Review of Akira (1988) by Cameron J — 28 Mar 2015

A visually stunning anime, Akira is one of the strangest (and most strangely entertaining) sci-fi action epics I've seen. I'd explain the plot as kind of a mix of a few later works - Dark City, Fullmetal Alchemist and Chronicle come into mind right away (the latter especially, as it involves a teenage boy, Tetsuo, who develops physic powers, though instead of finding a mysterious hole in the forest this time the powers are from government experiments).

I can't flaw the production values, especially for the time, and was constantly impressed by the excellent animation. The opening scenes, full of exposition as the city of Neo Tokyo is revealed, are some of the film's best moments, rivaled only by the ending, which I won't reveal, of course, but will say escalates to higher levels than I could've ever imagined.

Another highlight of the film are the creepy ghost-children, who are other government experiments and are basically kindergarteners who've been given physic powers and are aged to look like they're pensioners despite having the minds and statures of children.

Admittedly, a lot of the stuff in between the stunning opening and outrageous ending sequences is generic action and necessary plot development, but cutting down a colossal (2182-page, Wikipedia tells me) epic manga was never going to be easy.

It's a must-see for any anime fan.