Review of Akira

Almost everyone has seen this movie, people call it a culture classic... I can understand that for its time, the animation was simply stunning, revolutionary, soo good that you have to see to believe, and that the story explored themes probably never before explained. BUT, why? Why?! WHY?!?! Everything was going nice the first hour or so, yes they did cut some content from the manga at that time, but no big deal, you could still understand and enjoy it, and being a fan of the manga, I surely was happpy so far with the movie, but I was like, we are at the middle of the movie already,but storywise they are still at chapter 7-8 of the 38 chapters, and keep in mind each chapter (readed the Epic's version) was around 70 pages or so, and from these 7-8 chapters alot was already trimmed or completely skipped, but it was still enjoyable and made sense so far...
But how can they adapt the rest of the 30 chapters (again each with around 70 pages) in another hour?!?!
There is no need to be a genius, to understand that it isnt possible to adapt with integrity, to say the least. So instead they decided to butcher alot of the rest of the story.
Almost every big event didnt happened (the explosion that at the middle of the story changes the world once again, giving a more apocaliptic setting, didnt happen, just to give you and example there is many more stuff, this was just one of the most importants, since it changes everything after)
Those big events that got animated (like I said after the first hour), totally different context, the setting to reach them was very different and the way they progressed, also all for the most part original.
Almost every character role is reduced to the extreme, major characters die earlier on the story, when they should had survived for almost the whole rest of the story, Akira is a supportive character, with almost 0% appearence, while in the manga he is the main focus since in the later 65% of the story, what happens revolves around him, and I could on and on....

The later part of the movie is a mix of part of some of the scenes of the manga with its original spin off, but the thing is that the story already was complex on the manga, and had themes that deserved time to be well explored.
And everything is so rushed and butchered here, that TBH, if I had not read the manga first, alot of the stuff would just be confusing, and it would not be my fault, alot of the detail to almost everything was lost in the adaptation...

The story supports the whole thing, so it took major impact on the characters, they development just didnt felt right, you can see the potential they have, and they almost none if it was explored decently.
It sucks. It really does... and most of the people, they have only seen the anime, so they will say okay, the cast wasnt great, but it wasnt that bad... the thing is that if you read the manga, you will really see the poor job of the overall plot and cast.
The ideas are there, but they deserved to be given much more time and context.
It is like they had only budget to make a 2 hour movie, to adapt the whole manga series.
And to be fair I do know the movie came out before the manga finished serialization, there are some similarities with both endings, but the rest is 80% original material, and original material isnt long enough to support a story this big.
I would had prefered less budget and more movies. Let the manga end, they properly adapt the rest.
Take a leap of faith, and give it 2-3 more movies (this first movie would have adapted more of those first chapters also), and we would have a masterpiece movie series, that would make justice with all its heart, to the manga epicness!
I m sure they would had enough money with the sells from the first movie to keep the budget high.

Lets leave behind all the negativity.
The score is very fitting to the movie, while simple, it adapts surprising well to the scenes.
And the animation like I mentionated before... it is some of the best animation around, the animation motion, the smoothness and fluidy of it, if it still this good for this day and age (thanks to 1080p and the super-fluid motion presented, since to produce the movie more than 160,000 animation cels were used), how it was for its time?!
Probably, the "God of Animation" descended, was inspired, and enough time, and crafted its best work yet!!
AMAZING animation for its time isnt enough to justify, nowdays while the colours are old, and the animation is old by visual picture to picture standarts, I would still call it outstanding.
How it flows, it is like the frames per second are much higher than the standart 24 fps, and you have it running at 45-50's fps.
It is that impressive, most of the movies up to this day, while gorgeous animation wise, dont have this smoothness!!

I bash the story and character adaptation, but it was still a enjoyable experience, and the sole reason the movie scored this high... the sound does help, BUT it is the art!
I cant not praise it enough, it is literally porn-animation.
Most people will see it for it, and I do think that is how I will remenber the movie also.
Despite all these major flaws, solely by its animation, it is something I would reccomend wholeheartedly.
Watch the movie, expecting to read the manga after if you want to get the great plot nicecly fleshed out, that is how you can experience this great cult classic series.

In the movie, the plot will interest you, then confuse you. The ending will make you inspired perhaps but never memorable due to the terrible plot adaptation, when it could had been something more... and then the animation, it will spoil you nicely, make want for more!
Ask why every movie nowadays doesnt has this standart of animation!
I can understand with TV series anime, but for the movies... enough limited animation BS!

This movie visual quality wise, is the reason I love anime this much.
If I had just seen it much before, I m sure I would have got into "the real anime universe", much earlier.