Genre: Animation/Sci-fi/Action
Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo
Cast: Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama
Country: Japan
Language: Japanese
Year: 1988
If I say Akira is a Masterpiece - you'll say, tell me something new! And If I am honest, I feel there are too many arcs, characters, sub-plots, and hidden postulations cramped in a little over two hours of run-time. The film needs, I need space to breathe because it is too hard to digest this epic chronicle of a dystopian Tokyo in a single watch due to its vast spectrum and oblivious metaphors. And if someone claims to understand the whole thing without reading the Manga is just a big-fat liar or kayfabe.
Right after watching the film, I knew I have to re-watch it again to understand the surreal intricacies, and before I do, I need to read about the film. It turns out my intuition is appropriate - Akira is just the tip of the iceberg, and it's just a bridge between the four manga volumes and the subsequent two volumes released after the anime film, which sums up to around two thousand pages of visual story-telling. So, I'll probably re-watch the film, after I finish reading the entire manga series and maybe I'll be able to meet Akira, and what he stands for.
Talking about the film, it is a stunning piece of art-house cinema soaked in statuesque animation - the level of detailing is incomprehensible, or at least unseen to me. I'm starting to explore the realm of anime, and Akira certainly sets up the benchmark for my future viewing experiences. Not only the visuals, the sound design, and editing are blissful - no wonder it is deemed as an immortal classic. The synth-wave score with traditional Japanese folk music is a musical fusion that elevates the tone of the film.
The story set in a dystopian Tokyo, known as Neo-Tokyo, where a biker-gang leader Kaneda tries to stop his best-friend Tetsuo wrecking havoc after he discovers uncontrolled psychic powers amidst strange experiments, corruption, and civil unrest.
Katsuhiro Ôtomo - how can you write, direct, and draw such an epic tale? Not sure if he has any hidden psychic powers. No matter what I say or write about him, it is always going to be meager in comparison. I have made it a point to finish his tale in the mange-verse created by him. The voice cast is fantastic, to say the least, making the characters relatable and life-like. One more time - the animation is a psychedelic trip and powerful enough to get you high - Tetsuo's first battle with the other kids is nothing less than an acid-trip.
In conclusion, there's nothing new or unfamiliar to what I have said for the fans of Akira, but if you haven't watched it - what are you waiting for?
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