Viking Night: Akira
By Bruce Hall
September 2, 2014
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Maybe that’s a good description of Akira - good story, better trip. It was the experience, and not the substance of it - that made it so memorable.
So, it was exciting to revisit something like this so many years on. Usually, one of two things happens. I discover it hasn’t aged as well as I’d hoped. I waste an entire afternoon watching a fine actor like David Hasselhoff get blown off the screen by an $8,000 car. Or, I find the passage of time has granted me the ability to see a film with new eyes, and learn to appreciate it for more substantive reasons than I did before. And so it is with Akira, a movie that’s actually less narratively complex than I remember. The shine has definitely worn off, but the one thing that has made it such an affecting film for millions is largely intact. Akira is absolutely crackling with passion and whether you like the film or not, that’s hard to ignore.
The story takes place in a universe where a mysterious explosion destroyed Tokyo in 1988, triggering World War III. Decades later, what remains of Japan is in turmoil. A new city – Neo Tokyo – has sprung up, and it’s a brightly lit, densely crowded, very expensive place to live. Basically, it’s everything that was already wrong with Tokyo - on steroids. Rising taxes and years of government austerity have brought civilization to the breaking point. Plus, it’s been rumored that the war started due to a secret government program that went wrong. Public disorder has caused the military to crack down, which in turn has led to the birth of an armed Resistance. Note to law enforcement - beating the shit out of people does not make them respect you nearly as much it makes them want to set everything on fire.
But not everyone has such lofty concerns. While all this is happening, a pair of ordinary bike gangs is acting out their own version of West Side Story with tire irons and tow chains. The Capsules, led by a surly teen named Kaneda (Mituso Iwata), are at war with a rival gang called the Clowns. During the brawl, Kaneda’s best friend Tetsuo (Nozomu Sasaki) nearly runs down a child named Takashi (Tatsuhiko Nakamura), who happens to be a government test subject freed by the Resistance. In the confusion, both the child and Tetsuo are recovered by the military. The Capsules are rounded up by the police, but smooth talking Kaneda manages to secure their freedom, along with Kei (Mami Koyama), a pretty young member of the Resistance and Kaneda’s obvious love interest.
Everyone’s accounted for but Tetsuo, who is now a guest of that sinister and possibly global- Armageddon-starting government program I mentioned. The project is headed by the two dimensional tandem of Colonel Shikishima (Taro Ishida) and Dr. Onishi (Mizuho Suzuki). The boy who escaped - Takashi - happens to be one of a group of powerful telekinetics the pair have been experimenting on for years. By coincidence, Tetsuo seems to have this same power, awakened by his encounter with Takashi. This makes Onishi as happy as a little girl, all too eager to hook his new toy up to a car battery and see what makes him go. Shikishima is less intrigued, recalling the catastrophe that happened before. Tetsuo uses his abilities to escape, and rejoins his friends. But he’s not the same boy they remember, resentful of his old friends and mad with his rapidly expanding skills.
As society rips itself apart around them, Kaneda must find a way to save his friend and Shikishima must find a way to save his country. The competing plots drive the film - two best friends whose roles have reversed, struggling to understand why they instinctively inhabit those roles in the first place. The broader component to the story is played out by Onishi and the Colonel. One’s a calculating scientist whose thirst for knowledge blinds him to reason, even at the expense of humanity. The other is a stone faced authority figure whose blind adherence to conformity renders him incapable of viewing other people as human beings. Just think of them as Jack Klugman and Tony Randall, but with batshit psychics and nuclear weapons involved.
Just like the manga (comic) on which Akira is based, you could interpret all this as an allusion to Japanese culture at the time. This apparently means “slavishly dependent on technology” and “dangerously devoted to conformity.” Also, it quite possibly includes “lacking a spiritual component” or “unifying sense of social identity.”
That’s a dim view and those are deep themes, and although it doesn’t resonate as much as it might if I were Japanese, I definitely “get it.” Things being as they are, I just see the story of Star Trek’s Gary Mitchell combined with Blade Runner with a couple of coats of cyberpunk put on for polish. The story isn’t what impresses me about Akira. It’s the Millennium Falcon-sized balls on this movie that always did, and still continues to blow my mind.
But Akira was cutting edge in more areas than just traditional animation. There is an insane amount of ground breaking associated with this film, from sound recording methods to the way shots were composed, giving the production a very cinematic quality. There’s even some old school CGI thrown in for fun. Add all this innovation to that “poor man’s Arthur C. Clarke” storyline and you’ve got a film that wants to be everything, do everything, kick every ass and blow a futuristic-jet-bike sized hole in every mind on its way into the annals of geek lore. And that’s exactly what it did. Walk into any comic book store, bring up anime, and within 90 seconds, someone will bring up Akira.
So is this movie overrated? Probably, but it’s also the holder of every record in the book, and has served as inspiration for generations since. That’s enough for the Hall of Fame if you ask me.