The Neon Genesis of Anime - Akira

I will be up front and tell that this is at least the greatest anime movie ever made. "Akira" is definitely the first anime that made it seem like this genre could create a major studio, four star, blockbuster film.

"Ghost in the Shell" is good, but feels more like an art film.

Synopsis:

In August of 1988, World War III begins when a nuclear explosion occurs in Tokyo. By 2019, Neo-Tokyo is built, but unfortunately there are anti-government protest, terrorists, and an ongoing motorcycle wars. Tetsuo, a teenage biker, is involved in an accident with a strange-looking child who the army (and domestic terrorists) seem to have a classified interest in. When his friends come to the rescue, army helicopters come and take away the boy and Tetsuo. Worried about his best friend, Kaneda needs to find out what's going on. He also needs to impress a young female terrorist, Kei, so he joins her terrorist group that is out to stop a project called Akira from occurring or possibly reoccurring.

Whatever Akira is, the army seems to want to use Tetsuo to be the body to contain it. Let's just say the power to disintegrate people is a power that is to be quickly abused.

Critique:

Until Miyazaki's "Spirited Away" was released 15 years later, Akira was be deemed the best anime movie ever made. A long with being a great anime, it is marvelous science fiction, and deserves to be shown in the main stream cinemas. Its characters are excellently written, especially Kaneda, and all the sci-fi elements are used well. The music is excellent except when Tetsuo just starts to open up a can of whoop a**(dumb, dumb, dumb dumb is more like it), and the voice actors in the Streamlined Studios' dubbed version are good except for patient 25's, the fat one, but this dub can make it look like a "Godzilla" movie at some points.

Maybe the most bothersome thing about the film is the length. There are several spots where the film can end, but it chooses to go on and on like Peter Jackson's "Return of the King". To top it all off, it feels the conclusion has to be trippy like Stanley Kubrick's "2001: A Space Odyssey."

Also, like Kubrick, there was a degree of controversy to the film. In 1988, cartoons could not be this violent. Too quote a Warner Bros. exec, "You couldn't sell happy meals with this film," but a cool set of McFarlane toys did come from this. Now I don't feel the violence is as graphic as they say, not to say that it isn't graphic, it happens so quick it will not disgust too many people. Like Bart and Lisa Simpson said, "It's just pretend violence which is actually good for children."

Akira's a must own for all anime fans, and there is now a great special edition DVD of it. The dub is far more accurate, and the viewer will appreciate it even more. Sadly, the voice of Kaneda is no longer that of Leonardo of the original TMNT animated series. He's now played by the second black Power Ranger instead.

shop.punkgenerator.com