Today’s animated short is Satoshi Kon’s Ohayo, a little film about waking up. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qYUFBnAmK28&feature=youtu.be

Introduction

Before Katsuhiro Otomo’s original manga Akira had even been finished, the rights had been bought to adapt it. Even when the film was released it was another two years until the manga ended. It took a great deal of effort to put the expensive production together and throughout it all Otomo was adamant about retaining creative control. He had to devise an ending for the film before he’d even figured out how the manga would end, reportedly the ending was inspired by a conversation Otomo had with Alejandro Jodorowsky. Not only did they have to condense over two thousand pages into two hours but also work around the fact that the whole story wasn’t worked out yet. Due to this there are differences between the manga and film, as is the case with all adaptations, yet the film still comes out feeling surprisingly complete.

Anime was, and still is to an extent, known at the time for cutting corners when it comes to animation. Whether it’s just having lips flap on a static face or a character frozen in space with a simple coloured background to show them jumping, some Anime’s really try to save money when it comes to animating things wherever they can. Akira completely defied this expectation with incredibly fluid animation, lots of detail, and pre-recorded dialogue (so that characters are animated to fit the voice). Akira introduced some of the world to anime and just reignited peoples excitement and interest in the medium in general.

Akira is a story told in broad strokes. There are histories, specifics, and lots of world building but for the most part it is about characters lost in something a lot larger than them. Kaneda and Tetsuo are rebellious kids from a tough background and they’re pulled into something that could shape the future of the Universe. Every step of the story just expands on what has come before until the film reaches its legendarily fantastical ending.

Even though the film is quite vague about some of the plot elements and characters I still reject the somewhat-popular idea that it is a film that makes no sense. Sure we might not be told why the psychic children are blue and things like that but I never feel lost as to who is doing what and why. Only the ending seems to be the part to me that could puzzle people but I was quite surprised when last watching the film how explicit it is about what’s happening at the end (I even think the scientist says “He’s creating another Universe” or something along those lines). The central characters are guys who let their emotions drive them; they don’t care about particularities and specifics when their friends are in danger. Akira as a fllm reflects this side of the characters by just barreling on ahead with only really stopping when they do.

As this is animation month the animation is something I should focus on here. Animation allows for a lot of freedom and that gets put to perfect use here. The scale of everything is gargantuan, the fluidity to the animation allows for breathtaking action and even splashes of the surreal, and the aesthetic of the world that has been created is perfect. From the trailing lights of their bikes to the ease that Testuo just tears through people with his mind, the film has created a non-stop barrage of iconic imagery. Geinoh Tamashirogumi’s strange but intoxicating score accompanies all of this and just adds to the sense of grand mystery. There’s a tribal aspect to the music too that kind of acts a reminder that we as a species have not striven too far from our simpler ancestors, that we are not as “fully evolved” as we would like to think. Almost every aspect to the film has a sense of oddness to it and when they all come together it creates this unique epic of psychics, kids, revolution, and the future of reality.

Feature Presentation:

Akira, directed by Katsuhiro Ohtomo, written by Katsuhiro Ohtomo and Ozo Hashimoto.

Featuring the voices of Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Tessho Genda.

A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psionic psychopath that only two kids and a group of psionics can stop.

1988, IMDb

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Legacy

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Akira is often attributed with basically reigniting more-than-niche interest in anime. It also showed that big-budget, mature, fluidly animated films could be a success that opened the doors for guys like the aforementioned Satoshi Kon.

Akira as a film has influenced the likes of The Matrix/Animatrix, Chronicle, Ghost in the Shell, Looper, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, and many more. Something about it just resonates with people a lot and so bits and pieces of it seem to appear here and there.

Ohtomo would go on to direct more films as well as contributing shorts to anthologies or what-have-you but nothing he has made since Akira has made an impact that comes close to Akira’s.

Next up: The Rescuers Down Under- Saviour mice head to Australia.