Premise Project: Akira Film Review

Today I watched the 1988 Japanese Animated film Akira as suggested by my tutor, in order to research into the idea of incorporating an anime feel to my animation. Simon told me to look into Akira due to its high quality and fluid animations. It also featured fight scenes as well as an interesting world set in an alternative future, all of which I can use in order to develop my own project.

The opening shot presents the viewer with an 1988 Japan. The world looks familiar until a bomb is dropped as a result of World War 3. The story instantly jumps 31 years into the future, where you can see how the people of Japan dealt with the fallout of the bomb. I like how this information is presented to the viewer in quick succession at the beginning of the film. This sets the scene as well as the overall tone of the film, as well as establishing it as a possible future to a world unlike our own. By using visual imagery as well as text to explain the events it manages to convey across so much information. The scene also has no distracting music or unnecessary sound, ensuring that the viewers attention is solely focused on the bomb. The lack of dialogue forces the reader to seek out the information themselves, making the information hid deeper as its as if they are experiencing it for themselves. It also creates a contrast between the peaceful and innocent world against the violent and destructive bomb. 

I found it interesting that within the introduction of the characters, the world is also introduced as if a character of its own. The animation uses the characters traveling to a different location to show off the interesting world. Before even introducing the characters names, the audience is met with a fight between them and what is assumed to be a rival biker gang. This establishes the main characters initial place in the world. I feel this does more to develop the character as its showing their life off rather than telling you, making it seem much more believable. 

The beginning of the film introduces the destruction of Japan to be the result which triggered world war 3, when in fact this is not the case. However this is made clear to the audience from the start so that they are on the same page as the character who populate the world. The explosion is in in fact Akira, a child who is being research by the Japanese government as the have discovered awakening of physic abilities in children. As the testing gets more and more intense, Akira's powers grow stronger until he can no longer control them, leading to the explosion which wiped out a large portion of Japan and initiated world war III. 

As the viewer you experience the effects the destruction of Tokyo had on the people through the two characters Tetsuo Shima and Shotaro Haneda. The two were greatly effected by the tragedy with little known about their childhood apart from the fact that they both grew up in the same orphanage. They had experienced the harsh reality of life at a young age and decided together to form a biker gang known as The Capsules. They are both products of their environment and their actions reflect this. 

As well as watching the film I also watch the video which was recommended to be by my Tutor which outlines the importance Akira had on the Japanese Anime world. 

Akira was the product of the collaboration between 7 major studios in Japan. The film was highly anticipated and had the highest budget spent on a Japanese animation at the time. Its high budget allowed for the highest quality of animations (comparable to Disney's works), with some scenes containing as much as 24 drawings a second. The quality surpassed anything produced by Japan at the time and has even allowed Akira to stand against animated films today. 

The level of detail per shot is astounding, having almost everything on the screen do something in order to convey the personality of the world. This helps to make the world feel alive 

By watching the video it allowed me to delve deeper to understand the reason why certain parts of Akira's world are the way they are. Akira stands out against the wests idea of technology at the time, with the west believing that technology is there to help to protect humanity from disaster. However Japans views are that technology is the direct cause of such destruction. It can be suggested that this is a result of the Hiroshima incident, which severely effected Japan and Akira uses similar imagery in order to convey this.

The film uses strong dystopian imagery as a way of presenting the characters backstories, rather than just telling the viewer. This creates a more compelling story as you are able to see why characters make the decisions they make when seeing the environment that surrounds them. The film also uses a combination of traditional Japanese instruments coupled with 80's future synths in order to create a futuristic sound to something which still remains similar.

Due to Akira's success worldwide the company Manga Entertainment was formed, whose goal was to distribute anime to a western audience. This makes Akira responsible for many future releases which have shaped the anime genre even today. 

My main criticism of the film was at some points I struggled to follow certain plot points as it felt like I was being bombarded with information which never really got the chance to be explored further in greater depth. While this did not effect my overall enjoyment of the film, it made the pacing feel off for certain sections. From the video I learned that this reason is due to the film adapting 6 manga volumes which would have been a lot of information to explore in the 2 hr time limit. As well as this the manga was still being written while the anime was being created. For this reason the director and author of the book, Katsuhiro Otomo, decided to use the first and last volumes in order to make up the first and last acts of the film and then used an amalgamation of information which spanned the remaining volumes. This left concepts which weren't able to be explored to the extent of what is seen in the manga, however most of the information is in the film if you seek it out. 

Overall I love Akira's take on the cyberpunk genre which uses Japans harsh history in order to construct a story which deals with a culture loosing its identity. The inclusion of super powers allows the character, Tetsuo Shima, to gain control at a time in his life when he feels he has none. His cations then reflect that of someone who wants to be recognised for his existence. The themes in Akira paint a narrative which is strikingly honest in its approach to the destruction of the world and uses its character in order to develop this idea further. It was intersting to see the faction which formed in order for people to deal with the state of the world they live in. I want to look into this concept further when developing my own world. I can also use the manga as influence when drawing concepts for my world.