Picture it. A hot July summer night in 1988. Instead of going out to the lake to try to hook a girlfriend on the beach (or a sex partner as the prostitutes loved to troll out there at Marblehead and near East 55th pier), a friend of mine calls me up and tells me about this new animation show theyre doing out at Case Western Reserve and wanted to know if I would be interested. I said, sure, too hot out that night anyway. I asked what was playing this time (they used to do short cartoons and innovative CGI and CAD graphics) and he said he didn’t know, they were gonna surprise us.

My interest being piqued, we decided to check it out. So we get to the auditorium on campus and the announcer walks out on stage first and welcomes us and that we’re about to say something amazing straight from Japan. (I mean, straight from it, because someone must have been able to get a copy or something of the reel and internationally ship it overnight.)

So the announcer says, “And now…Akira.”

Lights fade. A hush falls over all of us……………………..

And OMFG!

It was beautiful. It was like my love for anime had just increased from 10 to 11.
327 glorious color pallettes, the likes that had never been seen before on film.
The animation so smooth and flawless it felt like we were watching a real-time movie.
The dystopian, post-apoc setting, the characters, the unbelievable attention to details…

this had gone light years above anything id been watching since the early 70s, with Battle of the Planets, Kimba the White Lion, or Speed Racer (which im sorry to say makes me think hes having an orgasm every time he turns the wheel. Id kill to watch a subtitled Speed Racer sometime. I bet its MUCH better)

Light years, like I said. Anime to me was never the same after this. And yeah I know there were some awesome anime films before this one, like Harmageddon, Grave of Fireflies, and a few early hits from the amazing Ghibli, etc. etc.

But THIS…. This was ground-breaking to me. For a time I had kinda given up on anime and felt it was really never going to get the attention it deserved and I sure as hell wasn’t intrigued by much of what I had seen to this point.

But…….my eyes were opened. And my heart swelled with love for anime once again. I had seen the GREATEST anime movie of all time. When we left the auditorium and drove home, we couldn’t stop talking about it, every scene, every detail… from the thunderous motorcycle chases to the climactic ending of Akira becoming his final form….. that ewwy, gooey…. Fleshy….. ugh, hard to describe it. :D

When I got home, I called my friends and the minute the English version came out, you KNOW we were right back in the theater and watching it again.

Akira didn’t just open my eyes again to anime – but to animation itself.

The very next year “The Little Mermaid” hit theaters and since I had applied for Cal Arts the year before (a lot of the animators were CalArts students, you know) I felt I should watch it just to be supportive, even though I didn’t get in.

And like before I was mesmerized. :D But had it not been for “Akira”……. I really don’t think I would have had such a love for animation that I do today. “Akira” stroked my anime love but it also gave me a fresh look at animation in general. For its NOT really just an anime gem, its true animation at its finest.

My love for animation was reborn and I thank god I was around that hot July night to experience probably one of the greatest moments in animation history. :D