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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.

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