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Posted : 3 months, 2 weeks ago on 2 February 2013 12:13
Visually stunning, with a thumping good soundtrack. I am afraid that is about all the positive things I can say. The story is complex, life force and little children being harnessed for their mental powers? The animation is beautiful, a soaring city of New Tokyo and the motorbikes are rather sexy. But I found the plot hard to follow and not very well explained at the end.
The characters especially the 'hero' called Canada, strange name for a Japanese lad, is a biker gang leader who relishes speed and violence. He is also a bully who picks on the weak. For some reason the character actors cast to convert the original Japanese to English, sound american, and look European. None of the characters aroused my sympathy even the love interest. she really did not seem to fit into the story. They are a bunch of lay-about punks who beat other biker gangs up, ride motorbikes, take drugs and loaf around.
There is a lot of violence, explosions and gun shots. Not that surprising for manga, but not overly graphic. I have seen more violent manga, and Akira is mild in comparison. The metamorphosis scene made me feel a tad queasy. I am not sure why it was there. It was pretty gross to watch.
This one will be probably not be re-watched. I can understand how manga is popular and I would not be surprised if Akira is considered to be a classic. But the complex storyline, unpleasant characters and confusing ending left me not cold but rather tepid.
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Posted : 2 years, 4 months ago on 20 January 2011 01:18
"It's a soldier's duty. You wouldn't understand."
To this day, 1988's Akira is worshipped as one of the best anime features in history. And, frankly, this reviewer has no comprehension as to why the film continually receives such praise. Scripted and directed by Katsuhiro Ôtomo who adapted his own manga series, Akira is a super-violent epic which borrows liberally (if unimaginatively) from Mad Max 2, Blade Runner, Japanese disaster movies and the works of science fiction writer Alfred Bester. The product is the equivalent of the dullest of all computer games. At best, it's a brisk synopsis of over twenty volumes of manga. At worst, it's a slow-paced train wreck devoid of energy or anything of interest. A lot of people claim Akira has thought-provoking messages and a deeper meaning. While that's all well and good, the makers of Akira failed to provide something of substance to engage viewers. Where are the likeable characters or the engaging concepts? Where are the positive elements in general that can allow one to like a movie?
Set in 2019, Akira takes place 21 years after World War III when the city of Tokyo was decimated by an atomic bomb. Built on the ashes of its predecessor, Neo-Tokyo is a booming metropolis filled with unsavoury denizens. When night falls, collections of biker gangs take to the streets in order to participate in territorial motorcycle jousting. Meanwhile, there are a group of revolutionaries trying to overthrow the oppressive government. The final part of the story concerns the government, who are performing experiments with a mysterious invention known as "Akira". Akira is part bomb and part God, and, when it's injected into a human being, that person is endowed with apocalyptic strength.
Akira is comprised of roughly 160,000 cells of animation. Admittedly, the colour design is quite spectacular, from the brightness of Neo-Tokyo to the damp darkness of the sewer. However, while the animation is decent, it's far from great. Each frame bursts with a lot of detailed artistry, but the movement is jerky and jumpy to a distracting degree. It's easy to see where the frames have been linked. Watching the movie is the equivalent of playing an action game on a lethargic computer. Anime fans may complain that Disney movies are for the masses, but at least Disney animation is more smooth and fluid. Even Disney releases from the '40s and '50s were blessed with superior craftsmanship. On the bright side, Akira benefits from an exceptional soundtrack, and there are at least a few note-worthy set-pieces in amidst the moments of abject boredom.
The crucial problem with Akira is the narrative, which was condensed from over 2000 pages of manga. As a result of rushing from plot point to plot point, the movie comes across as an absolute mess with very superficial, boring characters and with a distinct lack of substance. Character motivations also seem at the convenience of the plot - at no point do the characters come into their own, and only rarely can we understand precisely why they do the things that they do. In fact, as a direct consequence of this, character identification can be difficult. Everything seems haphazard here; thrown together at random from various bits and pieces of stock sci-fi concepts with little coherency. There is an underlying moral here about mankind's lust for power, but it never emerges from the incoherent spectacle of destruction and violence. Dedicated Akira fans will probably retort "stick to dumb American action movies, then", but at least American action movies usually fulfil the fundamental movie requirements of plot coherency and clear motivations.
Some movie enthusiasts have completely immersed themselves into anime as both an art form and a film genre, while others simply "don't get it" or assume that anime is simply a children's medium. This reviewer falls into neither of those categories. As an avid film-watcher, this reviewer loves good movies whether they're live-action or animated. For good anime, see the exceptional works of Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away). Yet, the appeal of Akira is bewildering - the animation is jumpy, and the story proceeds without coherency or logic. People may retort "read the manga to understand it better", but this denotes a crucial failing on the part of Akira's writer-director Katsuhiro Ôtomo since the film should be able to stand on its own. Why should a viewer have to conduct hours of additional homework in order to completely understand the film? It doesn't help that the movie itself is inherently uninteresting. For some reason, people still claim this is the be-all and end-all of the Japanese animation industry. Let's be grateful that it's not, and that there are far better instances of anime out there.
4.1/10
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Posted : 2 years, 8 months ago on 7 September 2010 06:16
This animated movie is so well done and it was definitely a milestone when it was made. The visuals are great and the story is fascinating. I love its apocalytic feeling. In my opinion, even though it is now more than 20 years old, it still feels really modern and edgy. Like 'Blade Runner', this flick could be released nowadays and nobody would realise it has actually been made decadea ago. Yeah, it is that good. For many years, they are trying to make a US live action remake with not much results. One hand, it could be interesting but on the other hand, most remakes are completely worthless so it's probably a good thing they just dropped the whole thing. Anyway, it is a great classic and a must see if you are interested in Japanese animation.
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Posted : 6 years, 3 months ago on 11 February 2007 07:01
This film is an absolute masterpiece.
The animation is fantastic and it still impresses to this day, which is really saying something given that this film is fast approaching the 20th anniversary of its release.
In the opening scene we see Tokyo being erased of the map in a flash of brilliant light. Later we find that this was thought to be a result of nuclear activity, which sparked a third world war.
Set in the dystopian future where humans only seem to care about satisfying their superficial desires, ignoring the crumbling and increasingly lawless world around them, this film trails a group of bikers, one of whom is abducted by the brutally oppresive government for scientific experimentation. The film follows his friends who attempt to locate and rescue their fellow gang member.
One thing that really struck me about this film was its flawless soundtrack. It really captures and accentuates the surrounding world that these people live in. The final scenes of this film are ones which have to be seen first hand as they are utterly indescribable.
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