Review of Akira

A psychedelic trip through a dystopian cyberpunk reality, following irrelevant, unknown, and completely charisma-free characters, throughout a plot that wears the cloak of "ingenious subjectivity," but is nothing more than a pitifully weak, inconsistent, and incomplete script. A film praised for what it once did, but that today falls short in its most important aspects, and only survives on the nostalgia of its legacy. Its story overflows with potential, placing topics like politics, ethics, morality, and society on the table and keeping them there from start to finish, but never actually diving into any of them. We get crumbs and glimpses of ideas that end up reducedto mere background context.

People with psychic powers appearing out of nowhere? Interesting idea, but poorly developed, since nothing is explained—just thrown in the viewer’s face while begging “accept me as I am.”

The lack of concern in creating any sort of justification or reason for the actions taken throughout the film is what ruins it most and throws all its potential in the trash. At first, we’re introduced to a rich universe with so much to explore, and we assume everything will eventually connect and show how it was all part of one big plan since the beginning, but it's just a bunch of random bullshit.

I’m actively refusing to judge this film from the perspective of its time, because even to this day, more and more people claim it’s a timeless masterpiece, a crown jewel among Japanese projects. So based on those evaluations, I’m choosing to judge it purely as a viewer from today’s world, and I stand by the conclusion I’ve already made.

This is a more than clear example that, in some cases, 2 hours just aren’t enough to support a complex story with so many layers, one that could’ve easily turned into a full-length series.