Akira

Akira

To begin the discussion about Akira,it is extremely important to understand its impact on culture and society as a whole. This movie has influenced many pieces of modern history/media, whether that be in forms like anime, books, movies, etc. Not only does this movie have a large influence on popular culture in this day and age, it also continuously has a cult following. I, myself, am a hardcore Akira fan. I feel that the popularity of this movie itself still grows at a heavy pace because of the themes that it portrays, on top of the stellar animation and beautifully crafted world building. So much happens within the 124 minute vessel of art, but it doesn't feel as though you need to understand it fully to enjoy it in its entirety. One of the big things that this movie has to offer is its large amounts of theming. Similar to other large films, the themes center themselves around war as a topic, but this one stands out for many reasons. It is so beautiful in the fact that it doesn't shove these themes of war straight down your throat like other movies do, they are there for the people who catch onto them, without feeling too overbearing. Alright enough rambling, time for the review. 

This movie takes place in the year 2019. One thing that is completely different between the movie and real life is that in 1988, Tokyo is completely decimated in a fictional world war. Reflects the time that this came out, essentially saying that if Tokyo were to be destroyed in a similar fashion at said time, the events of the movie were not too far off of what reality could be, but that's besides the point as of now. This world is completely overcome by things like government corruption, anti-government protests, drugs and terrorism. We are met with the main character, super cool bike-boy Kaneda and his biker gang known as The Capsules. The way we are introduced to the main and supporting cast of this film is through a basic little montage, just kidding, a super cool bike chase scene against the Clown gang. This chase ends with Tetsuo, Kaneda's best friend, almost hitting a little psychic child, Takashi, who has escaped the government by the help of a second little child that looks really old because of their abilities, Maseru. The Japanese-Special Defense Team shows up just in time to not do much and take the child back along with Tetsuo and then have every other person in the biker gang arrested. At the government facility where the bikers are being held, Kaneda is swept off his feet pretty briskly by a girl there named Kei. She finds a way for herself and all of the biker boys to get out of the prison type place. This is the part where things get pretty important to understand for the rest of the movie.

So to start, where Tetsuo is being held, the scientists discover that he, just like the old looking kids, has psychic abilities. One thing that is wayyyyy different from these little kids, he has extremely similar powers to the movies namesake character, Akira. The thing that I have yet to explain about the war is that although Tokyo was destroyed, you probably thought this was a bomb, nope it was destroyed by Akira. So the main reason that these scientists are testing these kids is not to help them with their unique abilities, it's to use them as weapons to fight against other countries if another war is to occur. 

Okay now back to the plot. With this information, the scientists are heavily considering killing Tetsuo in order to protect another potentially world-ending event. Instead of that happening, Tetsuo just up and leaves stealing Kaneda's bike with his girlfriend Kaori, but the Clowns reemerge and Tetsuo is hospitalized once again. Tetsuo is having major issues with his head, specifically large headaches. In order to try and get Tetsuo back, Kaneda and the bikers all join Kei's coalition of people going against the government. One big issue arises, the little superpower kids are also trying to kill Tetsuo, but are unsuccessful. This utterly infuriates Tetsuo and he goes out without full control over his powers, to kill these little kids. In this heated moment he destroys anything and anyone who would be to block his path. While he is doing this, a third little psychic kid tells Tetsuo that he can unlock his full powers by going to Akira, which is under the Olympic stadium. 

Kiyoko also helps Kaneda and Kai, who had been previously captured again, to escape from their cell and help to converse with Tetsuo. At this point in the film, Tetsuo is nowhere near who he was at the beginning of this venture. At the start, less than a few days before, he was a timid guy who was essentially Kaneda's right hand man, but now he is completely gone, he is mad and there is no almost no point of return for him. He meets with two of his former biker friends, Yagamata and Kai, in their former hangout. This meeting ends in a large altercation where you can see how far from salvation Tetsuo really is. It ends with Yagamata dying in the bar and being completely destroyed. 

While previously Kaneda's plan was to save Tetsuo, after hearing about what happened to Yamagata, he now seeks revenge against Tetsuo. The two eventually converge paths at the Tokyo Olympic Stadium. At this point, the two of them are going to fight. Kaneda uses the giant laser gun that most people have probably seen before. At the beginning of the fight Tetsuo loses his arm and then he remakes it, but now it's a bionic type arm. After this rebuilding of his arm, the two of them go back to fighting. This time however, Tetsuo transforms into a giant ball of flesh which then kills his girlfriend and completely encases Kaneda. The three little kids reawaken Akira to hopefully stop flesh ball Tetsuo from completely destroying everything. Unfortunately Akira being reunited with the three elderly children creates a singularity which completely destroys Neo-Tokyo to then parallel what happened in 1988. In the culminating events, Kaneda, Kai and Kei are reunited in the end, then Tetsuo reaches beyond his limits as a human and creates a universe from the ruins of his past life.

While this movie seems like a very much like a generic futuristic action movie, it is so much more than that. I'd like to begin my little dive into a character who I didn't even mention. The character of Colonel Shikishima is one that is super important to mention, but I haven't. The reason for this is that he adds depth to characters but isn't all that important to the plot. He is the reason that Tetsuo is captured in the first place, could he be the reason that all the events of the movie take place? Possibly, but we'll never know. He kinda shows the opposite of corruption in the government in the movie. While most of the people in power use the psychic powers of the children, Shikishima is almost a father figure to them and is so loving to them. This is reflected in the final battle of the film because he is teleported away by the kids in order to protect him from the cataclysmic event that was soon to occur. One of the people who tested on Tetsuo and the children was Doctor Oshino, his outcome in the film is another important one to understand. His final situation is a result of his abuse of his power at the time. Because he had used the kids to essentially become a god like creature with their powers, he was killed by witnessing what he wanted, the creation of a Universe. 

Another extremely interesting idea that is created in the movie is that of the "Capsules'' themselves. These capsules, which are drugs, are like a highly addictive stimulant. There is not much to them but the fact that the group had been created because of these items. In fact they are the entire reason behind the group. Kaneda's jacket says "Good for health, Bad for education" with a picture of the capsule. While this movie is near perfect, it doesn't fully explain the whole significance behind the drugs. These drugs are a huge entity to the people with psychic powers. In the manga, these drugs suppress Tetsuo's ability to reach his limits. Once he stops taking them, his mind becomes even more fragmented and broken than it had before. It's so cool that these simple drugs could be such a pivotal point in Tetsuo's transformation.

The themes of war that are so prevalent in the movie are just so interesting. The most obvious one is that of the actual war that caused the events of the movie. The destruction of Tokyo in 1988 by Akira is quite obviously a mirror of WWII. Many of the war parallels come from Tetsuo himself. His transformation from man to a god-like being reflects how Japan had become one of the largest and most threatening nations in the world in such a short amount of time. Another huge thing that is shown through the lens of Tetsuo is how he is still held back by his past. When he gains the powers and starts to get corrupted by them, he still goes for Kaneda's bike because he is still attached to his past. It haunts him so deeply and causes him to never truly understand his powers. It goes off this idea that although he has god equivalent powers, he is not truly a god and he would never become a god. It is the fact that he has these powers but remains with human ideologies that causes him to be held back from the force he could have become. The use, or rather abuse, of the powers that were bestowed upon him is what ultimately causes his demise and the end to his force. He only has this obsession with abuse of his powers because that is human intention. This shows an interesting point of technology. It is a mirror of how we as people have the ability to use such large technologies, like nuclear bombs, that there is no way there could be a successful outcome because of the inherent nature that humans have. 

Furthermore, on this idea of human intention, Neo-Tokyo as a whole is an allegory of life, more consumerism and capitalistic life, as a whole. While it looks as though there is much pain and crime ridden streets because there are a bunch of child-filled gangs, there is much more un-organization in the people in control. There are such large hints of corruption which I touched on earlier, but I want to talk about more. The fact that there are these children with such large power in the world creates such a danger. This danger comes through people, like Oshino, who only want to abuse power for themselves. These thoughts are shown through the eyes of the children themselves, even though they are children, they show so much responsibility and overall deep thinking than that of anyone else in the whole film. They still have an inherent child-like nature of being afraid of things, but they have the overall best intention in the whole film. These ideas of human greed are what results in the ending of the film and the ending of Neo-Tokyo and Tokyo. It is assumed that the reason Akira destroyed Tokyo in the first place was because of the same corruption in the government that had still occurred some 30 years later. So the fact that this high level of harmful intent from those in charge remained unchanged is why the final events played out the way they did. 

This movie as a whole not only set a new president of what films messages could be, it also set almost a renaissance in popular culture itself. The story itself is wonderfully mashed up with many things, but it also incorporates so many aspects that reflect what real world events inspired it. There is a reason that this movie is held at such a pedestal as it is. It just resonated with people because it gave an interesting take on a pivotal point in world history and it did it in such a stylish way. I love this movie so much.