2017 Blind Spot Series: Akira

It's been rough, right here at the end of the year, but I managed to get in one more movie for Ryan's Blind Spot Challenge. This one is...

Why did I pick it? Because it's Akira. Let me explain. My relationship with anime has been an off and on one. I've had several pockets of life where I watched a good deal of it. Each time, Akira. was one of the films that I meant to watch. It's hailed as one of the finest examples of Japanese animation. Actually, that's too small. It's widely considered one of the greatest animated movies of all-time. Period. Invariably, when those times passed, I hadn't seen it. I knew I would, but could never seem to make the time. Then, on one of those trips to Walmart where I "inadvertently" wandered into the electronics section, I came across a two-disc special edition of this movie selling for five bucks. Needless to say, I snatched it up, and put it on the list for this year. So here we go.

The film starts in the year 2019. We're told this is thirty-one years after World War III. Tokyo is not quite a post-apocalyptic wasteland, having had time to recover since an atomic bomb was dropped on it during that war. However, it doesn't appear to be a mighty city the way we think of it, today. One of the biggest issues appears to be the motorcycle gangs waging war all over the place now known as Neo-Tokyo. After lots of fighting, chasing, and general mayhem one of the gang members, Tetsuo, finds himself in police custody, and rather soon, part of a super-secret government experiment. They have discovered Tetsuo to have unusually powerful psychic abilities. They are so great, they believe him to be similar to Akira, the supposedly all-powerful psychic responsible for Tokyo's destruction all those years ago. Tetsuo's powers start raging out of control and he begins doing lots of not-so-nice things. The government wants to control him and a prominent resistance group wants to kill him. This group uses a trio of psychic children of varying abilities. His best friend, gang leader Kaneda, just wants to know what's going on. All sorts of madness ensues. This is based on the manga of the same name.

What I immediately noticed about Akira is the animation. It's simply phenomenal. This isn't over-stylized anime featuring bright colors, needless scenery shifts, and characters with humongous eyes. The people in this world look like exactly that, people. More impressive than that, this is world full of urban decay. Ignoring the given year, since 2019 is merely one year away in reality, we really feel thrust into a place that was once great, has been destroyed, and is trying to claw its way back. Then there's the violence. There's lots of it and it's depicted with a real-world grittiness. Our enjoyment of, and recoil from it, is aided by the film pulling off a difficult trick for animation. Through the use of the artwork itself, and the camera movements, impact is added to the visuals. Late in the movie, some things happen to Tetsuo that simply cannot be shown in the same realistic vein. It pulls us out of the movie a bit, but then draws us back in because of what's actually happening during this scene. The whole thing is just a marvel to look at.

As I'm fond of saying, pretty pictures alone does not a movie make. Thankfully, the story here is intriguing on its own. We come to understand the camaraderie between Tetsuo and Kaneda. Even moreso, we understand the relationship between Tetsuo and girlfriend Kaori. The angst everyone feels as Tetsuo's powers grow is palpable. This effectively, and gradually, raises the stakes as the movie progresses. As each minute passes, there seems to be a little bit more for everyone to worry about. Occasionally, there weight of so many subplots dilutes things just a bit as various stories go away for long stretches. They do come back, and get satisfactorily handled, but feel stretched a bit thin in some places.

The film's release date is hailed as a watershed moment for anime. It's often credited with sparking worldwide interest in the genre. There is good reason for that. Akira is an engaging film with amazing visuals and a story that touches on a number of themes that have been explored by a number of science fiction films in its wake. It's influence can be seen in movies such as The Matrix, and most easily, Chronicle, and lots of other films. And it's not as sanitized as almost any of them with plenty of blood and guts to go around. Unlike lots of other highly influential films of its era, it also doesn't feel dated, once you get past it's dating of itself, of course. This is a movie I will return to often. I'm also now looking forward to the supposedly upcoming live-action version. Taika Waititi (What We Do in the Shadows, Hunt for the Wilderpeople and Thor: Ragnarok) is in talks to direct. If he gets it I will be very excited. However, given that this movie has been in the works at least since the beginning of this century, I'll believe it's coming when there's an actual trailer. Regardless of who directs, however, I will be very unhappy if this hits theaters with a PG-13 rating. I've never read one page of the manga Akira is based on, but given how well the movie works, anything less than a hard 'R' will feel like a slap in the face of the source material. But that's about what might be. Let's focus on what is. If you're okay with adult-themed animation, some people weirdly can't get past that idea, see this movie.

My 2017 Blind Spot Reviews

THX 1138

The Doors

The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance

There's Something About Mary

Black Caesar and Hell Up in Harlem

Rope

From Hell

Cinema Paradiso

City Lights

Suspiria