AKIRA (1988) Retrospective / Review 

Oliver Harper awesome! Made some AMVs in honor of the film.

Hi I have this on the Blu-Ray and... Thanks for Recommending it and I might do a Review of it someday.

se nota que no sabes una mierda , primero mira la pelicula de macross de 1983-1984 y despues de sacarte el culo de las peliculas de disney habla y si no entendes traduci este comentario

@TheNewyorkdragon Watching this movie on acid would freak me the F out. LOL I hope you had a friend with you. :)

That's Cool

Good to see another Stand Alone Complex enthusiast here. Hoping Oliver delivers a Ghost in the Shell retrospective soon.

That projectionist is a godsend

which is true lol

I absolutely remember that!!!! EPIC!!!!

I love both Blade Runner and Akira. I recommend viewing the documentary "Dangerous Days" to appreciate the challenges the makers face while making Blade Runner.

I remember that one! That's also when anime was becoming mainstream at the time.

@@guitargodthor2b😊k h

This was the first anime I ever saw an I caught it on late night cable in like 92 at four years old. I never forgot the moment tetsuos gf got squished. That part still gets to me today.

Thanks Paul!

Oliver Harper You deserve it man.

***** spoiled some scenes, not the plot

I used the audio from the opening for a trailer I did for The Island.

I made a Justice Genesis AMV with the bike chase scene, check it out if curious.

KANEEEEDAAAA!!!!!

+Facundo Brouwer (Xanork) stfu

SAAASSUUUUKEEE!!! Oops...wrong show

ATHRUUUUNNN!!! KIRAAAAAAAA!!!

Kai!? KANEDAAAAA!!! TETSUO! K... Kira... Sasuke? Legend has it that Japanese people can fully communicate by just calling eachother's names in different tones.

+TheYorkMan As in, "Castle in the Sky"? I've always been more impressed by "Spirited Away"

Watch it on weed edibles with some high-end audio.

@green lantern that says more about you than about the movie.

come at me brah.

Actually, they are remaking it. For realsies now. The same guy that directed Thor: Ragnarok has accepted the role of director, and plans to keep the Japanese nationality.

Micah Mcgaffin youre dumb

right! it's kaa-nee-daa, you fools!

ORDOTRIO TETSUOOOOOOOO

He`s actually called by his last name, his full name is Shotaro Kaneda. I don`t know why they chose to refer Tetsuo Shima by his first name and Shotaro Kaneda by his last name.

Don't worry, I've been enjoying these reviews for a couple of weeks now, and I have noticed he says "pacifically" "nukeular" and many more mangled words, constantly... My biggest gripe with this particular one is when he says you will be "literally blown away" as I don't recall an epic gust of wind sucking me out the window and taking me to another place when I first watched this movie! How did he even survive to do this review if he was literally blown away?? How did he even finish the movie??? Maybe I'm being a little hyperbolic, but really I don't know how the Brits can manage butcher their own language so much worse than us convict Aussies! XD

Very well spoken. Couldn't agree more. I watched Akira in the exact same way, myself. Still have the Limited Edition Steel Box when it was first released on DVD that I reserved at Suncoast Video (remember that?!). I didn't know they made a new dub for the DVD release, so when I turned it on I was shocked. Ha ha! The remastered Japanese audio soundtrack in the recent blu ray release is phenomenal though, I must say. And of course, it keeps getting better looking all the time.

Wait, wasn't he Vash the Stampede.

He was a SNAKE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Musab The Loser He's talking about the Streamline Pictures English dub. You refer to the Pioneer English done for the re-release.

Karma Johhny Yong Bosch, as in Artemis from Sailor Moon.

Shows how western distributors thought of AKIRA at the time. They had little to no clue and just thought of it as a "violent cartoon", which explains why they concluded it to be unmarketable, as cartoons were always intended for children. Very limited way of thinking.

"Mimimi everyone who dislikes this movie is stupid."

Toast4tw No. Just unimaginative and dismal.

Anime is not a genre. It is more like a medium. Akira is a landmark anime film, yes, but it is also a landmark cyberpunk film (the genre)

SunBreaker Films I would have to disagree with you. Animation in the round is a medium, surely, not Anime as a specific style or category. What you're saying is like saying spaghetti westerns are a medium in themselves. They're just a style or way of doing the same essential thing, which is film. Anime is just a category or style of animation that originates in Japan. You might as well say that Disney cartoons constitute their own medium, which is absurd.

In retrospect i agree 'medium' is a poor description, and does not reflect what i intended to express. Principally my point was to say pretty much what you have now said; 'anime' is simply a kind of japanese animation as you say. However, i maintain that it is NOT a genre. Akira and Ghost in the shell are sci-fi cyberpunk films. Conversely, Vampire hunter D, and ninja scroll are action adventure, fantasy movies. Yet, all four are 'anime' movies. Its a broader category than genre, which is related to narrative structure, characters, etc. 'Anime' as a category is more to do with the way the movie is actually made and styled, rather than the content of the movie itself. This is what i was attempting to communicate (poorly) in my first comment

and then other people mention crappy crap as responses.... original comment is hella correct. the trinity is akira, ghost and additionally nina scroll. the other crap from that era looks like fucking speed racer and only anime freaks like it.

here is hoping that George Miller changes his mind and decides to direct AKIRA.

Yea, that actually blew my mind how well put together it was. Pretty much professional in my opinion. Especially the shots of the holographic billboard adverts in the beginning. Nether looked better than the ones In Spielberg's A.I., if you know what I'm referencing...

+Brandon Dozier woah, 1st time hearing about this. My god, that would be insane. Perfect choice. I feel like James Cameron could also do it justice, or maybe even Neil Bloomkamp (spelling). District 9 director, you know what mean..

Absolutely. I was also blown away by how well they cast Kaneda and Tetsuo, the facial expressions they pulled were right out of the pages of the manga/frames of the movie. I keep my fingers crossed that something will come of this.

I will never get why we need live action versions. They are as unnecessary as remakes.

And Kei is voiced by the lovely Faye Valentine

Cam Clarke. He's also the voice of Liquid Snake

LiamTheGreat And Max Sterling and Lancer from "Robotech,"

He also voiced Vash from Trigun.

Rockemsockemjetpack And Ichigo from Bleach.

they're not making this movie. they're not.

Alan Moore's Watchmen..yes the legendary graphic novel...as been put on screen in the american market. AKIRA is next and it will be full of CGI and MATRIX action scene.

+Tarkovsky Bresson Hopefully George Miller will change his mind and end up directing the AKIRA Hollywood remake; he is the one person right now that would make a Hollywood AKIRA movie great.

ajossi they're doing it lol

Romano Coombs no the fuck it is not!

+shakaama You just gave me an idea for a video, sir.

Shakaama peep renegade cut if you're still interested

Part of it was that Akira had evolved into something superior; he was pure energy. While in prison the girl explains this. She states how all lifeforms have energy and that humans have more energy than say, amoebas. Humans think and create and have high intelligence. Amoebas only consume things. If you gave the kind of energy a human possess to an amoeba, it would get out of control. All that energy for high intelligence and productivity would be put towards consumption and destruction only. Tetsuo is like that amoeba. What ever happened to him, has given him the energy of a superior being. However, like an amoeba with the energy of a human, he was unable to control it and became destructive. The military was trying to help keep him under control. Someone else also pointed out to me that when Tetsuo transforms he turns into a grotesque baby looking figure. They said that was like him being reborn as a higher being, or at least his body attempting to. So the main aspect was that Akira had evolved past a point of regular humans and that evolution was also destructive. I don't know if there was a 'moral' to the story as far as that is concerned or not, but it was really cool. There is also stuff about human hierarchy, interaction and conflict in there. (Okay thats like the entire thing). Such as: Tetsuo being jealous and angry towards Kaneda; the military overthrowing the democracy because they are slow and ineffective; or the rebels trying to break the test subjects free and fight what they see as an oppressive government, while at the same time they are being used as pawns by a power hungry baron and are actually going to bring about the destruction of the city that the military is trying to prevent. That could be some 'moral' as well, that the colonel who seems to oppress the people and commits a coup d'tat is actually the good guy because he is trying to protect the city through the only ways possible. Okay, I was curious and looked it up. Someone has said that it is about the conflict and morals of dealing with the destructive powers nuclear weapons have given humans. That was just someone else on the internet, but that makes sense. It could even be seen as a theme of how people handle power once they are given it and how others change their behavior towards them. -- Actually that last sentence seems to be best way to describe the entire movie: It is about the dynamics and interactions of people who's relative powers are changing and how they respond to those changes.

Ninja Scroll

Tostigroover Thanks for the awesome feedback mate!. Means a lot! :)

I don't know that I'd say it has no equal so much as it's in that group of top animated films...for example I'd put Ghost in the Shell readily up as an equal to Akira and personally found some other lesser known stuff ("Serial Experiments: Lain" for example) on a comparable level. The big draw on this one is that it kind of carved out a niche for respectable anime as it's often the first, along with stuff like Astro Boy, that people see. It has it's weak points in that, unless you've read the comic, the story can be rather jarringly spotty. Areas the manga spent ages explaining are blown by in a couple seconds. I would be curious to see how it would have been if it had been produced as a series like Lain or Stand Alone Complex to give it a bit more space to flesh out it's story...it wouldn't have had the mass appeal a feature film did (since few western viewers are willing to spend 5 or 6 hours investing into) but it would have been a little better paced I thing.

Andrew, I literally only meant the animation: the actual drawing of this film. No other anime equals Akira's drawings, in my opinion. Sorry if I did not make that as clear as I could have. I love Ghost in the Shell (the Stand Alone Complex-series is my favourite anime series of all time) and I quite liked Lain's story as well, but I really only meant that the quality of Akira's drawings is unsurpassed. I completely agree with the pacing issues in the Akira anime film. If the manga was ever serialized into an animated series with the quality animation the film has, I'd probably cry of joy.

I read the manga six times. Its a magnificent piece of literature. Suck beautiful, magnificent well drawn story. Its the best seinen series of all time.

I must admit, After watching odd bits of the also-epic Legend of the Galactic Heroes ("Space War and Peace", I guess you could vaguely describe it) on RU-vid, I re-saw Akira because it was on in a bar, the framerate is incredible. It almost looks rotoscoped in some scenes.

Christopher Cayco Art Thanks a lot Christopher!.

Thanks Kyle!

Cheers Whitney for your support and feedback!

They have to, otherwise it'll be the biggest missed opportunity in history. I do think the reason Tokyo was voted specifically was because of how important Akira is

Cheers dude!. Oh yes the MANGA trailer was amazing at the start of those VHS tapes!. Always got you pumped before the start of an anime. yes i will be covering more Manga/Anime this year.

Epic - I remember those trailers.I always wondered who did the music on that manga trailer and now,all these many years later,I finally know.

Orlando Martins Thank you very much Orlando!

It's like anything. The good stuff is niche or too new to have its popularity and marketing realized and exploited yet. Look at Star Wars, for example.

Mack Lee cool man! i hope you enjoy revisiting it.

+Kieran Kaye I would love to review more Anime but there are so many 3rd party companies claiming the content. There are French and Italian companies who distribute Anime in their territories and they abuse RU-vid's content ID match system.

what's manta

what's manga

what's manga

what's manga

haha thanks so much man.

I've just saw Akira for the first time but it feels like I have nostalgia for a movie I shouldn't feel nostalgic about.