Akira

Akira is a very controversial piece of art—but a remarkable one regardless. It's not an easy watch by any means, nor it is an easy review subject: the ambition and influence exerted by the movie and its creators make grasping and appraising it in its entirety far from trivial. As virtually every other seminal work of art, Akira is nowhere near flawless, hence why many people don't even consider it a good movie—what with all the gratuitous bloodbath, plot holes, odd side-characters and whatnot—just read some other reviews here. A good bulk of the criticism is valid for sure. But what do we have beside it? Allow me to get the bad out of the way: if there is a particular aspect where Akira is teetering on the edge of failure in my opinion, it's the fact that Katsuhiro Otomo chose to stuff an elaborate story encompassing almost 2000 pages' worth of his original manga into barely two hours of screen time. This lead to a significant degree of screenplay butchering and stunted character development that visibly skips important steps all too often. Would an OVA or a multi-part feature-length movie work better? Who knows! Thankfully, what remains is still above what we tend to get in the science fiction action movie genre even these days, and to be fair it contributes heavily to the re-watch potential. In fact, I would recommend watching Akira again, given some time—you will most likely notice some details you ended up missing the first time owing to the breakneck pacing. Personally, I find myself re-watching it every couple years, and despite almost having learned it by heart already, it's very hard to stop myself once I get going. It's just too awesome, and the sheer delivery of some of the pivotal scenes still—some 30 years since its release!—remains at the pinnacle of animated cinematography. On this note, I'd also like to point out Otomo's setting: although Akira is set in the (not-too-distant) future, it is remarkably unappealing and free of the rampant techno-fetishism (aside from that one bike) and uncharacteristically rich aesthetics often seen in works of dystopian fiction. It's all about the everyday soot, blood, and dirt; it's filled with biker gangs, corrupt politicians, and radical groups trying to drag each other down. Everyone is miserable in their own way. The core plot revolves around a post-WWIII secret military experiment program to manifest, magnify, and control latent psychic powers; which partially lead to the WWIII in the first place and went awry a few too many times. These social, political and scientific (borderline mystical) aspects mix and intertwine as a couple of teenagers get accidentally involved in the whole mess, each dealing with it in their own way. There are no heroes and no winners in this story, only casualties—but that's also what makes the ending so moving and ultimately uplifting. I'm sure I don't have to point out the quality of the art and the animation in particular—everyone has already done so many times over—it's still an internationally recognized milestone in animation and the first Japanese movie to rival the production values of Western studios like Disney, and it stands tall even among the high-budget anime movies of today. The attention to detail, the complete lack of filler shots to pad the length, and the exemplary way the animation is used to convey impact yet again contribute to the high re-watch potential. This is a master class on animation. Everyone even remotely associated with the industry would benefit greatly from watching and studying Akira: from the technical perspective, it stands the test of time remarkably—perhaps only one-upped by the likes of Redline (2009). Also of note is the fact that Akira pioneered lip-syncing character dialogue—typically characters are animated first; then voices are recorded, which often results in audiovisual incongruity. But Otomo was intent on using the high budget he was provided with to do things right even if it broke the industry conventions. That said, many people complain about the character designs, and it's easy to tell why: they are remarkably unappealing—everyone has small eyes, the guys are borderline ugly and there's not a single waifu in sight. Personally, I find it charming and a perfect fit for the gloomy setting. It makes way more sense to me than e.g. the likes of Charlize Theron in Mad Max: Fury Road. I like that movie to bits, but come on: these characters are going to look gorgeous no matter how much dirt and soot you smear over their faces. It looks silly when it doesn't have to—good character designs should reflect their environment, not contradict it. But if I were to name a problem with Akira's designs in particular is that facial variety isn't Otomo's strongest suit, leading to a lot of similarity between characters' faces across Akira's cast and Otomo's other works as well. In terms of the sound design, Akira makes remarkably good use of being silent a good portion of the time. This is an approach modern filmmakers tend to (very unjustifiably) ignore, eager to fill every scene with music that is often too expressive for the purpose, rendering it into cacophony and contributing to mental fatigue. When sounds do play in Akira, they're always highly dynamic and spot-on. Most of the soundtrack is dominated by sparse, impactful industrial beats as well as ethnic motifs and chants, and is intended to set the ambiance first and foremost. The score is composed and performed by Geinoh Yamashirogumi—a unique performance collective consisting of hundreds of members from all ages and professions that mostly have nothing to do with music (seriously, look them up). And good lord it is a massive score! Tetsuo's hospital hallucination theme, Dolls' Polyphony, never fails to give me the shivers when I so much as *think* about it. And when I watch it in-context on a good sound system, it just blows my mind. This—this is how to do it right! I tend to be very conservative when giving out 10s for anime as you can tell by my list (of which barely 1% ends up in that bracket), but after all these years, Akira remains among the very few anime that feel deserving of this high mark and one I keep returning to when I need to cleanse my palate after the onslaught of stale shounen cliches, characterless moe blobs, terminally shy schoolchildren, and science fiction that is equally bad at both science and fiction. It combines visceral, high-octane action with an uncharacteristically cathartic resolution—I couldn't have asked for more. Even if flawed, it certainly remains a timeless masterpiece and deserves a watch whether you are an anime fan or not. Sure, there have been many pieces released in the past 30 years that are more enjoyable and even more competently done, and it's not like Akira is the be all, end all of any entertainment medium you group it with. But as more and more titles surpass it in particular respects, Akira stays the Colossus of Rhodes of the anime industry, representing a great creative achievement by itself and serving as an excellent gateway anime for many people for years to come. And for that I am truly grateful to its existence.