Man, I watched this film so many times when I was younger.

In fact, you could say I watched A Keira Knightley.......

I'm sorry.

Thirteenth watch of Japanese July. A brief synopsis of Akira. It's 1988 and Tokio is destroyed. It’s 2019 and Neo-Tokyo is awesome. Kaneda yells: “Tetsuo!” Tetsuo yells: “Kaneda!” *Explosion* Tetsuo yells: “Kaneda!!” Kaneda yells: “Tetsuo!!” Some more beautiful animation. *Explosion* Kaneda yells: “Tetsuo!!!” Tetsuo yells: “Kaneda!!!” MIND BATTLE. Bodily mutations, so many bodily mutations. “Kaneda…” “Tetsuo!” *EXPLOSIONS* “Tetsuooooooooooooo!” MIND BATTLE. More stellar animation, yet another explosion, another mind battle and some more explosions. “Kanedaaaaaaaaaaaaa!”

94/100

An aggressive tour de force of influential animation, tangible world-building, inferiority complexes, biker gangs, giant teddy bears, and overwhelming sequences of violence. It stays burrowed in your psyche, ruining a certain, seemingly simple nerve and, in the blink of an eye, shifting perspective and rendering previous knowledge meaningless. Strangely enough, this is only the second time I've seen Akira, with the first being my "initiation" (age 11) via a dubbed VHS copy, but I can't imagine spending more than a year away from this film ever again. It's a horrifyingly grandiose tragedy piece, melding flesh and metal, revolutions and minuscule angst, mind and body, rubber and pavement into a Nuclear aftermath of neon and rubble. In spite of its countless influences (Metropolis, 2001, A Clockwork Orange to name a few), there's nothing quite like it.

Neo-Tokyo. A giant-ass explosion. A crotch-rocket battle with the Insane Clown Posse. Suicide by cop. Ryu without Ken. Weird looking kids with cool powers. Student riots. Fuck is fuck in any language. Super-powers that make Carrie look like a Telekinesis Smurf. Oh Kaneda. Anime boobs. A barkeep's last pour. A determined general. Blowing a lot of shit up. Showdown at the Olympic Stadium with your best friend. A huge fuckin teddy bear. Attack of the giant arm. Becoming something you sure as fuck never dreamed of. A wild-ass visual adventure that is a must see for anyone who is Anime-curious.

i showed this, my second fave film, to my girlfriend last night, after finding out that despite a) being japanese, and b) being super into anime and manga, that she had not even the faintest idea of what this movie was (although admittedly, Akira is a lot more famous over here than it is over there)

the whole time we were watching this, i was worried she would turn to me at the end and say "i don't get it. what. that was weird", and so as the credits finally started to roll, i looked at her, expecting the worst

"WHAT. THAT WAS SO COOL. THE BIKES. KANEDA. WHAT. THAT WAS AWESOME. WHY. WHAT. OH MY GOD I LOVE AKIRA"

dear katsuhiro otomo,
thanks for making a movie that is a perfect vetting process for whether or not i can marry someone

Ugh I ended up keeping this a day late from the library and now I paid a $1 to see this and I'm not exactly mad because supporting libraries is cool, but like I'd rather have done it for something else??? I just got excited because this is held in high acclaim amongst other anime, but like this is just okay to me? Kanye was wrong and Spirited Away IS better than this.

It has a decent world builder and the story is pretty cool and definitely has inspired a million copycats. However, I don't think I like the characters really and I just couldn't get immersed in the world. It also had such an odd score and I couldn't tell if I hated it or kinda liked it.

Overall I can see how this is a nice anime for filmbro types, but as far as Japanese animation goes I think there are a million better ones I've seen alone.

The Akira jacket is the only valid Cinema Jacket... FUCK the drive jacket FUCK the baby driver jacket...

Please tell me they'll never remake this as a live action film

Face it, those clown bastards rule.

Stunning, expressive animation, epic scope, meticulously controlled atmosphere, and brilliantly futuristic soundtrack aside, the film suffers from too many thematic and narrative gaps, no doubt from condensing the source material into an undersized package. The characters are unlikeable and underdeveloped (from Kaneda and Tetsuo on down) and the plot jumps between different groups of people without real narrative focus. It's also hard to discern between which clichés the movie brought into the mainstream and which are just clichés, but for a rather stock story about a military conspiracy to weaponize psionics, it does have a lot (mostly technical value) going for it.

This movie is fucked up. This movie fucked ME up.

There are parts of this movie I could stare at for hours, the imagery is just incredible.