Review of Akira

I believe it's safe to say that Akira deserves as much respect as anyone can give it in the anime community, especially in the west. On top of having a ton of influence on how anime is made in Japan, it was one of the movies that got anime recognition in the west. Without Akira, I bet that not many English speakers would even know what anime is. Anyways, now on to the movie. The movie itself is top notch in just about every way. I don't want to just repeat what everyone else says, so I'll make it brief.First, the story. The story of Akira is very simple, but effective: a young boy from a gang of bikers, named Tetsuo Shima, gets in an accident after panicking from seeing a little boy in front of him on the road. This young boy is unharmed, but Tetsuo is injured and taken to a government facility for treatment and testing. While he's there, he discovers that he has psychic powers, and is constantly hearing the name "Akira." After he finds out what he can do, he goes on a rampage to seek Akira in order to possibly gain even more power. It's a basic plot about power going to someone's head, but it's done well here. I am always hearing stuff about the story being confusing, but it really isn't. There's stuff left unexplained, but it isn't stuff that's required to understand when it comes to understanding the whole picture. It's kind of like looking at a picture in a frame that covers a little bit of a picture. You can understand it as well as you need to, but removing it from that frame allows you to see the whole picture.
Another great thing is the music. Everyone seems to point toward the animation as what makes the movie stand out, and while it's nothing to just gloss over, the music takes those great looking scenes and gives them a flavor that they probably would have had if they went for anything different. While the tracks aren't that hummable like songs heard in a lot of other things, they're a very important factor to this movie being what it is.
Finally, the animation. I think everyone has gone into detail about what makes the animation look as great as it does, so I won't dwell on it too much. The animation has aged amazingly. This movie honestly looks a lot better than a lot of animation today. Sure, a lot of modern animation looks stunning as hell, but considering that it came out in 1988, it's really impressive. The best way to describe it is that it feels very real. I mean, you can tell it's animation, but the way some gorey scenes are animated just made me cringe, and I mean that in the best way possible.
Overall, this movie should be watched at least once in your lifetime. I personally think that you could go with either the original Japanese version, or the 2001 dub by Pioneer, and not much will be affected, but I also recommend after the first viewing to watch it with the first dub from 1989, because it is really funny.