Movie Debate #14: Akira

[Reed Rothchild | 10,065]

 

[TDIRunner | 2,998]

Haven't seen it.  

Not my thing.  

[Gloves | 12,574]

[ICrappedMyPants | 302]

5/10

It’a okay, but it definitely goes off the rails towards the end. There are much better anime movies out there. The scope of it was impressive, especially considering its age.

[RH | 5,413]

I saw it in high school and remember liking it. I think this is intro to anime for most people. I liked it back then and may like alright now, but I can't even recall what it was about. I gave it a 6. I think that's fair guess considering my non-recollection.

[fox | 1,834]

Student protestors clashing with police. Corrupt ineffective politicians being outed from office. Religious fanatics claiming the rapture is coming to save us. Commercialism and crime running amok. All while the threat of nuclear destruction looms. I’m glad the 2019 in the funny cartoon show Akira was nothing like the actual 2019.

The groundbreaking classic of Japanimation, Akira still holds up today. It is a classic sci fi story which tells of what happens when our technological aspiration reaches beyond our moral and spiritual capacity. The animation and artistry on display still wows and is full of action. It is set atop the wonderfully detailed cyberpunk dystopia of Neo-Tokyo. The mystery of Akira, is full of intense violence and mature philosophical themes the likes of which have rarely been as fully realized here either before or since. 

Wait the 2020 Olympics will be held in Tokyo, Japan? Oh dear. Somebody better make sure Akira is still locked up tight in the stadium’s basement.

[m308gunner | 352]

Also watched during highschool. Loved the "Ultima" style explosion. Wanted more. Didn't quite get that, but can't complain much about what I did get. Kept me hooked on anime through college, then dropped it hard and never looked back (though Iria Zeiram the Animation is still the bomb ).

[Jfreakofkorn | 341]

Wish they had a foto list of anime movies of the 80s 

[DarkTone | 1,039]

7/10.

[RH | 5,413]

Was it Mr. Mark who owned the 3-4 only known GB protos for this game?  Someone needs to dump those, and someone else needs to finish what that devhaus started.

[T-Pac | 8,443]

I saw Akira for the first time when I was in high school, and while I haven't revisited it in years, it blew my mind at the time. It's hard to pinpoint just what made it so enticing, but I literally thought about that movie every day for a few months after seeing it. I even started reading the original comic books, but never finished because they couldn't pull me in the way the film did. 

Now I need to re-watch Akira to see if it still holds up against my teenage standards.

-CasualCart

[RH | 5,413]

Interesting.  If anyone wants to watch this, it's on Hulu, but only if you have a subscription, which I assume many of you might have.

[Br81zad | 630]

It's probably been 4 or 5 years since my first viewing of it. It was intriguing until about midway through. The little whiny sidekick guy really got on my nerves the whole movie, and the 3rd act REALLY lost me. Not my cup of tea I guess. 

Animation was neat, story was lacking

[Jfreakofkorn | 341]

From what i know it was one of the last few hand drawn anime s . Everything now from what i understand is drawn on tbe computer . 

[Skorp | 387]

Okay, I'm watching this tonight.

[MachineCode | 159]

24 minutes ago, Jfreakofkorn said:

From what i know it was one of the last few hand drawn anime s . Everything now from what i understand is drawn on tbe computer . 

This came out in 88 so things were hand drawn for quite a while afterwards. You are right that nowadays your are hard pressed to find anything hand drawn. On of the big draws (pun intended) for Akira's animation was that it was actually done at a full 24 fps vs being done on 2s like many other cartoons or even on 3s for some lower budget faire.

[NEET.dreams | 49]

23 hours ago, ICrappedMyPants said:

5/10

It’a okay, but it definitely goes off the rails towards the end. There are much better anime movies out there. The scope of it was impressive, especially considering its age.

All the best movies go off the rails at the end. 10/10

[JamesRobot | 6,256]

10 Genre Defining

I have a warm amber colored recollection of seeing a spot on Entertainment Tonight in the 80s about this new visually arresting but "ultra violent" animated movie from overseas and they showed an utterly all too brief sequence of light trailing motorcycles tearing up the streets.  I knew I would never get to see this elusive masterpiece since it came all the way from Japan and there would be no way my parents would let me watch an "ultra violent" cartoon even if it made it to a farm town in the midwest.  I didn't even catch the name of the movie.  That was the first and last I had heard of such a thing until my freshman year of high school.

Fast forward six or seven years; I am spending the night at a buddy's house and I come across a Maxwell VHS tape with AKIRA written on the side in red magic marker.  Wtf was this? Was this the long lost movie which I merely caught a fleeting glimpse of in the late 80s that I didn't even know the name of?!  Couldn't be.  Holy. Fuckin. Shit.  So cool and strange and violent in all the right ways. 

I watched it last night because of this thread.  I've read all of the comics.  I was about to listen to the soundtrack today too but my CD is missing.

For the record, the original English dub from '88 is the superior version of the film.

Enjoy.

 

Edited April 25, 2020 by JamesRobot

[RH | 5,413]

Hold on a tic! So, the Olympics were scheduled to be in Neo Tokyo in 2020... and the Olympics were actually scheduled to be on Tokyo in 2020?! My guess is they were going to have a killer opening ceremony referencing the film, considering it would have been a self fulfilling prophecy. We probably would have seen some version of that iconic red bike and other goodness. Very interesting.

[JamesRobot | 6,256]

[Deadeye | 1,604]

The animation is very detailed and super impressive not only for the time, but to this day.  I am hard press to rate it though.  At the time when I saw it, the plot themes were new to me and I enjoyed the film.  Current day, those plot themes have been done over and over now.  However Akira has probably done them better then all of them or least most of them and was more original at the time.  And this why I am hard press to rate it.  Would I be rating as the first time I saw it or in 2020.  I guess I have to take both things into account.  8, since the rating scale is in terms of movies over all and not anime movies specifically. 

[Deadeye | 1,604]

"The Citizen Kane of painful experiences. You'd rather shove an icepick in your retinas than watch this"

LOL

@Reed Rothchild I guess I know how you feel about Citizen Kane.  Kind of feel that way about Metropolis, but I haven't gotten all the way through it.  I'll start is and 15-30 mins in, WTF and I watching. 

[Reed Rothchild | 10,065]

Bump