review by Steve Tothill
Akira 1988
Rewatched Jun 09, 2012
Steve Tothill’s review:
Akira singlehandedly kick-started a personal fascination with Anime and Japanese culture, while at the same time tainting my enjoyment of everything that followed. It's not so much a tantalising taster that whets one's appetite, but more like being served up a four course meal, after which everything else feels like you're rooting around in the bins on a desperate hunt for scraps. Now and then you'll discover something tasty, but nothing that quite satisfies the hunger, let alone leaves you as bloated with a silly smile on your face. Truly a visual feast, Akira demonstrates how free animation can be, able to create moments of epic scale and metaphysical wonder that don't jar in the way SFX often do in live action films, able to flow and feel completely part of the created world. Tetsuo's body transformation, for example, is so utterly fantastical while never feeling out of place or removing the viewer from the experience. While some of the work to allow this acceptance is undoubtedly set up during Tetsuo's hallucinations and the children's toy attacks upon him, it is the flexibility of the medium that ultimately proves it is only limited by the imagination of its creators. Shoji Yamashiro's soundtrack is playful and powerful, but it is also the moments of silence that stand out and lend equal weight, as masterfully used as the film's distinct sound effects. The story is able to communicate on a human level, while also exploring larger questions of evolution, science and religion without getting overly bogged down and po-faced. The ending may be a tad too 2001 trippy, but after events have built up so exponentially it feels like a satisfying and suitably epic conclusion. Elements of Akira continue to pop up in films such as The Matrix and most recently Chronicle, but they have yet to diminish the impact of the original. Only a live action American remake could possibly damage this masterpiece and pinnacle of the genre. Thankfully nobody would be foolish enough to try that...
Sadly, they've been thinking foolish thoughts for several years - an American live-action remake is definitely in planning.
Indeed...
Cool review. I rewatched this on Blu-ray recently. I maintain that Akira is one of the best sci-fi films ever made - multi-layered, inventive, impactful and despite the dystopian setting is ultimately optimistic.
FYI You mean 'whet' rather than 'wet', as in 'whet one's appetite'.
You know how much I revel in correcting your English! ;O)
Once an editor...
...always a c**t!?
Hehe. Not at all. I really struggle with the whole 'language' thing, so any teachings I can get from the naturally literate I'll gladly take. You'd get quite a kick out of the amount of time I spend pondering 'it's' and 'its' I expect.
Has anybody watched the Freedom anime series? It has characters designed by Katsuhiro Otomo, but I'm a little worried it will be a disappointment...especially in comparison to Akira.
Its/it's should be pretty easy.
Always start with "its", then when you've finished the sentence, read it back and substitute "its" with "it is". If it doesn't sound right, stick with "its", if it sounds correct, then insert an apostrophe.
Eg:
"The bird lost some of its feathers" becomes
"The bird lost some it it is feathers". Clearly not right
Whereas:
"I read your review; its very good" becomes
"I read your review; it is very good". Sounds correct, so...
"I read your review, it's very good" is correct.
Lesson over...
Language is such fun!
Also, reading that was like that scene is The Shining...
Scene in TheShining, I meant, oh forget it.
Fuck it! :)
The way I got the its/it's thing is to replace the word with "his" - if if still makes sense it's "its" (because there is no ' in his).
If it doesn't - it's "it's". :)
Yeah, that works! I noticed a typo in my above post too, repetition of 'it' - d'oh!
It so weird how people manage to convey everything you want to say but for some reason can't. Great review. I couldn't have done it better.
Thanks!