Review of Akira

The panic of war, suffering from a hard past, trembling friendship, gloomy reality, all of those themes that are brought on in the following movie, which don't seem to be a strange thing, people suffer, and that's a fact, but how do relationships build up? would you take the hard way to protect a loved one? are your ties to others strong enough even for war and terror? Akira, the so-called masterpiece from many people, but does it hold up to such reputation? I would differently say, it's not for everyone, the story isn't too obvious, and contains mature themes, violence, gore, and nudity, but isn'tour day and age full of these? no matter how much you deny it, this is a movie, that reflects what's happening every day in the world, probably not to you, but certainly, others are having it as their daily lives.

- Story (8/10):
It's 2019, a pretty popular date for dystopia speculations if you asked me, that world hasn't even begun recovering from the third world war. technology has a strong presence, and corruption has never been so obvious. two teenagers, Kaneda and Shima are having fun on daily basis, dropping school and begin passionately about driving their bikes and pulling off stunts, playing it tough, until one day, Shima was taken into custody by the military for some mysterious research about psychic powers and the so-called “next human revolution”, but with power, one becomes greedy and stubborn, the two friends are put to face off one another, would their bond tank it?

- Art (9/10):
Let me filter the bad side of this, the art, in general, was okay, probably spectacular for its time, but it feels weird to watch anything of that caliber nowadays, I guess digital art spoiled us after all, the problem was with the characters' faces, some having one of those continent-wide foreheads, others with almost cellular mouths and spherical noses, but not until you get to pass the first 10 minutes, everything seems to be okay, you can get over that as there are things that make you up for it, but honestly, if you think about it, it's not that bad really, better than having exagerated eyes or overboard sharp chins.
This score would have been a lot lower if it weren't for the animation, however, how do I put it? fluid doesn't satisfy me to say, is there a term that actually seems more fluid than “fluid”? seriously, that was fantastic seeing how this was made back in 1988, and I would bet my money on it, this is better than most of the modern animation works, even the supposed still imagery is filled with motion and life, it really helps build you with the story.

- Sound (8/10):
For the most part, nothing was too off-charts, very casual soundtracks or anything, in fact, some of the sound effects were just so out of place, especially that owl-ish one, popping every now and then, but I gotta say, whoever worked on the tracks knew what they were doing, some scenes were just so -OMG-this-is-so-good, every the usage of random noises in the background made more sense from some parts. The voice acting was okay on the other hand, I'm just glad there wasn't any unnecessary screaming and shouting all over the movie.

- Character (8/10):
I didn't really like anyone besides the main character and that colonel, while everybody played their role, and actually affected the story, those two shined the most. Kaneda, the concerned naughty teenager that acts without too much barking, and the colonel that speaks up his mind, and keeps the action going, I could even say, they were both protagonists in their own way, both on their own side, but after the same goal.
The character designs were confusing, it's either me that isn't this adapted to this style of art, or something else, a lot of the character was drawn almost identically, some of them are even not recognizable as their respective gender, like Kei for example, which honestly made it more confusing and hard to follow the story, especially in fast-paced scenes.

- Enjoyment (7.5/10):
Before watching this, I heard a lot of praise and compliment about this movie, and how people bragged about it as they masterpiece they thought it was, and to be honest, for each their taste, I for one, wouldn't call it a masterpiece, but by far, it's not the least boring or uninteresting, the movie was great, the feels and action were on point, nothing to keep me on my toes or anything, but it was heck of a great watch.

- Overall (8.1/10):
I was a bit disappointed by my ratings, though I would have to add another 10/10 movie to my list, meh, I still enjoyed this work, what's more, astonishing is how much it still holds a candle to many modern big budget movies even after 30 years.