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I watched Akira for the first time and I dont get the love for it.
- Thread starter Hydrus
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darkistheway
Member
I would say keep watching until you get it.The movie also used pre-recorded voices with mouth movements drawn to conform to them rather than the lip-flap animation and post-production recording typically done in Japan.
There is an incredible draftsmanship running through the film. Amazing construction and form and weight. The use of light is stunning.
Nerdwriter has an excellent video called How To Animate Light that analyses Akira in example. Highly recommended viewing.
Might have to watch it about 5 more times. Or better yet, read the book. The book is a much better way ro digest the plot and understand the characters and the art is mind-blowing.
The movie makes so much more sense after reading the manga, it's kind of a cliffnotes take on a very dense story.
I have never read the manga... which I am going to rectify soon.
Kite
Member
This video was posted on gaf a while back: AKIRA: How To Animate Light, I'm not an animator but it makes Akira's animation sound really impressive.
Dominican Power
Member
Why haven't they adapted the manga?
sans_pants
avec_pénis
The story obviously gets better with the manga but I think the movie does an ok job. its intense and moody and epic.you don't get a lot of that, and to top it with that animation and soundtrack its just an experience. would really like to catch this in theater
Rewatch the newer dub, it l actually fleshed out a lot if the translation issues for me. I've seen the movie about three times now. Originally the old dub version when I was a teenager, then the sub a few years after and recently the latest dub.
As another poster said, it suffers from the Blade Runner effect. You had to be there to understand its influence. And like Blade Runner it took a few viewings for me to appreciate its greatness.
Danis Saur
Member
The story is okay, but the art...
You can't just pass on the art. Its amazing, its part of animation history.
You can't just pass on the art. Its amazing, its part of animation history.
CarpeDeezNutz
Member
Vampire Hunter D
Ninja Scroll
Akira
Ghost in the Shell
That's the golden age of Japanamation to me.
Ninja Scroll
Akira
Ghost in the Shell
That's the golden age of Japanamation to me.
The good old days of browsing Blockbuster VHS tapes and flipping through the catalogue ads in the back of EGM.
TWO EPISODES FOR $35, YOU SAY??
Suncoast Video was the place to go by the mid 90s.
afternoon delight
Member
Not even, the film continues to be awesome sauce. Really enjoyable from start to finish.
gutter_trash
Banned
I watched 1 and half times.
1st time, I went WTF is this shit? I didn't understand anything and nothing made any sense.
the half time I tried to give it a 2nd chance, I went.. "okay, that's enough, fuck it"
OP, I don't like Akira either.
1st time, I went WTF is this shit? I didn't understand anything and nothing made any sense.
the half time I tried to give it a 2nd chance, I went.. "okay, that's enough, fuck it"
OP, I don't like Akira either.
cosmicspooks
Member
I absolutely adore the manga,and there's no denying from a production standpoint that the film is insanely strong, but I do think the movie is just solid. Not amazing or untouchable, just good. And I can for sure see why people might not like it at all,from the look and especially the plotting.
But! Come on, you can't hate on the soundtrack. That's a sin. The Akira OST is on another plane.
But! Come on, you can't hate on the soundtrack. That's a sin. The Akira OST is on another plane.
Gentleman Jack
Member
You'll find that people who love the film will often also not want Hollywood to remake it because movies like Akira don't get made anymore without serious compromises across the board. As to precisely what makes Akira's animation so revolutionary:
It's animated 'on ones' which means 24 distinct drawings for 1 second of film. This is extremely labor intensive and expensive, but it gives every action shot a real weight to it.
And while the camera is often held still to let you appreciate the movement of the background, characters and props, they're also perfectly willing to move the camera around a complicated action shot, meaning everything in the shot is changing each frame, while keeping the lines of motion, shot composition, perspective, secondary animation loops and negative space razor sharp throughout. I need to emphasize how rare this is.
Even if you don't like the stylization of the humans (the lip movement in particular threw me the first time I watched the dub) there's plenty of good writing going on
This very short cut tells you just about everything you need to know about the relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo, and it's almost entirely done by the animation itself. The plot itself is laced with a lot of pseudoscience babble and I can respect those who felt it got a little precious with the explanations from the doctor, but I don't think it really overshadows Tetsuo's tragic downfall or Kaneda's hunt for revenge. The political upheaval and threat of the apocalypse are all background to a rather personal tale between two old friends and that's really the part of Akira's story I connect with.
It's not a perfect movie, but the consensus is that it's a masterpiece for a lot of good reasons. There's intensity and passion behind every single frame of film, the soundtrack is incredible, the action is stunning, the moments of psychedelic horror still cause me to recoil. It's not only that they don't make animated features like this anymore, they seldom make action or sci fi movies like this anymore.
I started to watch it the other day, for about 15 mins, seemed okay, gonna go back to it, reading up about it there seems to 2 different english dubs, and the newest english dub seems to be worse than the original, some people in this read have even mentioned the dub, but also read that the manga is better, also mentioned several times here.
I wonder if you saw it with the newer dub that doesnt make sense?
I wonder if you saw it with the newer dub that doesnt make sense?
Kabuki Waq
Member
It's a complete nostalgia thing. New dub may be a bit better. Old Dub had Leonardo from tmnt in it tho.
TheChuggernaut
Banned
It's a fucking gorgeous film and I'm pretty sure most of the praise comes from that. The characters aren't great, but Kaneda and Tetsuo are super influential regardless. Naruto and Sasuke are pretty much a straight rip off of them. The plot is a bit of a mess, and the manga blows the film out of the water in that regard.
SolVanderlyn
Thanos acquires the fully powered Infinity Gauntlet in The Avengers: Infinity War, but loses when all the superheroes team up together to stop him.
It was meant to predict the Tokyo Olympics
Mark your calendars and get ready
Mark your calendars and get ready
rackham
Banned
Words like bang that are supposed to be gun shots
The second.
Look everyone, the animation is great! I'm not gonna argue that. Its everything else, and honestly the more important stuff, like the plot and characters that I don't get. That fact that a live adaptation of it is even being considered and tied to someone like freaking Christopher Nolan is whats confusing me. Like I didn't see anything in this movie that made me say " Holy shit! Imagine if Chis Nolan remade this movie!". Like the movie was just OK. Take away the awesome animation, and theirs not much there.
I've seen both dubs.
New dub is far superior. Better performances, much better translation. Some people prefer the original dub for nostalgia but it's pretty terrible and at times nonsensical.
Of course, the subtitled version is the best way to go.
The manga is a far better story and is a monumental artistic accomplishment in itself. Of course, the author can't complain about the film's adaptation since he directed the movie, too.
It's just not a book that works as a feature film.
An HBO TV series would be the way to do it.
This group shot is an animation marvel:
What a herculean task.
Gentleman Jack
Member
This doesn't make any sense.
Have you seen Inception? It's not hard to imagine the cool things that Nolan might do with some of the more weird, tripped out psychokinesis sequences. I don't really think the story is suitable for a live-action adaptation, at least not without being significantly more grounded and re-imagined (much like Nolan did for Batman).
30yearsofhurt
Member
It blew our minds in the 80s.
The CGI mutations would look so terrible...
There is something about Neo Tokyo that gives it this scale and density that I just don't think would translate to live action.
Your animated movie is nothing without the animated stuff. It's just sound and stuff!
The first time I watched the movie, I was 13 years old and couldn't even begin to understan what I just saw. I chalked the film up to just straight garbage that was over hyped.
Years later I started investigating and learning why the movie was so famous in the first place. Once I got my head around it - I went into the film with a new appreciation. As a pure entertainment blockbuster, it does nothing for me, but as a relevant piece of history that has some incredible and complex ideas - I love it.
Years later I started investigating and learning why the movie was so famous in the first place. Once I got my head around it - I went into the film with a new appreciation. As a pure entertainment blockbuster, it does nothing for me, but as a relevant piece of history that has some incredible and complex ideas - I love it.
nekkid
It doesn't matter who we are, what matters is our plan.
lol no
sans_pants
avec_pénis
pass on nolan he wouldnt do the action justice
30yearsofhurt
Member
These same people are fans of the Prequel trilogy no doubt.
manzoman96
Member
It definitely got better for me with repeated viewings. 1st time I saw it I was more confused than anything but after a few times I really got in. The animation in it is some of the best of all time.
Also you're 100% wrong about the soundtrack it's amazing
Also you're 100% wrong about the soundtrack it's amazing
Jack The Nipper
Banned
Did you happen to vote republican?
If you don't like the music then you're hopeless. The score is a stand-alone work of genius.
Bjoern the Smexy
Member
I don't know, the manga was way more confusing for me than the anime. That said they both have different stories anyway with only the major plot points being the same, since the anime was made at a time where the manga was still far from finished.
The titular character not making an actual appearance should be the biggest giveaway for this.
I like both the anime and manga very much. The anime is one of those few movies I'd give 100/100 points every damn time.
The manga, despite being quite confusing for me, still is one of the best I've read.
What doesn't make sense? Everyone in this thread is gushing about the animation, which I've already said is great, but theirs nothing else in this movie that makes me think its a great movie. The plot was hard to follow and wasn't really clear. The characters were bad. The movie did nothing to make me care about any of them. In fact, it did almost nothing to give these characters backgrounds until the end of the film, where they cram a bunch of past events. I didn't even know there was a 2000 page manga until people brought it up in this thread. I've been hearing praise about this movie for years and finally decided to watch it and when it's all said and done, I thought it was OK, but not one of the greatest anime films ever/ Christopher Nolan live action dream project.
TheChuggernaut
Banned
You don't see how the director of Inception directing something like Akira would be something that people would want to see? There's a reason why a movie like Doctor Strange was so positively received despite not having the strongest characters or plot.
It's funny, but given all the posts about not getting the narrative I've always found Akira to be uncomplicated, straightforward and, save a couple of scenes where the Colonel and mad professor ruminate on the ethics of the science & power they're fooling around with, refreshingly free of the rubbish that passes for philosophical discussion in most anime (e.g. Evangelion & GitS). IMO obviously.
OP is SO wrong about the OST though. It's an amazing fusion of Japanese opera styling, contemporary classical composition & of-its-era electronica.
OP is SO wrong about the OST though. It's an amazing fusion of Japanese opera styling, contemporary classical composition & of-its-era electronica.
The plot probably does suffer from being basically only half the manga's story, if that, but visually the movie is an absolute landmark. It still looks incredible today, and looked absolutely mindblowing in 1988. Maybe we've crossed a point where it doesn't look that immediately shocking to anyone who sees it for the first time today, but in the 80's and 90's most people in the west just didn't see anything like it.
And yes, it was one of the main initial ambassadors of anime to the west, but it was a hell of an ambassador compared to what western animation was doing at the time. Even the plot, as truncated as it is, felt engrossing to someone who had only seen western animation in the 80's and 90's.
And yes, it was one of the main initial ambassadors of anime to the west, but it was a hell of an ambassador compared to what western animation was doing at the time. Even the plot, as truncated as it is, felt engrossing to someone who had only seen western animation in the 80's and 90's.
The political/social situation in Neo-Tokyo always seemed kind of unclear to me, though I haven't seen the movie in a long long time. The ending was also something of a head scratcher. Testuo gets to Akira, and I guess through their shared pain Akira convinces him not to nuke the city?
This right here
I get to an extent the cheap throwaway reductionism to "DUN DUN DUN" but the OST is so much more than the main beats - and even they contextually fit far better in the movie.
It was a wonderous experience when i saw it around 1992, and that's even with me agreeing the characters aren't all that.
I think the years of science fiction cinema we've had over the almost three decades since its release has dulled its impact somewhat, equally namely because you can see Akiras own fingerprints all over a tonne of it
Why wasn't there much production value put into the drawing and animation of women?
Oppressive & corrupt government vs. the people really.
There's a big scene where the Colonel makes a statement about how the joy of reconstruction had given way to decadence & rot - someone more familiar with Japan of the time period the manga was written would be better placed to know if this was a comment about conservative thinking in Japan at the time.
The end I always thought was Tetsuo calming down because Akira completely overpowered him and yeah, the whole shared pain thing.
You sure that's all?
I'm pretty sure that's a movie a lot of people first saw when they were way too young to have any business watching it.
Gentleman Jack
Member
For starters it's not the measure of a great movie that it gets remade by anybody in whatever fantasy land the Nolan wank comes from.
I don't get the 'plot was hard to follow' gripe even a little bit, if only because all you've done is repeat that line over and over again as if that clarified things. It's a story about two friends, jealousy, revenge and a rotten society that has fallen apart in spite of its monumental technological progress, torn between a military that feels it has no choice but to suppress its population and a fanatical cult desperate to believe in the leadership of an arrogant, unready god. I conceded that the technobabble (particularly in the dub) is an unfun wall to climb but its impact is limited, and the rather abstract climax is an act of sacrifice from Tetsuo who, at the moment it starts falling apart for him while a true biotechnical god unmakes him, uses the last of his power to share with his old friend the roots of his bitterness as a boy constantly living in the shadow of a big brother he looked up to but torn by the demons of his inferiority complex. If any of that felt unclear then I can't help but feel you weren't paying attention to the movie, or were watching the Streamline dub, or something external to the film caused it to just fly over your head. The character arcs and story telling are there.
You opened the thread by saying you don't get the love for it. Multiple posters have told you why they loved the movie, sometimes in great detail. And you want to provide some kind of rebuttal to that by reducing the movie with silliness like 'take away the animation and what's left,' mang I'm telling you the animation is a masterwork of storytelling and action choreography, you can't pretend it's not there and an essential part of the film's appeal while claiming how mystified you are about the love this movie gets. If it didn't do anything for you then obviously the movie isn't for you and that there's a bunch of other unnamed animated films you like better. Oh well.
I think it's entirely unclear what is going on with the rebel/terrorist group that Kay is a part of. What are their goals and what are they opposing?
Lady Miyako's role in Neo-Tokyo is also unclear, though apparently that was a major manga character that got reduced to a bit part in the film.
DUN DUN DUN (Doll's Polyphony)
Kaneda's Theme
DUN DUN DUN indeed...
Does it need to be clear? We don't really need to know what their goals are. From the film we can deduce that they are aware of the Children and whatever the Akira project is, and that they see some form of utility in freeing the children from what they (the 'rebels') view as lab-rat captivity. So we have what they're opposing (the Program) and at least a subset of their goals (free the teeks).
Yeah, there's a whole new age/millenialism/death cult subtext in the manga with Miyako which is reduced to a cameo n the movie where she's used as local colour - although it's pretty clear she's the figurehead of a cult of some description - again, I'm not familiar enough with mid-late 80s Japan to know if millennial death-cults were a notable social issue at the time, but that single scene in the movie conveys enough given the context of the rest of the story to know this isn't a happy-clapper deal.
Kaneda's Theme
DUN DUN DUN indeed...
Does it need to be clear? We don't really need to know what their goals are. From the film we can deduce that they are aware of the Children and whatever the Akira project is, and that they see some form of utility in freeing the children from what they (the 'rebels') view as lab-rat captivity. So we have what they're opposing (the Program) and at least a subset of their goals (free the teeks).
Yeah, there's a whole new age/millenialism/death cult subtext in the manga with Miyako which is reduced to a cameo n the movie where she's used as local colour - although it's pretty clear she's the figurehead of a cult of some description - again, I'm not familiar enough with mid-late 80s Japan to know if millennial death-cults were a notable social issue at the time, but that single scene in the movie conveys enough given the context of the rest of the story to know this isn't a happy-clapper deal.
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