Akira is a mindfuck. I could end the review on that, really,
but it would be doing a disservice to how great a film it is. As a dark
animated tale that’s set in a post-apocalyptic future, Akira blew people away
when it came to American theaters in the late 80’s. Americans were used to
Loony Tunes and maybe a couple of Ninja Turtles, certainly not an animated
setting where people die, and die violently. Akira is a landmark in Japanese
filmmaking. The first animated work to have lip synched dialogue, and with a
whopping 160,000 animation cels, Akira was a blockbuster. The plot focuses on
an ordinary bike gang in the post-apocalyptic Neo Tokyo. Best friends Kaneda
and Tetsuo soon experience the strangeness of psychic powers and secret
military experiments and learn just what happened to make their home into a
hellhole. Akira is one of a kind; don’t discriminate against it just because
it’s animated.
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