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The real action begins when Tetsuo encounters an escaped/abducted
subject of the military organization known as Takashi
(or number 26) during a brawl with another motorcycle
gang. When the organization goes to retrieve 26, they
bring the injured Tetsuo with them. They conduct many
experiments on Tetsuo which bring out his psychic
abilities. Unknownst to them, Tetsuo had a troubled
childhood which leads to his psychic power growing
out of control from rage. Testuo sets out to find
the body of the name Akira, which he has heard throughout
most of his time under the organizations control and
experimentations. Tetsuo's powers have now become
a threat to mankind and to himself, if he is not stopped
another Akira disaster could occur. Tetsuo heads towa!
rd the isolated and frozen body of Akira as the military,
and his former friend Kaneda, try to stop him.
If you were to put the plot into a single sentence
it would be "Boy with huge pyschic powers sets
out to destroy the former destroyer of Tokyo".
Although the idea may seem so simplistic, it is the
interaction between the characters that add so much
depth to the story. Strangely enough, we don't get
to see much background on the characters throughout
most of the movie, except the fact that they act tough
and use foul language. In the beginning you get the
idea the character Tetsuo is tired of being rescued
by his friend Kaneda during dangerous situations.
But you don't really see how there life was before
the present, until the end of the movie. I think that
detracted from the person's attachment to the main
characters since they knew little about their backgrounds
throughout most of the movie. But there are many other
factors that make up for it...
The music in Akira perfectly accents the many different
sequences it contains. Since the movie contains many
scenes with nothing but silence, the music does a
good job highlighting various scenes. When I watched
Akira the first time through, I noticed they had no
music nor sound effects during scenes where they probably
should have. Like someone is looking at a big explosion
but you cannot even hear it nor any music. Only after
watching it a second time through did I realize it
adds more emotion to those scenes since they are usually
followed up by a remarkable combo of sound effects
and music during the next scene. Throughout most of
the movie you encounter this sort of majestic chant
music during Tetsuo's actions and hallucinations.
This music had the biggest impact on scenes and really
made them thought-provoking. The scene with the toys
on the attack comes to mind...
The animation in the movie is simply spectacular!
That could be do to the fact it was digitally remastered,
but I have always heard that Akira was the pinnacle
of cel animation. Sure the characters have little
detail to their faces (square teeth, no lips) but
they are very well distinguished and not too outlandish
for the realism of the movie. As for the camera angles,
it always seems to be at the spot you want it to be.
Like when Tetsuo squashes some guards against the
ceiling and walls with his power, you see it happen
from afar, then it zooms in during the aftermath (which
is pieces of their bodies falling to the ground).
English dubs are very questionable for many anime
titles (mainly the one that is the foundation for
this site), but this one is almost everything a fan
could want in an english dub. Very good voice actors,
original music and remastered picture quality. Everything
the characters said made perfect sense but..there
were a few scenes where the words really didn't match
the characters mouth movements (Kaneda asking where
the freaking baby room is, heh). But things like that
didn't really bother me, because I would rather have
it as close to the original script as it can be rather
than just have the characters say anything that matches
the mouth movements like the dbz dub.
Akira is rated R and wtih good reason. I think I
heard every english word they didn't allow you to
say in school more than once. Also their is one scene
with brief nudity of a female's upper half. Although
the scene still would of been well without it, I believe
it was in there so the movie would appeal to all kinds
of people (umm I prefer not to mention all of them).
But it did accent the ignorance of the party that
ripped the girls top off to begin with. And if the
language and brief nudity weren't enough to get it
a rating of R, the violence sure is. A lot of the
hardcore violence involves gun shots to human tissue,
and boy are they graphic. If you have a weak stomach
I wouldn't suggest eating anything while watching
this movie, but as for me...I didn't have any problem
downing my popcorn and Code Red.
There is just so much one could say about Akira,
but the only thing that makes it a great experience
is to see it for yourself. This movie has my highest
recommendations. And if it is difficult for you to
understand the first time through, watch again and
listen for familiar words during the beginning. And
as for the perfect anime, if this movie added more
character background at the beginning and more character
detail, it would have almost been the perfect anime
title.
Kaervak gives the classic Akira: 96/100 (2pt
for each flaw ain't bad!)
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