Review of Akira

I've been watching anime for years and I have to say Akira is one of the best pieces of work i have ever came a crossed. The animation and action sequences hold up very well in comparison to some of the animes coming out to date. The pacing is almost perfect and the art and music are simply a work of art you really feel like you're in that world. Classics are classics for a reason and Akira is a classic anime. Caution there might be a few spoilers contained in this review. The movie starts off with a large mysterious explosion which destroys Tokyo, the moviethen begins 31 years later in Neo Tokyo. Akira for the first 20 minutes or so follows a punk high school bike gang and takes you through a bit of their daily routine so you can build a relationship and relate with their characters. Right off the bat you're introduced to 2 of the main characters in the movie, Tetsuo and kaneda. Kaneda is the leader of the bike gang and is more or less what you would expect from a lead anime character he has a big heart never gives up. As far as Tetsuo goes he is portrayed as a weaker character that is often taken care of by Kaneda. Following a clash with a rival bike gang the tone of the movie changes, as an unknown kid is introduced to the plot the movie switches from punk bike gangs to a more complex story about mysterious abilities, government experiments and cover-ups.The movie uses alot of references about the war and bombing of Hiroshima, if you follow along closely you will see there references used such as when Testua blew up and created that nuclear explosion, well the same area in which that took place is when Hiroshima was bombed from the americans. Although it doesn't have a direct story telling of the bombing, there is references used that point to a post apocalyptic setting and the history of war and military power.

Directly following this Kaneda and the rest of his gang are dragged off to jail while the unknown kid and Tetsuo are taken by the government. The action in Akira is very well paced at no point do you feel overwhelmed with continuous fight scenes or long drawn out scenes of talking either. From art direction to music this movie is a masterpiece especially when you factor in when it was made. It is a very violent and dark movie well in it's right though as the violent and dark overtones are needed to portray the story properly, this is not a Disney movie and to spite the art style is not really a movie for children simply because besides the violence there is no way a child would be able to follow the plot, nor would they be appropriate for a child.

I think it is important to point out that while I enjoyed the movie a lot there are some things that had a few issues with nothing big enough for you not to watch the movie but that should be mentioned non the less to make this review as thorough as possible. The first of which is the story, while it is complex and you get a pretty good understanding of what's going on I felt that it could have delved deeper into the history of Akira and some of the other characters. At times it seemed like they were trying to compress something much larger into a 2 hour and 5 minute movie. How ever, if you read the manga, the original story is far greater. So i really recommend you check out the manga if you want to see how the entire story is portrayed. It is much longer. Its a shame that a movie was cut so short.

Akira is one of the best anime movies I have seen in all my years of watching anime. It is in all respects a classic that should be seen by people interested in or thinking of getting into anime or who's already an anime fan but haven't seen it yet. If you like action or complex stories then you will enjoy Akira, it's a solid mixture of both never giving too much of one and too little of the other and while you probably won't fully understand the story from the movie or relate with some of the characters it's a minor spot on a beautiful work of art. But you should definitely check out the manga as thats the original story and where the movie took place from. The manga is fleshed out alot more and dives deeper into Japanese modern history, the war and the characters.

I hope this review helps clear up the argument or debating on if this movie is a movie worth checking out! In all honestly i can say you probably won't be disappointing!