Review of Akira (1988) by Bob L — 07 Jul 2011

Yep. I know this is over a decade old, but I've just seen it on the big screen for the 1st time, and it's awesome. These days, CGI wizards could knock this up much smoother, but I was struck by 2 things here: mainly, that most of this was hand crafted animation, and secondly, at the time, most of the concepts here were brand new and very left field.

It's obvious that although Japanese through and through, the styling has been influenced by film making techniques from Hollywood and Europe (the ending is enigmatic and very Kubrick) and even after all this time, I'm still just getting some subtle touches in there I've missed before.

This is the work that brought Manga to English speaking theatre audiences, and even though many of that genre have tried to copy things from this, few have even come close. I think because the writing is so strong in this, and the care that's gone into the animation; it's quite a benchmark of the craft.

This is not perfect by any means, and some concepts are far too ridiculous, but an amazing, inspirational, and at times, beautiful piece of work.