Review of Akira

Akira is not a film about motorbikes, not a movie about side slides, not a movie for bike bigots and certainly not something you would recognize just under the tag of ‘80s film’, because Akira in its whole coverage becomes much, MUCH more, than what you could have possibly wanted from it’s advertised side; while there maybe bikes, side slides, and animation at its peak in the 80s, it builds itself up to be the japanese icon of the 80s, that it deserves to be. My motto with anime is to look at it for what it attempted to achieve rather than what it didn’t achieve,to simplify it, it’s like watching Attack on Titan and then rating it injudiciously low because you didn’t like that your favourite character died, regardless of how needed or crucial it may have been to the plot. My point? In defence of Akira, the quality it isn’t excusable objectively, when there are objective flaws spottable to any normal viewing eye, some noticeable like the strange transition choices which feel less than fluid, and less noticeably, weird mouth placements and wonky keyframes, and while there are plenty more factors of the movie I could point out which some could rightfully use to excuse or even at worst disregard this movie’s qualities in exchange for somewhat valid critique, I feel the objective qualities far inundate these and deserve a lot more praise than deserved, simply because it didn’t try to be what you expected it to be, because we should just all be honest with ourselves and say that unless you relentlessly studied the synopsis of the movie or manga before you consumed it, you didn’t expect what it delivered, so why should it be judged off your expectations vs what it wanted to actually be, until it’s at the point where the content is totally unfathomable to you and you can just go ahead and slap a 1/10 on it and give it those comical insults that you came up with for a laugh with your friends.

To look at Akira more subjectively we should take a look at what people think is subjectively incorrect with it, in order to get an accurate depiction of the film's quality by showing its substandard elements and then debunking them.
The one thing I hear most about Akira when I hear from people giving their watered down and undeveloped opinion, is that it feels incomplete and lacking in context, which in its bare bones makes complete sense, “What we all really wanted was a story on a single person and a single story right? What we really need is just another disposable movie about the apocalypse with no take-away thoughts and changed mindsets, and just some bland and mindless entertainment!” said those who couldn’t figure out for themselves at Akira isn’t only just a story but a representation of a larger and more general subject. “But Frogs, why should the story be told in the perspective of an individual and their subjective experience with it, like in most romances which don’t go any further than a first season.” Because we weren’t supposed to understand Tetsuo, or Neo-Tokyo, we were never meant to understand it and you know why? Because what we were meant to understand was a general perspective, Tetsuo shouldn’t be viewed as Tetsuo, but should be viewed as just a human experiencing the lashes of reality in a seemingly zany story with hardly any decipherable tied ends and conclusion, because that is just what Akira is, a story told in the perspective of a niche environment to tell a much broader story which could be given relevance to much other concepts than you might have initially realized. Akira is the beginning and the end, everything and nothing, destruction and self-destruction, not just Akira, and Tetsuo is not just Tetsuo.

In further question of the silly banter regarding the faithfulness in the movie adaptation, we should consider that an adaptation isn’t something that should live out its source material word by word, as to just at best, be an already experienced journey simply in a different dimension, but should it not be the same story expressed in a different manner to tell the same morals, same experiences, and same beginning and end, in a way which makes it feel as though it is being told all over again? The backlash I have seen given to the movie by the fans of the manga, ultimately feels like the viewers do not in the end really understand Akira as they can’t even manage to grasp the knowledge of this simple fact, not that I understood Akira myself, or many other people for that matter, but being able to feel a show’s message and portrayal should be reason enough to understand the value of the retelling of a story in a whole new frame of reference, and you should look no further for this than Akira, where it might not be faithful and cut a lot of corners, but in this case maybe those cuts turned a piece of paper into a stunning labyrinthian snowflake.

Thanks for your time

-Frogs