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I watched Akira for the first time and I dont get the love for it.

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F

Figboy79

Aftershock LA
The manga is infinitely better than the movie, but the movie feels like an awesome animated companion piece to the manga. It's still one of my favorite animated movies of all time.

The animation is still fantastic, I love how the characters are drawn, because they actually look like stylized Japanese people, and very different from the "usual" way anime characters are drawn. Katsuhiro Otomo is one of my favorite artists, and I think his style is amazing. Read the manga. I can't recommend it enough. It has so much more characterization, depth, plot, and interactions that were completely absent from the movie, which makes it feel kind of disjointed. I saw the movie before I read the manga, but I was still blown away. Granted, I was in high school back in the 90's when I first saw it, but I think it still holds up. It was ground-breaking at the time, but it's still a damn good movie today.

If it's not for you, it's not for you, but saying, "I don't get the appeal" isn't going to open the door for non-heated discussion. I don't like Overwatch or the Gears of War games, but I get why people dig them and love them. But again, read the manga, it's like 1,000+ pages and has excellent world building, art, and the narrative is so much more coherent and better plotted than the movie.
 
J

jman2050

Member
It's an absolute monster in terms of production values and animation quality, one of the hallmarks of hand-drawn animation especially considering when it was made.

As a story it's a pretty middling adaptation but it's not horrible so I think it's still well worth watching.
 
Ü

Übersandvich

Member
I'll parrot what the others have said: The animation and art direction are what sets it apart and made it stick in so many peoples' minds. I would recommend reading the first volume of the manga: the action, pacing and art are incredible, you can see that Naruto took a lot of influence from it (which the Kishimoto brothers admit to). However, I do have to say both the manga and film suffer from too much action and not enough breathing time, with the film suffering a bit more.
 
J

Jaeger

Member
blakep267 said:
Great production values, cool aesthetic but as a. Movie it's garbage. And I know it was chopped up and condensed from the manga. But that doesn't excuse it from being a mess
Click to expand...

There is that weird meter kids are using these days. If it isn't a "masterpiece" (which most consider it is despite it's flaws) it's garbage! negative 10 out of 10.
 
K

kswiston

Member
Lord of Ostia said:
Not in comparison to Akira's adaptation. Personally I prefer manga to anime adaptations in most cases, but Nausicaa's is well done.
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Akira and Nausicaa both suffer from being adaptations of the beginning part of a much bigger story that took years to wrap up after the creation of the films. Instead of leaving the films as part 1 of a larger series, they truncated the main narrative and tacked on an ending.
 
T

TheGameshark

Member
It's definitely a film where the other elements are way stronger than the actual story so I agree with you on the plot being weak. They wanted to cram so much into a 2 hour film that you lose a lot of the other plot elements or they simply don't explain enough. The anti government stuff in particular lacked a lot of context. The manga is definitely way better than the film, not to mention there's a whole other half to the story. Can't agree at all with you Otomo's art style, it's one of the best. The soundtrack is also awesome.
 
M

MadeULook

Member
The soundtrack to Akira is bad!? Sorry OP, we will never get along in the future.

While I agree the plot is pretty convoluted and confusing, everything else about Akira is absolutely amazing 30 years later. The movie is an absolute feast for any animation nerd. Neo Tokyo itself is such an amazing setting and memorable all on it's own.

I suggest the manga. The story is much better and has some ridiculously great artwork.
 
H

HappyBivouac

Member
I don't think there's ever been a film with a soundtrack more successful at setting a surreal, but grand and impactful tone. Back in high school I'd lie down outside under the stars and listen to the soundtrack, getting absorbed in its weird, otherworldly atmosphere. The sonic experience of that was as good as the movie itself to me.

If you don't like the Akira soundtrack, then you don't like things that are good or interesting.
 
K

Kyuur

Member
It's not "the best ever" but nothing lauded as that ever really is. I can't agree that anything about it was bad though, having only watched it for the first time a year or two ago. It was good or average at worst.
 
J

JonnyDBrit

Member
A lot of reasons as to why the film is so beloved have already been stated, but I'd like to throw in another factor that's often important in such things:
The time in which it came out.

Akira hit theatres in Japan in 1988. While late 80s anime was certainly a step up from the prior decade, its production values - not great - were still pretty obvious. If you want a point of reference, the same year that the film came out, Goku was fighting King Piccolo. So even in the country of its origin, Akira - along with My Neighbour Totoro and Grave of the Fireflies that came out the same year - was such a massive leap in visual fidelity from what was on TV that it drew in massive attention towards itself.

Outside of Japan, particularly in North America, you have that and the fact anime that wasn't completely recut to pretend it's another product altogether was uncommon. Even when the anime boom did kick off in the subsequent decade, the options that quickly became mainstream - Dragonball Z, Sailor Moon, Pokémon, so forth - were also options that could be made to contrast against Akira if someone wanted to show a friend how 'serious' anime could get, both in terms of production and story. Thus its reputation was sustained on incredible word of mouth, to the point that even today you have to at least heard of Akira and know its most famous visual scenes to be taken seriously within hardcore communities, even if you've never watched it in full length.
 
F

Fancyarcher

Member
Visually it's absolutely striking. Also while it may have butchered the original anime, it's still a pretty interesting story overall.

Also while the soundtrack isn't very listenable on its own, it certainly helps to create mood.
 
K

Kvik

Member
As if everyone hasn't had enough evangelizing the manga, I'll have to do my part as well.

51Y83GZ34yL.jpg


There's a 35-year anniversary boxset coming out towards the end of the year, all in hardcover, not published by Dark Horse, but by Kodansha USA. What's special in this edition is that it reads right-to-left, with original Japanese onomatopoeia. Also includes the Akira Club artbook.

What if you complain that the Akira in the Anime isn't well fleshed-out? Well, that's because the manga isn't anywhere near finished when the movie came out. This collection will rectify all that.
 
J

jacob armitage

Banned
Keeping in mind it had an international theatrical release and judge it to its peers and its fucking mind-blowing. It still holds up incredible well in my opinion, and that soundtrack gives it a very unique vibe and energy.
 
S

Shadybiz

Member
Yeah I agree. A friend showed me this movie back in the late 90's. I really didn't get the love for it, even back then.
 
C

CarpeDeezNutz

Member
I gotta say yeah you had to be there, I did not even know they made violent, crazy cartoons until I saw the news station talk about Akira. I went and bought a VHS copy and was blown away. I stopped watching anime when I graduated from high school.

What's with those pillows man?!
 
A

akira28

Member
if you get a chance to see it in HD...it looks amazing even today.

But yeah the comics were more of a filling story, and I had been reading those before I saw the japanimation when they finally released it in the US.
 
T

Triteon

Member
I can take or leave the plot, but it drips with STYLE.

And sometimes (well actually, a lot of times) that's enough for me.
 
C

CadetMahoney

Member
The only anime from 80's/90's I think I could re-watch is Ninja Scroll/Bebop.

Akira is great from a technical standpoint for it's time. Even then I didn't think the story was all that.
 
H

Hero Prinny

Member
CarpeDeezNutz said:
I gotta say yeah you had to be there, I did not even know they made violent, crazy cartoons until I saw the news station talk about Akira. I went and bought a VHS copy and was blown away. I stopped watching anime when I graduated from high school.

What's with those pillows man?!
Click to expand...

570.gif


i actually like anime
 
G

Goldboy

Member
I didn't love it until I read the manga. The manga is over 2,000 pages long so there was no way to fit all of it into a two-hour movie. The animation and art style are still excellent though. The movie is worth watching for that alone IMO.
 
J

Jaeger

Member
Just take a second out of you and now, and look at what that film would have done for that time. Pre 1990 United States had no clue what anime was at large. Let alone the best looking animated films were not serious, violent adult themed films.

Yea, I'm sure now you aren't wowed with all your Death Notes, FMA's, and Toonami/Adult Swim regular TV programming. But then, it was ALF and the Wonder Years.
 
H

Hero

Member
Animation blew my mind when I was a kid but I didn't really get the plot too much and the ending is still like a blur.
 
T

TheGameshark

Member
Kvik said:
As if everyone hasn't had enough evangelizing the manga, I'll have to do my part as well.

51Y83GZ34yL.jpg


There's a 35-year anniversary boxset coming out towards the end of the year, all in hardcover, not published by Dark Horse, but by Kodansha USA. What's special in this edition is that it reads right-to-left, with original Japanese onomatopoeia. Also includes the Akira Club artbook.

What if you complain that the Akira in the Anime isn't well fleshed-out? Well, that's because the manga isn't anywhere near finished when the movie came out. This collection will rectify all that.
Click to expand...
I'll definitely have to pick this up. I read the series online but I've wanted the physical set for a while. Don't at all care for the prices they're charging for what are essetionally paperback books so it'll be good to have them in a hardcover format.
 
N

noquarter

Member
I like it because it is one of the first Animes I ever saw, on SciFi back in the day. They played this and Vampire Hunter D pretty regularly and that got me to look for other anime.

The story isn't that great in the movie, but the Manga is actually pretty good.
nickgia said:
I feel the same with Princess Mononoke.
Click to expand...
Think this is one of my favorite animes. Story is actually pretty good in this one and you can pretty much watch it without sound and understand it. Music is good and the original English VA is pretty good.
 
M

mcrommert

Banned
noquarter said:
I like it because it is one of the first Animes I ever saw, on SciFi back in the day. They played this and Vampire Hunter D pretty regularly and that got me to look for other anime.

The story isn't that great in the movie, but the Manga is actually pretty good.

Think this is one of my favorite animes. Story is actually pretty good in this one and you can pretty much watch it without sound and understand it. Music is good and the original English VA is pretty good.
Click to expand...

Yep... Except Billy Bob
 
T

tomwhite2004

Member
Another thing to consider is that (at least in the uk) films like Akira and Ninja Scroll were some of the first modern japanese animation to be brought over and their style made a huge impact. Its very easy to forget just how much of a watershed these films were for western audiences.
Stuff like Ghibli were not widely available for another decade until DVD came along. Akira was truly exotic and novel and paved the way for much of what we take for granted being available in games, comics and film.
 
S

shawnbuddy

Member
I feel like a lot of the love is from it being one of Westerners earliest exposures to anime that wasn't he cheap-looking TV stuff like Speed Racer or a Battle of the Planets. It was visually interesting, even if the story is nonsensical and the hero is an arrogant gang leader with a big pill on the back of his jacket.
 
B

boneyjangles

Member
Look and design is still iconic. Soundtrack is very memorable and effective.

Story and flow is confusing but has some great scenes.

Definitively in my top 20.
 
Kite

Kite

Member
It's ok OP, I kinds feel the same about the first Ghost in the Shell movie. Drop dead gorgeous animation but I have no desire to watch it again. The TV series on the other hand... Also you can't deny how influential the Akira and GitS movies are.
 
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Tertullian

Member
The art isn't nice, it's breathtaking. Plus Akira is one of the very few anime movies to be animated entirely "on ones," meaning there is a separate drawing for every single frame, 24 drawings per second. This gives the movie a fluidity virtually un-heard-of in anime, while still retaining the complex shading often found in older anime. Your problem with the faces sounds like a 21st century prejudice; the faces are great, very expressive and fitting for the characters. And there are a lot of sequences in the movie that are just stunning; the part where the espers project visions of giant, monstrous childhood toys on Tetsuo comes to mind.

And what really gets me, as someone else on the internet put it, is the operatic grandeur and gotterdammerung feeling of the whole thing. It really feels like a universe that's willing to completely tear itself apart. When I watch, say, a Marvel cinematic universe movie, even if it's really good, you know they're not gonna blow up the earth or kill off all their characters. But with Akira, you really feel like Tetsuo or Akira might rip apart the whole world and transform it into something entirely and terrifyingly new.

Now the plot... the plot is a mess. No disputing that.
 
L

Last_colossi

Member
nickgia said:
I feel the same with Princess Mononoke.
Click to expand...


I have always appreciated the animation in Akira simply because of the fact that it was all hand drawn and every backdrop was painstakingly hand painted so I will always respect it for that, the story however IMO is trash and has always been trash but that's just because it doesn't appeal to me.

But hating Princess Mononoke...

get-out.gif


If you haven't seen Sprited Away, Castle in the Sky or Arrietty (UK version) then drop everything, go watch them and then you'll probably come back with a better appreciation for anime.
 
Kite

Kite

Member
Xe4 said:
You guys wut?
Mononoke is like my favorite movie ever (at least in the top 2). I cannot understand how someone does not like it.
Click to expand...
I understand, among the Ghibli movies some are imo fun and easy to rewatch like Kiki's Delivery Service, Porco Rossi, Laputa, and Spirited Away. Others.. I appreciate em but I'll probably never watch again like Naussica,Grave of the Fireflies, P Mononoke.
 
C

Christine

Member
People keep saying that the animation is great, but there hasn't been much explication of why it is great, so I'll give it a stab.

The greatest thing about Akira's animation is how well it conveys a sense of physical tangibility for objects in its world. Nothing is flat, everything has volume and a space that it occupies and a real sense of weight and mass. This smoothly ramps up from the fist fights at the beginning all the way to the climactic shoving building sized stuff around with telekinesis at the end. It provides an essential foundation for the verisimilitude of the psychic powers, you can see and almost feel the runaway growth of Tetsuo's ability.
 
T

Tertullian

Member
Kvik said:
As if everyone hasn't had enough evangelizing the manga, I'll have to do my part as well.

51Y83GZ34yL.jpg


There's a 35-year anniversary boxset coming out towards the end of the year, all in hardcover, not published by Dark Horse, but by Kodansha USA. What's special in this edition is that it reads right-to-left, with original Japanese onomatopoeia. Also includes the Akira Club artbook.

What if you complain that the Akira in the Anime isn't well fleshed-out? Well, that's because the manga isn't anywhere near finished when the movie came out. This collection will rectify all that.
Click to expand...

Oh, I'm gonna need to find $135 somewhere...

But what does "original Japanese onomatopoeia" mean?
 
G

gfxtwin

Member
Akira's story never connected with me and TBH there are times when the animation felt profoundly disturbing and I'm not sure it was always intended to evoke that response.

TBH Steamboy is better, especially since it's more successful at telling a straightforward action movie natrrative than Akira's attempt at a more ambitious one, and the animation quality is even more impressive.
 
G

guek

Banned
gfxtwin said:
TBH there are times when the animation felt profoundly disturbing and I'm not sure it was always intended to evoke that response.
Click to expand...
Unless you're talking about not liking the art style for faces, I'm pretty sure disturbing you was the intended response.
 
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