so he had complete control of the whole process. IN a way, he is giving an alternate take of his own story. It's not as fantastic as the manga, but it sure as heck works anyway. Akira is a work of art no matter if it's manga or anime.
Usually, I'd give each film on this list a recommendation, but I'm more than a little hesitant to do it with this one, simple because the film is so brutally violent. The film is rated 'R' for a reason, and it lets you know pretty quick. The violence is intense and shocking, and if seen by a young child, would probably scar them pretty badly. Gang violence, bloody shootings, a guy's skull getting smashed with a hammer, people exploding, on and on it goes, even a scene s gruesome I cannot find words in the human lexicon to describe it. And, admittedly, there is a really brief(and really unecessary) nude flash that was added in(I don't watch since I know right where it is), but the violence is really the key part of the film's brutality. I won't give the manga a recommendation either, as it's even more violent and more sexual than the film.
Despite some of the shortcomings when comparing to the manga, as well as its dark nature, Akira is a powerful tale of power and corruption, as well as the effects we can have on each other. Tetsuo's inferiority complex was unknowingly aggravated by Kaneda, and that begins to push him towards insanity. As the film moves forward, we see how corruptive ANY kind of power can be, and how that power eventually can destroy us. Watch Akira if you dare, cause this film is something to see.
Well, I must be out, atleast until Friday. What movie will be Number 13? You'll see...
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