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Film Review - Akira
4 years ago
A while ago I said I had a bunch of film reviews to post, then forgot. Here they are now. Anyway, on to the review.
These days, when you hear the term "anime", chances are you think of schoolgirls showing their underwear, possibly being raped by tentacles.
Back in the 80s and 90s, things were different. Anime was ...schoolgirls showing their underwear, possibly being raped by tentacles, but with cool cyberpunk stuff and highly detailed animation.
Akira was at the forefront of the first wave of popular anime. Every 90s anime fan worth his salt has seen it. Watching it for the first time in a long time, it holds up, which I wasn't expecting.
See, over the years, Akira's reputation has faded somewhat. I remember hearing that the plot is nonsensical and only makes sense if you're familiar with the comics, which no one read. So I was expecting everything that wasn't the classic scenes to be worthless.
The plot made sense. The final scene in the film is confusing as it goes a bit Evangelion, but given the characters are also confused, I'll let it pass.
That said, it's not an easy film to summarise. The short version, a teenage biker called Tesuo gets kidnapped by the government after a bike crash, and through medical experiments his latent psychic powers are unleashed. Meanwhile, his friend Canada, while trying to get woo a member of a rebel group, gets roped into a rescue attempt. But that's a huge simplification. There's civil unrest, government politics, and other stuff tied into it all. And that's just the first half.
That's not to say the plot is amazing. It's good, but not really the reason you're here.
No, the real reason is the animation. The film looks great, especially in HD. The animation is fantastic, especially when you consider the technological limits they were working with back then. I once heard that the film used more than 50 different shades of red ink. I can believe it.
There are many stand out scenes. The bike chase at the beginning is the most iconic, and the final battle is well remembered too, but there's so much detail crammed in to everything throughout the film. Another great thing is the soundtrack. Most of the music doesn't steal the show or upstaging the action, but there are times when the music does come to the front, it's glorious.
Overall, the film is great, and still holds up more than 30 years later. I don't know how it'll fare with anime fans raised on Avatar and My Hero Academia. But if you're someone who hasn't seen it in a while, or remembers it as a few iconic scenes tied together with nonsense, then I highly recommend going back and watching it. It's quite good.
These days, when you hear the term "anime", chances are you think of schoolgirls showing their underwear, possibly being raped by tentacles.
Back in the 80s and 90s, things were different. Anime was ...schoolgirls showing their underwear, possibly being raped by tentacles, but with cool cyberpunk stuff and highly detailed animation.
Akira was at the forefront of the first wave of popular anime. Every 90s anime fan worth his salt has seen it. Watching it for the first time in a long time, it holds up, which I wasn't expecting.
See, over the years, Akira's reputation has faded somewhat. I remember hearing that the plot is nonsensical and only makes sense if you're familiar with the comics, which no one read. So I was expecting everything that wasn't the classic scenes to be worthless.
The plot made sense. The final scene in the film is confusing as it goes a bit Evangelion, but given the characters are also confused, I'll let it pass.
That said, it's not an easy film to summarise. The short version, a teenage biker called Tesuo gets kidnapped by the government after a bike crash, and through medical experiments his latent psychic powers are unleashed. Meanwhile, his friend Canada, while trying to get woo a member of a rebel group, gets roped into a rescue attempt. But that's a huge simplification. There's civil unrest, government politics, and other stuff tied into it all. And that's just the first half.
That's not to say the plot is amazing. It's good, but not really the reason you're here.
No, the real reason is the animation. The film looks great, especially in HD. The animation is fantastic, especially when you consider the technological limits they were working with back then. I once heard that the film used more than 50 different shades of red ink. I can believe it.
There are many stand out scenes. The bike chase at the beginning is the most iconic, and the final battle is well remembered too, but there's so much detail crammed in to everything throughout the film. Another great thing is the soundtrack. Most of the music doesn't steal the show or upstaging the action, but there are times when the music does come to the front, it's glorious.
Overall, the film is great, and still holds up more than 30 years later. I don't know how it'll fare with anime fans raised on Avatar and My Hero Academia. But if you're someone who hasn't seen it in a while, or remembers it as a few iconic scenes tied together with nonsense, then I highly recommend going back and watching it. It's quite good.
