Review of Akira

Now where in 2019, the same year that the movie is set and where it will be getting an anime adaptation. Does Akira still hold up? Often hailed as a classic and being influential to both anime and even Hollywood, Akira is about two delinquent gang members called Tetsuo and Kaneda who are in conflict with another gang called "the clowns". During a battle with the two gangs an accident happens, Tetsueo is caught up with an "esper", which makes Tetseuo experience unusual pains and hallucinations. Tetsuo gets sent to a hospital where he starts to get experimented with. The world is set in Neo Tokyowhere gang violence and terrorism often occur, where both the government and the military work together to try to hide "Akira"

I'm not a watcher of older anime, so I'm in no way an expert of them. But, the visuals here are extremely impressive for being pre-digital. It's a grim cyberpunk aesthetic with lots of neon colors and very detailed art. I also really liked the mystery of what Akira is. Is it a person, a machine? A weapon of mass destruction or some sort of god? Why is it so important and why is the government hiding it?

The mystery aspects of this film where compelling and interesting, one of them are of what happened to Testeuo. They're scenes here where we don't know what is actually going on with him, where he might be hallucinating or he might actually witness these bizarre things happening around him, one such scene was in the hospital where he saw stuffed animals becoming larger ones . There are a lot of things which make Akira considered a classic but that doesn't mean that everything about this movie has aged well. The characters are themselves are what leads me into some of the less good parts of this movie.

I sadly didn't care for most of the characters, Kaneda was annoying and really thick-headed. There were moments where he tries to hit on some girl during like three different occasions. The whole motorcycle gang where annoying and shouty, this was intentional but that doesn't excuse how dull most of them where. They lacked personality and we didn't even get to know many of them that well except for Kaneda and Tetsuo.

The villains here being the military and government which captured Testueo felt very one-note and boring. There was this military general who was everywhere in this film but he was so boring and had no personality except just being a strict douche.

My least favorite thing about Akira has to be the ending. I get that it tries to pull a "mind ***" but this just felt dumb and makes it's so the movie doesn't feel complete, because the manga was still getting published at the time. I can't deny though how visually stunning them last 10 minutes of this film were, god ***!

Overall, Akira was a visually gorgeous movie that even though being influential and important, is kinda overrated and could've developed its characters a bit more. This was still was a really enjoyable film and I would still recommend watching this.