Akira is the quintessential classic anime that blew open the doors for anime in the west. The anime that shocked the world with its content and the exceptional level of artistry people had never seen in animation before. Akira elevated the artform of anime to new heights. For millions of westerners, this was the first anime they ever saw. This was the anime that ignited a passion and curiosity to discover more of what the artform had to offer. The reaction you had to this film Dawn Marie, the shock, the disgust, the sense awe and wonder was exactly the reaction millions of other westerners had back in the 80s that would fuel the explosion of anime across the western world. And it became not just one of the most influential animated films of all time, but one of the most influential films of all time! Recommend “Ninja Scroll” (1993) for your next anime feature!! It’s one of the groundbreaking anime classics that rocked the world and continued to fuel the anime explosion in the west
*If you ignore Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Star Blazers, Starzinger, Centella, Capitan Futuro, Macross, Magnetron, Arrow Emblem, and the Festival of the Robots, sure, Akira blew "the door" open to a great art form from a highly developed nation AKA "The East."* LOL
I’m going to assume you’re a very young person who wasn’t actually alive when this film came out. You’re a kid who really loves anime now and doesn’t understand any of the historical context of the time.
the animation quality is high by anime standards (due to having the budget of a small country) but it doesn't even compare to classic Disney eg. Fantasia
@@TemporaryApe I have indeed, many times. If you ever say Western animation is superior to anime on the internet you trigger nerds who don't understand animation at all
It was worse for me - I first watched the original Orion/Streamline dub, which made no sense at all, because clearly the ones creating the English language didn't understand the story either, all while trying to change the dialog to make it more American-like.
I've watched it many times, but watching it now, I can see why she would find it confusing a bit. My buddy collected the comics and another friend had the graphic novel compilation of the entire collection. A lot of the scenes are straight from the comic, and look exactly the same.
Also looking at all the insane details and lights it's crazy to think that every frame was hand drawn, and the lights were either painted or cut out of the special celluloid sheets (cells) they use for their illustrations to make a mask and then lit from underneath on light tables. The sheer amount of hard, intricate, detailed work it just shows how much this was a labour of love and passion. 🤩
@@hulkhatepunybanner Do you not usually watch much subtitled content? When you do after a short while your eyes/brain will just start being able to read and take in the subs while still watching the action
While not the first Anime to come to the states, its production values and grim/society plot caused Anime to go nuts here. It certainly blew minds back in the day. Although the wild thing is this anime only covers half the manga.
Best way to approach anime is to think as a medium, not a particular genre/style. You'll find everything from fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, to drama target at audiences ranging from children to adults. Some other classics movies to get into would be almost anything from Studio Ghibli(closest thing to anime Disney), Ghost in the Shell(more classic sci-fi), Perfect Blue(but really anything directed by Satoshi Kon). For some new stuff with amazing animation I'd recommend Makoto Shinkai latest films Your Name, and Suzume.
I remember when this came out. It was a phenomenon. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Anime had finally come to the West, and it arrived with a bang.
Yes, Akira was the little boy who appeared at the end after the jars broke. Remember the start of the movie with Tokyo being destroyed? That was due to Akira's power. Due to it they got his body - its not clear how but they broke his body down to test it and then froze the remains.
They had parts of his body and experimented on his parts to unleash the genetic potential to tap into the evolutionary cosmic power. He was already dead shortly before they achieved this. But by achieving this they unleashed a force of atomic energy (atom bomb) so they put his remaining parts on ice. Too valuable of a genetic sample to destroy until Tetsuo came along as another rare genetic specimen
I've never read the manga, but it seems to me Akira disembodied himself because he had become too powerful for his physical form. Unlike Tetsuo, he saw that the power would ultimately be too much for him to control consciously, and so he created a new universe he could inhabit without destroying all existence. Scientists, not really understanding how any of it worked, dissected his lifeless body thinking it held some secret to unlocking the power.
@@christopherschreiber5805 yeah that's probably more like it. I have the manga but it's been years since I read it. Plus, the movie changed things vs the manga
Yeah, Akira outgrew the need for a physical form. Read the manga! There's a superb dialogue between Tetsuo and Lady Miyoko that explains the power perfectly
@@christopherschreiber5805 this never happens in the manga. Akira is awakened by Tetsuo in attempt to challenge his power. Akira is not disembodied but merely hibernating/sedated. And yet another "bomb" is set off leading to a very different story. Just watched it after reading all 6 books. its wildy different. Good movie on its own tho for sure.
Can't believe that the soundtrack still hits as hard today as it did in 88. Just absolute masterpiece of animation, sound and overall story line. Too bad that so much got cut from the original books, and what was put into the movie got so condensed that it could easily confuse people to what was actually going on. Also kind of sad that the original concept of having a sequel or two to cover these subplots never panned out. But, still, despite the issues of "condensed/cut" story elements, the movie itself is an absolute "classic" of anime.
This is my #4 movie of all time. I stumbled across it at a Japanese film festival in 1990. I went to watch Seven Samurai and as I was leaving the cinema I saw the poster for this and turned around and went straight back into the theatre to watch it. Afterwards I went out and bought the books. I’ve now had to replace them a number of times because they’ve fallen apart from over reading.
"Where did this come from?" This all came from the mind of Katsuhiro Otomo, who first created the Akira manga, long before he made the movie. This was a gargantuan effort that ended up spanning over 1000 pages, and it changed the perception of what manga could be, and what it could deliver. It also pretty much kicked off the cyberpunk era in Japan. The movie is actually something of a compromise, because the manga had many more supporting characters and storylines going on at once--way too much material to shoe-horn into a 2-hour+ movie. So, the movie ended up becoming kind of its own thing, having little to do with the original manga except for the main characters and a few basic plot points.
"Le Garage Hermétique" (1976-1979) by Moebius probably started the slow building trend toward mature topics and deep plot lines in the manga/comic space. While it's nowhere near as popular as Akira, it was still incredibly influential in the genre. Around the same time as Akira was being worked on in Japan, Alan Moore and the other English comic writers (Gaiman et alia) were revolutionizing mainstream Western comics.
I think this is still the best anime movie out there. After this, they said Ghost in the Shell would be the next great one. Then Spirited Away. They don’t compare to how great Akira was.
How about the '97 Berserk series? Same studio as pokemon, the dub even has some familiar VAs. It surely won't be a traumatic experience! Nope! Not at all!
@otakutomodachi4886 speak for yourself. My best friend in childhood was Korean. And he introduced me to Dragon Ball in 1987 😉 ...or 1986, I'm not surten. The only thing I remember for sure was the fit of laughter another buddy of my gave my, by asking if I would knew that fantastic new TV show (Dragon Ball), in 2001. Because it took almost 15 years till the TV channels over here found out that some people might like animes 😂🤣
Akira, Ninja Scroll, and Ghost in the Shell were the first anime that I watched in that order. I recommend you watch the other two next, but especially Ghost in the Shell.
Then “Ghost Stories” dubbed into English. It’s the first officially sanctioned show that is believed to be the starting point for all the silly and unsanctioned abridged series. (If she’s gonna watch some serious stuff she oughta get some comedy as well)
I would certainly recommend another anime, which inspired many after it. Which is "Ghosf In The Shell" (1995). BTW, over twenty years later, there was a live action adaptation "Ghost In The Shell" (2017). I would also recommend another anime: "Perfect Blue" (1997), which is a thriller.
Ghost, Perfect Blue, Mononoke….Back 8n the day, fans used to call this the “Ebert List”, since they attracted artsy critics and poseur fans who thought they knew “anime” just from the highbrow arthouse features that played US theaters. Rather like asking what British TV is like, being shown every episode of Downton Abbey, and never being told that Monty Python or Doctor Who ever existed. For an anime equivalent of the latter, “Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer”, a crazy teen comedy series here turned into an eerie mystery, is about as far from Akira and Perfect Blue as you can get.
I would suggest Princess Mononoke, it too is epic- but more understandable. English dub is good for it as well. My favorite is Paprika, but that can wait a long while.
This was actually my first journey into anime! I rented this from BlockBuster, because it was animated it didn't have a graphic rating. I saw it a few times at the store and one day rented it.. 10yr old me was never the same. Anime is everything after this in the 90s
This movie is based on a Manga, which is 6 volumes, thousands of pages - the fact that you're following along at all is impressive, as it is a movie often requiring many repeat-watches. It is the same author, by the way, of both the comic book and animated version, so the "translation" between them is as organic as it can be, with the ammount of material that had to be left out.
The first watch of Akira is a special milestone for someone getting into anime. It takes a couple of viewings to get a proper idea of what happened (you were shockingly spot on about some of the surreal ending sequences to be fair,) it condenses a lot of manga into one film. I highly recommend reading it if you want the full story. Prepare to notice references to it all over the place now, the bike slide is iconic and of course the utter insanity of the ending. Studio Ghibli films (Hayao Miyazaki's in particular are some of the most popular and charming "airy fairy") are the obvious choice of recommendation BUT they are infamously zealous in their copyright striking on youtube etc so this kind of video isn't advised, unfortunately. For this channel I'll instead suggest The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Paprika, Redline or Summer Wars. They're mad and fun in various ways. Or if tv series rather than only films are fine you could go with Neon Genesis Evangelion (a series followed by some films) for the other classic "wtf did I just watch?" experience to pair with Akira.
Akira left a huge impression on me when I first saw it. There is slight dialogue changes between the Japanese & US versions. Plus the film is a heavily condensed version of the sprawling Manga it’s adapted from. Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Akria is pure cinema….an experience on so many levels. Akira had pre-scored dialogue (wherein the dialogue is recorded before the film starts production and the movements of the characters' lips are animated to match it; a first for an anime production and extremely unusual even today for an anime, although the voice actors did perform with the aid of animatics), and super-fluid motion as realized in the film's more than 160,000 animation cels. Computer-generated imagery was also used in the film (created by High-Tech Lab. Japan Inc. and the cooperative companies for computer graphics, Sumisho Electronic Systems, Inc. and Wavefront Technologies), primarily to animate the pattern indicator used by Doctor Ōnishi, but it was additionally used to plot the paths of falling objects, model parallax effects on backgrounds, and tweak lighting and lens flares. Unlike its live-action predecessors, Akira also had the budget to show a fully realized futuristic Tokyo. The film's production budget was ¥700 million ($5.5 million). It was the most expensive anime film up until then, surpassing the previous record of the Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli production Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) which had cost ¥500 million, before Akira was itself surpassed a year later by the Miyazaki and Ghibli production Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) which cost ¥800 million. I can recommend watching Ghost In The Shell & Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence. The latter features a sequence that took an entire year to animate & still to this day is a stunning piece of animation.
@@jontk so the 2 disc DVD boxset that was released in the early 2000s has on one disc the anamorphic 1.85:1 version with a restored English & Japanese dub. Then on the other theres the unrestored 1.33:1 presentation with an unrestored English dub. There’s subtle differences between the two version regarding dialogue; specifically when Tetsuo escapes his room & when the Doctor & General visit the storage underground facility. These don’t seem to be problems relating to the translation of the original Japanese dub, but rather are totally different versions of dialogue.
I remember seeing Akira at a friend's house, I think I was in 8th grade. It opened my eyes to the breadth of story telling, and the fantastic medium of animation. It is chilling, how many modern films owe their scripts and scenes to early anime. The parallels are celar in big mainstream hits like Stranger Things, etc. If you get a chance, you should watch GHOST IN THE SHELL, but be prepared for a trippy mind thriller.
AKIRA is one of THE iconic animes. Along with others like Ghost in the Shell (similar physiological vibe and similar animation style) which I highly recommend (but just the first one to start there is lots of other ghost in the shell content that varies wildly).
Watch "Princess Mononoke" (1997). Another anime feature film by director Hayao Miyazaki. One of the most famous films by one of the most celebrated Japanese directors.
I will also recommend Ninja Scroll as others have. It is a bit more adult, but still an amazing movie and not as complex as Akira or Ghost In The Shell.
I didn't see this until it was on VHS in like 90 or 91. I still have my VHS copy of it. There was quite literally nothing like this at the time. This is based on an amazing Manga series but the thing is the Manga and this movie are quite different and part of why the ending is so trippy and out there. When they were making this the Manga wasn't finished yet. In fact it was only half-way done. So how the story unfolds and where it leads differs greatly between the original story and this movie. Which is awesome for us Akira fans as there's basically two completely different versions with only the characters themselves and the world they live in being the same.
I think you missed a couple things, when the General and the doctor went to check on Akira, the cryo-capsule under the Olympic Stadium was marked "Akira" & "28". The boy who was trying to escape in the beginning is "26" Takashi, he was being escorted by a man from the resistance group Kei belonged to. The other two test subjects were, "25" Kiyoko, and "27" Masaru. Tetsuo runs across Takashi during his escape attempt, and it awakens his power. Akira is the test subject that started World War III thirty-something years earlier. Doctor Onishi and General Shikishima have been continuing the tests since, in hopes of controlling the power of god that Akira had apparently awakened.
"I thought it was 💦..." What kind of dreams are you having Dawn? 😳 The kids invading Tetsuo's mind/room is the cutest psychic 'attack' ever. I love that each has a projected form that reflects them - Takeshi is a teddy bear, Kiyoko a pink bunny, and Masaru a car because of his hover chair. For some live action psychic stuff - Firestarter, Scanners, and Push (with Chris Evans 😉)
Such a classic... It's up there with 2001 A Space Odyssey as a film I could watch 1000 times and never fully comprehend... but you get a bit closer each time (!)
You have fully understood 2001. Any notion there's some kind of deep meaning to 2001 is blown so far out of the water by reading the shooting script that it's going to die of thirst.
You should watch the 1995 anime adaptation of Ghost in the Shell as a follow up to 1988’s Akira. As your start reacting to Japanese anime films and TV shows.
There is an English dub, it is not quite exact, but it is good for a second watching where you can really look around while listening. Yes, absolutely best Anime ever! Now you need to watch "Ghost in the Shell"
pre-internet , going to a midnight showing , on a cinema screen, not really knowing what to expect , really just blew me away. The translation was really poor back then so it was more confusing.
Slightly better than some of the other subtitle versions, but it still doesn't beat the BBC subtitles version from back in the early 90s, when the BBC actually did do work!
Katsuhiro Otomo wrote and drew the manga (Japanese comic) that was the basis for this movie; he's also the director of this movie. The manga's story is very different and definitely worth a read, if you are so inclined. Both manga and movie for Akira are pretty special, so definitely a good first pick.
"akira" remained faithful to the maniacally detailed draftsmanship that made the original comic series stand out because the original writer/artist katsuhiro otomo wrote/directed his own movie. some good genre anime to follow up would be "ghost in the shell" (1995) and "paprika" (2008)
26:48 - JUST A BABY AKIRA. Dawn! You got it! This is the point here. What happens when an insignificant individual acquires immense power and hasn't got the experience or talent to handle that power. It would be like giving power to an amoeba.
Saw this as my introduction to UNDERGROUND ANIME back in the early 90s, when subtitles and voice dubs were done by fans. Japanese "cartoons" that came on regular tv in the 80s were Westernized versions. This movie was a big deal for me, as it was my last couple of years of high school. My buddy who showed me the stuff is an animator himself now, who did work on Assasins Creed games
I don’t know if it’s just the movies I’ve seen, but I feel it’s kind of common in anime that they don’t explain things with crystal clarity and expect the audience to kind of run to keep up. That might also be the language barrier or the cultural differences too… in any case, welcome to the wide world of anime. You should check out Ghost in the Shell, you’ll see a lot of influence it had on The Matrix. You should also see the work of Hayao Miyazaki, I’d recommend Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, but he’s made quite a few, all are masterworks of the craft.
With Akira it's mainly just a result of trying to cram six manga volumes worth of story into a feature film. The manga is much more succinct with more clearly established world building and character motivations.
As well as Ghost In The Shell, I highly recommend Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I think you did really well following the ending of Akira.
A virgin in actual true manga, loved every bit of you watching Akira. In all fairness, I'm under the strong assumption that the 80's manga was a golden era. I would urge you to watch fist of the north star not the film version but the episodic version, which was 160 episodes.
You can look up the explanation of the movie, there are a couple of viable choices, but as far as the end, Tetsuo was experiencing what happens when someone gets too much power too fast. His closing declaration of "I am Tetsuo" implies that he now understands the extent of his godlike powers. He has transcended into a new existence; with the right guidance, perhaps his power will no longer perpetrate the cycle of destruction that began with Akira. I remember when this first played in the movie theaters here in the US, it was the first anime to be played in theaters. I got hooked on anime after I saw this movie. Technically it's more manga than anime, I don't care, I appreciate it for the style of art it represents. If you go on UA-cam, you can find videos where people have recreated Kaneda's bike in the real world, it's very cool to see them pull up on it. Anyway, loved the review, love you, take care and stay safe ❤️
This film transcends anime. It is unlike so many others. At the time it was the most expensive animated film in the world. The detail level surpassed anything else. The cell per second was double even the best animation of the time. The voices were recorded before the animation was created, so the mouths could be drawn to sync with the voices. This was highly unusual for anime. Finally, the characters were draw to look Japanese. In fact to look like they were of various districts and ethnic mixes. This in turned had the effect that several characters actually looked a lot alike. With only subtle differences.
This was my introduction to anime. I have been a lifelong fan since then. Good choice for using subtitles. I first watched it dubbed and it sounded like everyone was from New Jersey.
For something more lighthearted but still exciting I'd check out Redline next. It's about an interplanetary road race with all sorts of crazy characters
This is the exact same movie I started my anime education with 25 years ago. Trust me you couldn’t pick a better place to start especially if you want to understand classic anime. This video got a thumbs up for me the second I started it!!!
"Evolution" is a movie with David Duchovny that touches on the same "evolutionary genetic potential" that Akira does. Especially with what happens at the end of the movie
The plot of Akira, is very similar to Stranger Things. Or well, the other way around. A group of scientists experiment with children with special characteristics to enhance human limits. In the case of Akira, the experiment is successful, achieving that one of the specimens, a boy named Akira, reaches a potential beyond all imagination and gets out of control years ago. Of these experiments, only three kids survived, but they have quite obvious physical degeneration. The government itself continues its research, because they want weapons, of course. That's where Tetsuo enters the scene, and they take him away to experiment with him. And just like Akira, his potential is very high, getting out of control. In the end, the three children combine their powers to rescue Kaneda and the Colonel, as well as contact Akira who continued to exist, but in another plane of existence. Akira, who now knows how to control his power, but must remain beyond time and space, in another plane or another dimension, takes Tetsuo with him. In both cases, Stranger Things and Akira, both works are based on real experiments that both the U.S. military and the Soviet Union military conducted during the Cold War.
@@nittyblahblah8939 There is a good video in Spanish that explains this, and the references to the Olympic stadium. It's called AKIRA y el secreto del estadio olímpico (AKIRA and the secret of the Olympic stadium).
I believe the "physical degeneration" of the kids is actually the growth inhibiting drugs they're put on, which is why they appear as wrinkly children. Probably the same stuff the government scientists try to inject Tetsuo with when they capture him, maybe combined with a tranquilizer. So not really degeneration, just arrested development
Another classic anime in the genre would be "Ghost in the Shell"...but for pure animation skill combined with "WTF did I just watch?" nothing beats "Red Line". Every frame is art.
I'm actually gonna disagree with that, the plot involves a ton of fictional secret government agencies and it's never explained who's working for who youre supposd to already know but you won't if you didn't read the manga, plus ton of politics in the background which isn't too interesting imo
Obviously, don't expect yourself to be able to watch them all, as there is countless anime out there. I suggest for yiur next ones, Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue, Your Name, and Ninja Scroll.
"Ghost In Shell" is another animated/anime movie, not the live action remake. It is slower paced, and tackles some of the issue we are starting to face now. It did spawn a series as well. I usually watch the Dub's for the same reason, I can't read and watch the action at the same time.
im going to say that I dont expect you will understand this movie... will edit this message after. Edit: you did much better than I thought you would. Well done. Akira was a test subject that evolved far more than the others. There is too much information to post in a comment. Anyway may I suggest Ghost in the shell next.
You may be ready for SEVEN SAMURAI- another Japanese classic foreign language film. So old, and yet still holds up today. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Fun fact, The Hidden Fortress- another samurai film by him was George Lucas’s inspiration for Star Wars! You have to look for it, but it’s there.
This was a thoroughly awesome reaction. The best I've seen on this movie. You have the perfect personality to ask the questions you were asking throughout the movie. You understood it just fine. If you really liked this then maybe you should do yourself a favour and get the entire Manga. The story is much more cohesive. They left out basically half the story to create this movie by rushing through the middle to get to the end but there's so much more to explore in the Manga. Whatever questions you still have might be answered there. And you don't have to buy it. You can probably view it online.
Oh wow I was just thinking that this would be great for a first time anime watcher; the detail is incredible! Studio Ghibli also made amazing animated films 🥰
AKIRA The film's production budget was ¥700 million ($5.5 million), with the combined production and advertising budget believed to be reaching ¥1.1 billion ($9 million). Some sources claim it to the most expensive anime film at the time of release, but this claim is disputed by Crunchyroll writer Daryl Harding and it’s 100% handmade and no CGI for an adult entertainment
I would recommend watching the dubbed version. Then your eyes are free to concentrate on the picture. You'll also have fewer problems with the names and won't miss any subtle messages in the intonation etc. Ignore the people who tell you that the cool kids watch subtitles.
"Akira" is a very good anime movie. There are two more anime movies that I really like watching: "Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" (2000) "Ghost In The Shell: Innocence" (2004) I don't know if anyone else has requested for you to watch any more anime movies, Dawn Marie. But, these two are pretty good too.
I first saw this in the first English dub- which wasn’t the best translation-when I was 15 or so. Saw it a lot of times to figure things out. Then these whippersnapper kids got a new translation. Ok, now see the original ghost in the shell. Those were my 2 go-tos for decades.
Akira is great, it's a classic, and was probably the introduction to "serious" anime for a lot of folks my age, growing up in the 80s. But probably not my first choice by a long shot to introduce someone to anime. The story is really wild and hard to follow even for anime standards 😅 Glad you still liked it.
Kay is what is called a medium. She has no power of her own. However, others could grant or channel their power through her. While the children as a group are individually to weak to defeat Tetsuo, when they channel into Kei. Their powers are amplified.
AKIRA was a pretty hard core anime to get started out with. Even fans don't really know what it all means. You want to try something from Studio Ghibli, like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, or Howl's Moving Castle. You might even enjoy the comedy thriller, The Castle of Cagliostro featuring Lupin III.
The movie that lauched the anime mouvement in the West. Another early one, and one of my favorite, is Ninja Scroll. Aged very well. You might also want to check out the Neon Genesis/Evangelion.series, the original one.
The original Neon Genesis Evangelion is a masterpiece. I even love the weird ending and that End of Evangelion is a FU to those who complained about it.
Hey Dawn! Akira is a fantastic place to begin your Anime journey. It was where I started way back when and have to say, I'm so glad I did. Anime can range from movies for the very young to those for the much older generation. They have so many wonderful wild stories that range from the very beautiful to the most gross. It can also be very adult in nature, not just for the subject matter or some disgusting images but also the rather... naughty side if things if you get what I mean, lol! 😂 You'll find many of them have an underlying story to them, much like a fable trying to teach the viewers something about life based mostly on Japanese beliefs and folklore. There are of course some stunning and very beautiful visuals that you will come to see and to think, hand drawn. Of course, as time goes on in their creation, computers were used for colouring and added effects but only to reduce the time creating them. I believe however, most of the animation was still drawn by hand. Something that I as an artist have a great deal of love and respect for. A fantastic reaction hun, as always and as always, looking forward to your next video. Have a wonderful day pretty eyes, take care hun. 🔥😍♥️
14:18 Instead of saying something to indicate that you are following you can grunt instead or Aizuchi, as it's called It’s because nodding, saying “I see” (“なるほど”), “Oh really?” (“そうですか”) or just grunting is considered a polite way of following a speaker. Doesn't indicate accept or agreement.
Akira was the boy and when he became too powerful he caused the explosion that destroyed Tokyo at the start of the movie. He was #28 and the three old children are #25-27, Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru respectively. They're called the Numbers or Espers, after Extra-Sensory Perception, and were child subjects in experiments on human mental abilities and evolution. As a result of the experiments and said mental abilities awakening their bodies were affected mostly in that they stopped growing but kept aging normally as well as the pigment in their skin being off. All of them are in their 60s but still have mostly childlike personalities, which is why they appeared as toys when messing with Tetsuo. Meanwhile Tetsuo himself would have been the newest Esper, #41. The teenage girl with Kaneda, Kei, showed the potential for the next stage in human evolution which is why Kiyoko spoke through her and the Espers used her to attempt to fight Tetsuo at the Olympic stadium. As for the Executive Council talking about Akira but not really knowing anything, they were formed after the destruction of the original Tokyo and most have no idea about the specifics of the ESP Project because it was work from the previous government and sealed away/guarded by the current military. Mr. Nezu, the short old parliamentarian with the heart problems, used what he knew about the Espers, and Akira in particular, to back anti-government activists and a cult that claimed Akira was a transcendental god. Takashi ran away and was trying to escape with one of the anti-government revolutionaries.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Akira is the quintessential classic anime that blew open the doors for anime in the west.
The anime that shocked the world with its content and the exceptional level of artistry people had never seen in animation before.
Akira elevated the artform of anime to new heights.
For millions of westerners, this was the first anime they ever saw.
This was the anime that ignited a passion and curiosity to discover more of what the artform had to offer.
The reaction you had to this film Dawn Marie, the shock, the disgust, the sense awe and wonder was exactly the reaction millions of other westerners had back in the 80s that would fuel the explosion of anime across the western world.
And it became not just one of the most influential animated films of all time, but one of the most influential films of all time!
Recommend
“Ninja Scroll” (1993)
for your next anime feature!!
It’s one of the groundbreaking anime classics that rocked the world and continued to fuel the anime explosion in the west
*If you ignore Astro Boy, Speed Racer, Star Blazers, Starzinger, Centella, Capitan Futuro, Macross, Magnetron, Arrow Emblem, and the Festival of the Robots, sure, Akira blew "the door" open to a great art form from a highly developed nation AKA "The East."* LOL
I’m going to assume you’re a very young person who wasn’t actually alive when this film came out.
You’re a kid who really loves anime now and doesn’t understand any of the historical context of the time.
the animation quality is high by anime standards (due to having the budget of a small country) but it doesn't even compare to classic Disney eg. Fantasia
@@helvete_ingres4717have you ever actually seen Akira? Are you troll that almost hooked me?!
@@TemporaryApe I have indeed, many times. If you ever say Western animation is superior to anime on the internet you trigger nerds who don't understand animation at all
I had to watch this film three times before I got it. Ghost In The Shell is another classic anime film.
Seconded.
Fourthed
Most of the great anime is shows not films tho.
It was worse for me - I first watched the original Orion/Streamline dub, which made no sense at all, because clearly the ones creating the English language didn't understand the story either, all while trying to change the dialog to make it more American-like.
I've watched it many times, but watching it now, I can see why she would find it confusing a bit. My buddy collected the comics and another friend had the graphic novel compilation of the entire collection. A lot of the scenes are straight from the comic, and look exactly the same.
Also looking at all the insane details and lights it's crazy to think that every frame was hand drawn, and the lights were either painted or cut out of the special celluloid sheets (cells) they use for their illustrations to make a mask and then lit from underneath on light tables.
The sheer amount of hard, intricate, detailed work it just shows how much this was a labour of love and passion. 🤩
I wonder how much the final cell of "The Slide" would fetch for auction at Sotheby's?
*I didn't see any details. I was too busy reading subtitles.*
@@hulkhatepunybanner🙄
@@hulkhatepunybanner Do you not usually watch much subtitled content? When you do after a short while your eyes/brain will just start being able to read and take in the subs while still watching the action
@@Pay-No-Mind *Whether it's in Japanese or in English, it's still dubbing.* You're just choosing the dubbing that you don't understand.
While not the first Anime to come to the states, its production values and grim/society plot caused Anime to go nuts here. It certainly blew minds back in the day. Although the wild thing is this anime only covers half the manga.
That wasn't the reaction I expected! Dawn did a lot better than I did 😂
Ghost In The Shell would be a fantastic place to go next.
Best way to approach anime is to think as a medium, not a particular genre/style. You'll find everything from fantasy, sci-fi, comedy, to drama target at audiences ranging from children to adults. Some other classics movies to get into would be almost anything from Studio Ghibli(closest thing to anime Disney), Ghost in the Shell(more classic sci-fi), Perfect Blue(but really anything directed by Satoshi Kon). For some new stuff with amazing animation I'd recommend Makoto Shinkai latest films Your Name, and Suzume.
That's also how the Western world should approach their own animation, but it's rare.
I remember when this came out. It was a phenomenon. Nobody had ever seen anything like it. Anime had finally come to the West, and it arrived with a bang.
"Ghost in the Shell", "Nausicaa : Valley of Wind" or "Appleseed" are probably my next favorite sci-fi Anime.
Yes, Akira was the little boy who appeared at the end after the jars broke. Remember the start of the movie with Tokyo being destroyed? That was due to Akira's power. Due to it they got his body - its not clear how but they broke his body down to test it and then froze the remains.
They had parts of his body and experimented on his parts to unleash the genetic potential to tap into the evolutionary cosmic power. He was already dead shortly before they achieved this. But by achieving this they unleashed a force of atomic energy (atom bomb) so they put his remaining parts on ice. Too valuable of a genetic sample to destroy until Tetsuo came along as another rare genetic specimen
I've never read the manga, but it seems to me Akira disembodied himself because he had become too powerful for his physical form. Unlike Tetsuo, he saw that the power would ultimately be too much for him to control consciously, and so he created a new universe he could inhabit without destroying all existence. Scientists, not really understanding how any of it worked, dissected his lifeless body thinking it held some secret to unlocking the power.
@@christopherschreiber5805 yeah that's probably more like it. I have the manga but it's been years since I read it. Plus, the movie changed things vs the manga
Yeah, Akira outgrew the need for a physical form. Read the manga! There's a superb dialogue between Tetsuo and Lady Miyoko that explains the power perfectly
@@christopherschreiber5805 this never happens in the manga. Akira is awakened by Tetsuo in attempt to challenge his power. Akira is not disembodied but merely hibernating/sedated. And yet another "bomb" is set off leading to a very different story. Just watched it after reading all 6 books. its wildy different. Good movie on its own tho for sure.
Can't believe that the soundtrack still hits as hard today as it did in 88. Just absolute masterpiece of animation, sound and overall story line.
Too bad that so much got cut from the original books, and what was put into the movie got so condensed that it could easily confuse people to what was actually going on. Also kind of sad that the original concept of having a sequel or two to cover these subplots never panned out.
But, still, despite the issues of "condensed/cut" story elements, the movie itself is an absolute "classic" of anime.
This is my #4 movie of all time. I stumbled across it at a Japanese film festival in 1990. I went to watch Seven Samurai and as I was leaving the cinema I saw the poster for this and turned around and went straight back into the theatre to watch it. Afterwards I went out and bought the books. I’ve now had to replace them a number of times because they’ve fallen apart from over reading.
Seconded. Dawn absolutely should react to "The Seven Samurai" next.
She should do Attack on Titan imo.
Seven Samurai is outstanding.
@@padmelotus Seven Samurai is my #1 movie.
Me too! only behind Terminator 1 and 2 and Aliens.
"Where did this come from?" This all came from the mind of Katsuhiro Otomo, who first created the Akira manga, long before he made the movie. This was a gargantuan effort that ended up spanning over 1000 pages, and it changed the perception of what manga could be, and what it could deliver. It also pretty much kicked off the cyberpunk era in Japan. The movie is actually something of a compromise, because the manga had many more supporting characters and storylines going on at once--way too much material to shoe-horn into a 2-hour+ movie. So, the movie ended up becoming kind of its own thing, having little to do with the original manga except for the main characters and a few basic plot points.
"Le Garage Hermétique" (1976-1979) by Moebius probably started the slow building trend toward mature topics and deep plot lines in the manga/comic space. While it's nowhere near as popular as Akira, it was still incredibly influential in the genre. Around the same time as Akira was being worked on in Japan, Alan Moore and the other English comic writers (Gaiman et alia) were revolutionizing mainstream Western comics.
I would also highly recommend Otomo's Domu. It's incredible.
I think this is still the best anime movie out there. After this, they said Ghost in the Shell would be the next great one. Then Spirited Away. They don’t compare to how great Akira was.
The movie was made halfway through the manga's production. It's a partial adaptation of a then-ongoing series.
The genius of Japanese to let the original creator helm the movie.
So, you took a leap from pokemon to Akira?
That's a huge jump 😄
Time for some Evangelion to balance it out
How about the '97 Berserk series? Same studio as pokemon, the dub even has some familiar VAs. It surely won't be a traumatic experience! Nope! Not at all!
That's most of us who saw this back in 1992 when it first came out on VHS release. Before that it was Voltron, Robotech, and Star Blazers. Then Akira.
@otakutomodachi4886 speak for yourself.
My best friend in childhood was Korean. And he introduced me to Dragon Ball in 1987 😉
...or 1986, I'm not surten.
The only thing I remember for sure was the fit of laughter another buddy of my gave my, by asking if I would knew that fantastic new TV show (Dragon Ball), in 2001.
Because it took almost 15 years till the TV channels over here found out that some people might like animes 😂🤣
@@MetastaticMaladiesYou just can't throw someone to the wolves. That shits for the pros only.🤣
This movie was sooo big that in the 90’s ppl were making replica motorcycles of Kanada’s bike.
Ghost in the Shell the OG from 1996. Its theme was 30 years ahead. Watch that one next
Akira, Ninja Scroll, and Ghost in the Shell were the first anime that I watched in that order. I recommend you watch the other two next, but especially Ghost in the Shell.
Same lol
Then “Ghost Stories” dubbed into English. It’s the first officially sanctioned show that is believed to be the starting point for all the silly and unsanctioned abridged series. (If she’s gonna watch some serious stuff she oughta get some comedy as well)
Ghost in the Shell
I would certainly recommend another anime, which inspired many after it. Which is "Ghosf In The Shell" (1995). BTW, over twenty years later, there was a live action adaptation "Ghost In The Shell" (2017).
I would also recommend another anime: "Perfect Blue" (1997), which is a thriller.
I haven't seen many manga or anime but Ninja Scroll is a good one, theres also one I've seen that's Korean rather than Japanese and that's Sky Blue.
Ghost In The Shell & Perfect Blue are great films. You should check out Wolf Children & the Studio Ghibli films as well.
Yes to both of these - and Princess Mononoke too.
Ghost, Perfect Blue, Mononoke….Back 8n the day, fans used to call this the “Ebert List”, since they attracted artsy critics and poseur fans who thought they knew “anime” just from the highbrow arthouse features that played US theaters. Rather like asking what British TV is like, being shown every episode of Downton Abbey, and never being told that Monty Python or Doctor Who ever existed. For an anime equivalent of the latter, “Urusei Yatsura: Beautiful Dreamer”, a crazy teen comedy series here turned into an eerie mystery, is about as far from Akira and Perfect Blue as you can get.
I would suggest Princess Mononoke, it too is epic- but more understandable. English dub is good for it as well. My favorite is Paprika, but that can wait a long while.
All drawn by hand and animated into this film in the 1980s! Legendary 🏍
This was actually my first journey into anime! I rented this from BlockBuster, because it was animated it didn't have a graphic rating. I saw it a few times at the store and one day rented it.. 10yr old me was never the same. Anime is everything after this in the 90s
This movie is based on a Manga, which is 6 volumes, thousands of pages - the fact that you're following along at all is impressive, as it is a movie often requiring many repeat-watches.
It is the same author, by the way, of both the comic book and animated version, so the "translation" between them is as organic as it can be, with the ammount of material that had to be left out.
The first watch of Akira is a special milestone for someone getting into anime. It takes a couple of viewings to get a proper idea of what happened (you were shockingly spot on about some of the surreal ending sequences to be fair,) it condenses a lot of manga into one film. I highly recommend reading it if you want the full story. Prepare to notice references to it all over the place now, the bike slide is iconic and of course the utter insanity of the ending.
Studio Ghibli films (Hayao Miyazaki's in particular are some of the most popular and charming "airy fairy") are the obvious choice of recommendation BUT they are infamously zealous in their copyright striking on youtube etc so this kind of video isn't advised, unfortunately. For this channel I'll instead suggest The Girl Who Leapt Through Time, Paprika, Redline or Summer Wars. They're mad and fun in various ways. Or if tv series rather than only films are fine you could go with Neon Genesis Evangelion (a series followed by some films) for the other classic "wtf did I just watch?" experience to pair with Akira.
Ah!! Akira!! The absolute standard of Japanese cell animation! First time I saw this, I was blown away, the beginning of my love for anime..☺️
Akira left a huge impression on me when I first saw it. There is slight dialogue changes between the Japanese & US versions. Plus the film is a heavily condensed version of the sprawling Manga it’s adapted from.
Like 2001: A Space Odyssey, Akria is pure cinema….an experience on so many levels.
Akira had pre-scored dialogue (wherein the dialogue is recorded before the film starts production and the movements of the characters' lips are animated to match it; a first for an anime production and extremely unusual even today for an anime, although the voice actors did perform with the aid of animatics), and super-fluid motion as realized in the film's more than 160,000 animation cels. Computer-generated imagery was also used in the film (created by High-Tech Lab. Japan Inc. and the cooperative companies for computer graphics, Sumisho Electronic Systems, Inc. and Wavefront Technologies), primarily to animate the pattern indicator used by Doctor Ōnishi, but it was additionally used to plot the paths of falling objects, model parallax effects on backgrounds, and tweak lighting and lens flares. Unlike its live-action predecessors, Akira also had the budget to show a fully realized futuristic Tokyo.
The film's production budget was ¥700 million ($5.5 million). It was the most expensive anime film up until then, surpassing the previous record of the Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli production Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986) which had cost ¥500 million, before Akira was itself surpassed a year later by the Miyazaki and Ghibli production Kiki's Delivery Service (1989) which cost ¥800 million.
I can recommend watching Ghost In The Shell & Ghost In The Shell 2: Innocence. The latter features a sequence that took an entire year to animate & still to this day is a stunning piece of animation.
Do you mean the English translation? Or is there alternate dialogue in the Japanese language version released in America?
@@jontk so the 2 disc DVD boxset that was released in the early 2000s has on one disc the anamorphic 1.85:1 version with a restored English & Japanese dub. Then on the other theres the unrestored 1.33:1 presentation with an unrestored English dub.
There’s subtle differences between the two version regarding dialogue; specifically when Tetsuo escapes his room & when the Doctor & General visit the storage underground facility. These don’t seem to be problems relating to the translation of the original Japanese dub, but rather are totally different versions of dialogue.
I remember seeing Akira at a friend's house, I think I was in 8th grade. It opened my eyes to the breadth of story telling, and the fantastic medium of animation. It is chilling, how many modern films owe their scripts and scenes to early anime. The parallels are celar in big mainstream hits like Stranger Things, etc.
If you get a chance, you should watch GHOST IN THE SHELL, but be prepared for a trippy mind thriller.
This movie is so fantastic, and the soundtrack is amazing, as well. I’m glad that one of my favorite reactors watched this movie.
AKIRA is one of THE iconic animes. Along with others like Ghost in the Shell (similar physiological vibe and similar animation style) which I highly recommend (but just the first one to start there is lots of other ghost in the shell content that varies wildly).
Watch "Princess Mononoke" (1997). Another anime feature film by director Hayao Miyazaki. One of the most famous films by one of the most celebrated Japanese directors.
This film got English dubbed twice.
Kaneda was voiced by Liquid Snake (1989) and Zeo Ranger 4 (2001).
PS: 10:43 - 10:45 🎶 We are the *Men in Black* 🎶
I will also recommend Ninja Scroll as others have. It is a bit more adult, but still an amazing movie and not as complex as Akira or Ghost In The Shell.
This is a staggering achievement of a movie. Know it. Live it. Love it.
One of the best openning scenes of all time!!!
I didn't see this until it was on VHS in like 90 or 91. I still have my VHS copy of it. There was quite literally nothing like this at the time. This is based on an amazing Manga series but the thing is the Manga and this movie are quite different and part of why the ending is so trippy and out there. When they were making this the Manga wasn't finished yet. In fact it was only half-way done. So how the story unfolds and where it leads differs greatly between the original story and this movie. Which is awesome for us Akira fans as there's basically two completely different versions with only the characters themselves and the world they live in being the same.
I think you missed a couple things, when the General and the doctor went to check on Akira, the cryo-capsule under the Olympic Stadium was marked "Akira" & "28". The boy who was trying to escape in the beginning is "26" Takashi, he was being escorted by a man from the resistance group Kei belonged to. The other two test subjects were, "25" Kiyoko, and "27" Masaru. Tetsuo runs across Takashi during his escape attempt, and it awakens his power.
Akira is the test subject that started World War III thirty-something years earlier. Doctor Onishi and General Shikishima have been continuing the tests since, in hopes of controlling the power of god that Akira had apparently awakened.
"I thought it was 💦..."
What kind of dreams are you having Dawn? 😳
The kids invading Tetsuo's mind/room is the cutest psychic 'attack' ever. I love that each has a projected form that reflects them - Takeshi is a teddy bear, Kiyoko a pink bunny, and Masaru a car because of his hover chair.
For some live action psychic stuff - Firestarter, Scanners, and Push (with Chris Evans 😉)
I like how they visualized the mind powers in “Dark City”.
Such a classic... It's up there with 2001 A Space Odyssey as a film I could watch 1000 times and never fully comprehend... but you get a bit closer each time (!)
You have fully understood 2001.
Any notion there's some kind of deep meaning to 2001 is blown so far out of the water by reading the shooting script that it's going to die of thirst.
You should watch the 1995 anime adaptation of Ghost in the Shell as a follow up to 1988’s Akira. As your start reacting to Japanese anime films and TV shows.
There is an English dub, it is not quite exact, but it is good for a second watching where you can really look around while listening. Yes, absolutely best Anime ever! Now you need to watch "Ghost in the Shell"
pre-internet , going to a midnight showing , on a cinema screen, not really knowing what to expect , really just blew me away. The translation was really poor back then so it was more confusing.
Slightly better than some of the other subtitle versions, but it still doesn't beat the BBC subtitles version from back in the early 90s, when the BBC actually did do work!
Katsuhiro Otomo wrote and drew the manga (Japanese comic) that was the basis for this movie; he's also the director of this movie. The manga's story is very different and definitely worth a read, if you are so inclined. Both manga and movie for Akira are pretty special, so definitely a good first pick.
"Im gonna call them akiras" was probably my favorite takeaway
"akira" remained faithful to the maniacally detailed draftsmanship that made the original comic series stand out because the original writer/artist katsuhiro otomo wrote/directed his own movie. some good genre anime to follow up would be "ghost in the shell" (1995) and "paprika" (2008)
I expected this less than the Spanish Inquisition. Love this movie.
Paprika (2006) is also worth checking out. And Metropolis (2001)
26:48 - JUST A BABY AKIRA. Dawn! You got it!
This is the point here. What happens when an insignificant individual acquires immense power and hasn't got the experience or talent to handle that power. It would be like giving power to an amoeba.
*10:10** no, you scoop them back in. we take them out for surgery all the time.* if they fall out: scoop them back in till help arrives. _JC
Saw this as my introduction to UNDERGROUND ANIME back in the early 90s, when subtitles and voice dubs were done by fans. Japanese "cartoons" that came on regular tv in the 80s were Westernized versions. This movie was a big deal for me, as it was my last couple of years of high school. My buddy who showed me the stuff is an animator himself now, who did work on Assasins Creed games
I don’t know if it’s just the movies I’ve seen, but I feel it’s kind of common in anime that they don’t explain things with crystal clarity and expect the audience to kind of run to keep up. That might also be the language barrier or the cultural differences too… in any case, welcome to the wide world of anime. You should check out Ghost in the Shell, you’ll see a lot of influence it had on The Matrix. You should also see the work of Hayao Miyazaki, I’d recommend Spirited Away or Princess Mononoke, but he’s made quite a few, all are masterworks of the craft.
With Akira it's mainly just a result of trying to cram six manga volumes worth of story into a feature film. The manga is much more succinct with more clearly established world building and character motivations.
Check out YOUR NAME (2016) - that's a brilliant one
Great reaction Dawn, the Manga makes more sense.
The movie condenses a lot of the story, the books are a lot deeper.
"I'm either going to cry, or be sick"
apt!
As well as Ghost In The Shell, I highly recommend Spirited Away, Princess Mononoke, and Howl’s Moving Castle. I think you did really well following the ending of Akira.
A virgin in actual true manga, loved every bit of you watching Akira. In all fairness, I'm under the strong assumption that the 80's manga was a golden era. I would urge you to watch fist of the north star not the film version but the episodic version, which was 160 episodes.
I think you would love Princess Mononoke!❤
More Anime to look at: Ghost in the Shell; Roujin Z; Paprika
It isn’t Anime, but, “A Scanner Darkly” is a mind blowing animation.
Great reaction video. I didn't think you would enjoy this but your reaction to the end was great!
Akira, Tank Police, Ghost in the Shell, and Ninja Scroll best Anime
You can look up the explanation of the movie, there are a couple of viable choices, but as far as the end, Tetsuo was experiencing what happens when someone gets too much power too fast. His closing declaration of "I am Tetsuo" implies that he now understands the extent of his godlike powers. He has transcended into a new existence; with the right guidance, perhaps his power will no longer perpetrate the cycle of destruction that began with Akira. I remember when this first played in the movie theaters here in the US, it was the first anime to be played in theaters. I got hooked on anime after I saw this movie. Technically it's more manga than anime, I don't care, I appreciate it for the style of art it represents. If you go on UA-cam, you can find videos where people have recreated Kaneda's bike in the real world, it's very cool to see them pull up on it. Anyway, loved the review, love you, take care and stay safe ❤️
This film transcends anime.
It is unlike so many others.
At the time it was the most expensive animated film in the world. The detail level surpassed anything else. The cell per second was double even the best animation of the time. The voices were recorded before the animation was created, so the mouths could be drawn to sync with the voices. This was highly unusual for anime.
Finally, the characters were draw to look Japanese. In fact to look like they were of various districts and ethnic mixes. This in turned had the effect that several characters actually looked a lot alike. With only subtle differences.
This was my introduction to anime. I have been a lifelong fan since then. Good choice for using subtitles. I first watched it dubbed and it sounded like everyone was from New Jersey.
The first VHS I ever bought with my own money, showing my age! Needless to say I now have Akira on Blu-ray, brilliant Anime, the manga is good too.
Oh my, you sure are taking on a huge endeavor with Akira. I already know how this is gonna end.
How is that?
YES YES This is the best one to start. outlawstar or cowboy bebop for good tv or ooooooo DEATHNOTE.😆
For something more lighthearted but still exciting I'd check out Redline next. It's about an interplanetary road race with all sorts of crazy characters
@7:39- Dawn picks her nose: "There's something you must see."
🤫
懐かしい！
AKIRAの頃から、日本のマンガのストーリーが複雑化・深化していった印象。自分の親が、「今の時代のマンガは大人が読んでも面白い、深い」と言って、私の本棚から勝手に読んでいき出したことを覚えてる
当時は今のような規制がそこまで無かったから、暴力性や残虐性にフィルターをかけていなかった。本質に迫る為の表現の自由があった。ストーリーも想像力の極限まで使ってよかったから、今の単純明快な映画に慣れてたら少し複雑に感じるかもしれない
あとあの頃のマンガで、謎の国家的機密機関が開発した「使いこなせないパワーへの恐怖」のようなものがよく描かれていたが、世界情勢も影響してたのかなと思う
AKIRAは絵柄もスタイリッシュで、後の世代に与えた影響は大きかった。いろんな漫画家から、自分の絵に影響を与えた存在としてあげられることが多かった。カネダのバイクのイラストは、今見てもクールでカッコいい
This is the exact same movie I started my anime education with 25 years ago. Trust me you couldn’t pick a better place to start especially if you want to understand classic anime. This video got a thumbs up for me the second I started it!!!
Your reaction to the abomination growing is why I love your channel.
Glad you had such a great time watching a classic of animation.😊
Yea, Ghost in the shell is the natural choice to watch after this one.
After that I recommend Grave of the fireflies and Your name.
Rick and Morty has done several homages to AKIRA over the years.
Really. Like what?
aside from ghost in the shell, this is the GOAT. so glad to see someone reviewing this awesome master piece.
"Evolution" is a movie with David Duchovny that touches on the same "evolutionary genetic potential" that Akira does. Especially with what happens at the end of the movie
The plot of Akira, is very similar to Stranger Things.
Or well, the other way around.
A group of scientists experiment with children with special characteristics to enhance human limits.
In the case of Akira, the experiment is successful, achieving that one of the specimens, a boy named Akira, reaches a potential beyond all imagination and gets out of control years ago.
Of these experiments, only three kids survived, but they have quite obvious physical degeneration.
The government itself continues its research, because they want weapons, of course.
That's where Tetsuo enters the scene, and they take him away to experiment with him.
And just like Akira, his potential is very high, getting out of control.
In the end, the three children combine their powers to rescue Kaneda and the Colonel, as well as contact Akira who continued to exist, but in another plane of existence.
Akira, who now knows how to control his power, but must remain beyond time and space, in another plane or another dimension, takes Tetsuo with him.
In both cases, Stranger Things and Akira, both works are based on real experiments that both the U.S. military and the Soviet Union military conducted during the Cold War.
@@nittyblahblah8939 There is a good video in Spanish that explains this, and the references to the Olympic stadium.
It's called AKIRA y el secreto del estadio olímpico (AKIRA and the secret of the Olympic stadium).
I believe the "physical degeneration" of the kids is actually the growth inhibiting drugs they're put on, which is why they appear as wrinkly children. Probably the same stuff the government scientists try to inject Tetsuo with when they capture him, maybe combined with a tranquilizer. So not really degeneration, just arrested development
Another classic anime in the genre would be "Ghost in the Shell"...but for pure animation skill combined with "WTF did I just watch?" nothing beats "Red Line". Every frame is art.
You should check out the anime Grave of the Fireflies, probably the saddest film ever made but absolutely unforgettable.
Hilarious movie.
Ghost in the Shell, should be your next anime. It is a little easier to follow.
I'm actually gonna disagree with that, the plot involves a ton of fictional secret government agencies and it's never explained who's working for who youre supposd to already know but you won't if you didn't read the manga, plus ton of politics in the background which isn't too interesting imo
If you're taking the Anime plunge, I'd suggest Ghost in the Shell (1995) next. It and Akira were instrumental in popularizing the medium in the west.
Obviously, don't expect yourself to be able to watch them all, as there is countless anime out there. I suggest for yiur next ones, Ghost in the Shell, Perfect Blue, Your Name, and Ninja Scroll.
"Ghost In Shell" is another animated/anime movie, not the live action remake. It is slower paced, and tackles some of the issue we are starting to face now. It did spawn a series as well. I usually watch the Dub's for the same reason, I can't read and watch the action at the same time.
im going to say that I dont expect you will understand this movie... will edit this message after. Edit: you did much better than I thought you would. Well done. Akira was a test subject that evolved far more than the others. There is too much information to post in a comment. Anyway may I suggest Ghost in the shell next.
You may be ready for SEVEN SAMURAI- another Japanese classic foreign language film. So old, and yet still holds up today. Directed by Akira Kurosawa. Fun fact, The Hidden Fortress- another samurai film by him was George Lucas’s inspiration for Star Wars! You have to look for it, but it’s there.
*What does "still hold up" mean? It's a story about samurai in 1500s feudal Japan.*
@hulkhatepunybanner it means that he believes that it's a timeless classic. And it is.
Characters looking the same is one of the reasons brightly coloured hair is so popular in anime.
This was a thoroughly awesome reaction. The best I've seen on this movie. You have the perfect personality to ask the questions you were asking throughout the movie. You understood it just fine. If you really liked this then maybe you should do yourself a favour and get the entire Manga. The story is much more cohesive. They left out basically half the story to create this movie by rushing through the middle to get to the end but there's so much more to explore in the Manga. Whatever questions you still have might be answered there. And you don't have to buy it. You can probably view it online.
Oh wow I was just thinking that this would be great for a first time anime watcher; the detail is incredible! Studio Ghibli also made amazing animated films 🥰
AKIRA The film's production budget was ¥700 million ($5.5 million), with the combined production and advertising budget believed to be reaching ¥1.1 billion ($9 million). Some sources claim it to the most expensive anime film at the time of release, but this claim is disputed by Crunchyroll writer Daryl Harding and it’s 100% handmade and no CGI for an adult entertainment
I would recommend watching the dubbed version. Then your eyes are free to concentrate on the picture. You'll also have fewer problems with the names and won't miss any subtle messages in the intonation etc.
Ignore the people who tell you that the cool kids watch subtitles.
This was originally 6 big graphic novels. I think the movie covers about half of that story.
"Akira" is a very good anime movie.
There are two more anime movies that I really like watching:
"Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust" (2000)
"Ghost In The Shell: Innocence" (2004)
I don't know if anyone else has requested for you to watch any more anime movies, Dawn Marie. But, these two are pretty good too.
I first saw this in the first English dub- which wasn’t the best translation-when I was 15 or so. Saw it a lot of times to figure things out. Then these whippersnapper kids got a new translation.
Ok, now see the original ghost in the shell. Those were my 2 go-tos for decades.
Akira is great, it's a classic, and was probably the introduction to "serious" anime for a lot of folks my age, growing up in the 80s. But probably not my first choice by a long shot to introduce someone to anime. The story is really wild and hard to follow even for anime standards 😅 Glad you still liked it.
Kay is what is called a medium. She has no power of her own. However, others could grant or channel their power through her.
While the children as a group are individually to weak to defeat Tetsuo, when they channel into Kei. Their powers are amplified.
AKIRA was a pretty hard core anime to get started out with. Even fans don't really know what it all means. You want to try something from Studio Ghibli, like My Neighbor Totoro, Spirited Away, or Howl's Moving Castle. You might even enjoy the comedy thriller, The Castle of Cagliostro featuring Lupin III.
The movie that lauched the anime mouvement in the West. Another early one, and one of my favorite, is Ninja Scroll. Aged very well. You might also want to check out the Neon Genesis/Evangelion.series, the original one.
The original Neon Genesis Evangelion is a masterpiece. I even love the weird ending and that End of Evangelion is a FU to those who complained about it.
Hey Dawn!
Akira is a fantastic place to begin your Anime journey.
It was where I started way back when and have to say, I'm so glad I did.
Anime can range from movies for the very young to those for the much older generation.
They have so many wonderful wild stories that range from the very beautiful to the most gross.
It can also be very adult in nature, not just for the subject matter or some disgusting images but also the rather... naughty side if things if you get what I mean, lol! 😂
You'll find many of them have an underlying story to them, much like a fable trying to teach the viewers something about life based mostly on Japanese beliefs and folklore.
There are of course some stunning and very beautiful visuals that you will come to see and to think, hand drawn.
Of course, as time goes on in their creation, computers were used for colouring and added effects but only to reduce the time creating them.
I believe however, most of the animation was still drawn by hand.
Something that I as an artist have a great deal of love and respect for.
A fantastic reaction hun, as always and as always, looking forward to your next video.
Have a wonderful day pretty eyes, take care hun. 🔥😍♥️
Ninja Scroll.
And the glasses look good on you, Dawn.
14:18 Instead of saying something to indicate that you are following you can grunt instead or Aizuchi, as it's called
It’s because nodding, saying “I see” (“なるほど”), “Oh really?” (“そうですか”) or just grunting is considered a polite way of following a speaker.
Doesn't indicate accept or agreement.
First time seeing this channel but seen AKIRA reaction so had to watch - awesome reactions. 👍👍
Akira was the boy and when he became too powerful he caused the explosion that destroyed Tokyo at the start of the movie. He was #28 and the three old children are #25-27, Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru respectively. They're called the Numbers or Espers, after Extra-Sensory Perception, and were child subjects in experiments on human mental abilities and evolution. As a result of the experiments and said mental abilities awakening their bodies were affected mostly in that they stopped growing but kept aging normally as well as the pigment in their skin being off. All of them are in their 60s but still have mostly childlike personalities, which is why they appeared as toys when messing with Tetsuo. Meanwhile Tetsuo himself would have been the newest Esper, #41.
The teenage girl with Kaneda, Kei, showed the potential for the next stage in human evolution which is why Kiyoko spoke through her and the Espers used her to attempt to fight Tetsuo at the Olympic stadium.
As for the Executive Council talking about Akira but not really knowing anything, they were formed after the destruction of the original Tokyo and most have no idea about the specifics of the ESP Project because it was work from the previous government and sealed away/guarded by the current military. Mr. Nezu, the short old parliamentarian with the heart problems, used what he knew about the Espers, and Akira in particular, to back anti-government activists and a cult that claimed Akira was a transcendental god. Takashi ran away and was trying to escape with one of the anti-government revolutionaries.