Review of Akira

Moving on to something I just watched for the first time a few weeks ago... Having watched it in English, this was sort of like a Digimon reunion for me. I spent a good third of this movie picking out voices and linking them to other roles I knew the actors from. Luckily, this didn't take away from the enjoyment for me. This was a really good dub, especially given that it came out in 1988-- a time when good anime dubs weren't exactly in abundance. And this feels a little like a side note, but there was just something satisfying to me to hearchild characters being voiced by actual child actors and not older actors who are capable of making their voices sound all young and squeaky.

I don't love this move... but I feel like I could. Only a few weeks have passed, but this movie is really sticking with me. I would love to rewatch it to see if I get anything more out of it the second time around.

This movie is set in 2019... It's funny to think that the 'distant future' the creators had in mind is now only 3 years away. But I think that may be one of just a few aspects of this movie that doesn't stand the test of time. The animation-- also reminiscent of an older time-- isn't anything flashy, but given that this movie was supposed to be gritty and real, not shiny and attractive, it works just fine.

I didn't find any of the characters to be all that likable, but like with the animation, I also got the sense that they weren't supposed to be. I would have liked to see some of the supporting cast gone into a little more, but I also acknowledge that the focus was really on Kaneda and Tetsuo and I found both of their characters to be developed sufficiently.

I'm not really a lover of sci-fi or futuristic settings, but Akira certainly held my interest throughout. To the point where I wasn't all the satisfied with the ending-- mostly because I wanted to see the characters go on and get a little more plot fulfillment. The friendship between our two main leads was really this movie's strongest point, made more realistic by the fact that it wasn't cheesy or overdone.

My score may go up in the future, but even after just watching it this first time, I would definitely recommend it to someone else.