{"id":6311,"date":"2024-10-19T23:26:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:26:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=6311"},"modified":"2024-10-19T23:26:25","modified_gmt":"2024-10-20T03:26:25","slug":"akira","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/19\/akira\/","title":{"rendered":"Akira"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Akira<\/strong> (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Streamline Pictures\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Katsuhiro Otomo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tsutomu Ohashi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Katsuji Misawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1990 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast (English language version): Johnny Yong Bosch, Joshua Seth, Wendee Lee, James Lyon, Simon Isaacson, Robert Wicks, Sandy Fox, Cody MacKenzie, Georgette Rose, Dylan Tully, Tony Sarducci, Ray Michaels.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $439,162 (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: *** \u00bd<\/p>\n

\u00a0Many Americans, myself included, never even heard of anime until Akira<\/strong> made its way here. Up until that point, my experiences with adult-oriented animation were limited to Heavy Metal (1981) and Ralph Bakshi (Fritz the Cat, American Pop). That all changed on December 8, 1990, the day I went to see Akira<\/strong> with two of my friends at a small theater in Philadelphia (the Roxy) that specialized in arthouse films and weird movies that appealed to limited audiences. This was the only theater in the area that showed The Rocky Horror Picture Show (every Saturday at midnight) at the time. It was the perfect place to see Akira<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

\u00a0It\u2019s a sci-fi piece set in 2019 Neo-Tokyo. It seems that old Tokyo was annihilated in 1988 during WWIII. Thirty years later, Neo-Tokyo is a dark, crumbling metropolis plagued by gang violence, civil unrest and student demonstrations. \u00a0Biker gangs roam the streets at night, racing and fighting each other. During a brawl, a boy named Tetsuo (Seth) is severely injured when he swerves and crashes to avoid hitting what looks like a small boy. It\u2019s actually a psychic esper named Takashi (MacKenzie) who escaped from a secret government laboratory. The police, led by Colonel Shikishima (Lyon), show up and take Takashi and Tetsuo away while the other gang members, led by Kaneda (Bosch), are arrested.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Kaneda meets a young revolutionary named Kei (Lee) while in custody and helps secure her release by claiming she\u2019s with him and his friends. Meanwhile, it\u2019s discovered that Tetsuo possesses tremendous psychic abilities equaled only by Akira, the esper that destroyed Tokyo. Another esper, Kiyoko (Fox), foresees the destruction of Neo-Tokyo at the hands of Tetsuo whose powers continue to increase until he finally escapes from the government facility. Kaneda joins up with the rebels in hopes of capturing Tetsuo and stopping him from destroying the city.<\/p>\n

\u00a0The imagery in Akira<\/strong> is awesome! The visuals bring to mind movies like Blade Runner and Escape from New York. The storyline gets a bit convoluted, especially near the end, but there\u2019s so much action that it really doesn\u2019t matter. Also, there\u2019s not much in the way of character development but I hardly think that matters either.<\/p>\n

\u00a0In the end, Akira<\/strong> is really cool! It\u2019s adapted from the manga by Katsuhiro Otomo who also directs the movie. He also co-wrote the screenplay with Izo Hashimoto. I\u2019ve never read it, but from what I hear from fans, he does a good job of adapting it for the big screen. The animation is top of the line; it\u2019s both dark and colorful. There\u2019s plenty of action and violence; the climax is especially cool. It\u2019s also an intelligent movie; it has some pretty big ideas. If you\u2019ve never seen an anime film, Akira<\/strong> is a great place to start. There\u2019s a reason it attained cult status. I hate to be redundant, but I\u2019ll say it once more. It\u2019s cool!\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Akira (1988)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Streamline Pictures\/Sci-Fi-Action\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 124 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated R (graphic violence, language, brief nudity)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Katsuhiro Otomo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Tsutomu Ohashi\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Katsuji Misawa\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 7, 1990 (Philadelphia, PA)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast (English language version): Johnny Yong Bosch, Joshua Seth, Wendee Lee, James Lyon, Simon Isaacson, Robert Wicks, Sandy Fox, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6514,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[26,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6311","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-animation","category-sci-fi-fantasy"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Akira-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6311"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6516,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6311\/revisions\/6516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6311"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6311"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6311"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}