User:70Jack90/Akira (1988 film)

Akira (Japanese: アキラ Hepburn: Akira) is a 1988 Japanese animated post-apocalyptic cyberpunk film directed by Katsuhiro Otomo, produced by Ryōhei Suzuki and Shunzō Katō, and written by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, based on Otomo's manga of the same name. The film had a production budget of ¥1.1 billion (US$million), making it the most expensive anime film of its time.

Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira tells the story of Shōtarō Kaneda, a leader of a local biker gang whose childhood friend, Tetsuo Shima, acquires incredible telekinetic abilities after a motorcycle accident, eventually threatening an entire military complex amidst chaos and rebellion in the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo. While most of the character designs and settings were adapted from the manga, the plot differs considerably and removes much of the last half of the manga.

Akira premiered in Japan on 16 July 1988 by Toho, and was released the following year in the United States by pioneering animation distributor Streamline Pictures. It garnered an international cult following following its theatrical release, and eventually grossed over $80million worldwide through its theatrical and VHS releases. It is widely considered by many critics to be one of the greatest animated and science fiction films of all time, as well as a landmark in Japanese animation. It is also a landmark film in the cyberpunk genre, particularly the Japanese cyberpunk subgenre, as well as adult animation. The film had a significant impact on popular culture worldwide, paving the way for the growth of anime and Japanese popular culture in the Western world as well as influencing numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games.

At the 61st Academy Awards, Akira was nominated for twelve Academy Awards and won six, including Best Foreign Animated Feature, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Picture.

Plot
In July 1988, a massive explosion annihilates Tokyo, sparking World War III. By 2019, a year before the XXXII Olympics, sedition, crime, corruption, and gang violence has overtaken Japan, especially in the now rebuilt "Neo-Tokyo", where anti-government protesters run riot. On the night of a major protest, Shōtarō Kaneda has his biker gang, the Capsules, battle their rivals, the Clowns. During the brawl, Kaneda's best friend, Tetsuo Shima, runs head-on into Takashi, a psychic esper on the run from a secret government laboratory, and is badly hurt. Colonel Shikishima of the Japan Self-Defense Forces, assisted by esper Masaru, capture Takashi and Tetsuo. Later, as Kaneda and his gang are interrogated by the police, he spots Kei, an activist belonging to an organized resistance, and tricks the authorities into releasing her along with his gang, taking an interest in her.

Shikishima and Doctor Ōnishi discover that Tetsuo possesses immense psychic abilities similar to Akira, the esper responsible for causing Tokyo's destruction. Meanwhile, Takashi's friend Kiyoko foresees Neo-Tokyo's impending destruction and Shikishima proposes killing Tetsuo to prevent this, but Neo-Tokyo's parliament dismisses his concerns. Tetsuo leaves with Kaneda's motorcycle, accompanied by his girlfriend Kaori, but the Clowns attack them before the Capsules intervene. Suffering severe migraines and hallucinations, Tetsuo is again hospitalized. During a terrorist attack, Kaneda rescues Kei and joins the rebels after overhearing their plan to capture Tetsuo. At the hospital, the espers unsuccessfully attempt to kill Tetsuo. A furious Tetsuo breaches their quarters and confronts them, as Kaneda, Kei and Shikishima reach and try to stop Tetsuo, who has become egomaniacal and unstable. He overpowers them and escapes after learning from Kiyoko that Akira is in cryonic storage beneath the Olympic Stadium's construction site.

Using Kei as a medium, Kiyoko helps her escape along with Kaneda to stop Tetsuo, while Shikishima stages a coup d'état when the corrupt parliament attempts to have him arrested. Returning to the local bar to take some pills, Tetsuo ambushes his former comrades, Yamagata and Kai after they arrive, killing the former in the process; Kaneda vows to avenge Yamagata. Meanwhile, Tetsuo wanders through Neo-Tokyo, eventually arriving at Akira's cryogenic storage dewar in the stadium. Kiyoko has Kei fight Tetsuo, but he easily defeats her and exhumes Akira's remains: dissected, frozen, and preserved for future studies. Using a laser rifle, Kaneda fights Tetsuo; meanwhile, Shikishima fires an orbital beam weapon at him, but it severs his arm. After Tetsuo destroys the satellite in orbit, he psychically assembles a prosthetic arm out of scrap metal.

At the stadium and in immense pain, Shikishima tells Tetsuo that the espers' drugs can control his abilities. When Tetsuo approaches Kaori, Shikishima stops him. Tetsuo's arm mutates and strangles Shikishima before Kaneda uses his laser rifle to intervene and fight Tetsuo. A moment later, Akira manifests, which causes Tetsuo to lose control of his powers and mutate into a gigantic mass that engulfs Kaneda and Kaori, killing and assimilating the latter.

The espers awaken Akira, who reunites with his friends and destroys Neo-Tokyo once more, dragging Tetsuo and Kaneda into a singularity, opening a hole to another dimension. As Tetsuo struggles against Akira, the espers teleport Shikishima away from the stadium, and Takashi rescues Kaneda. The other espers aid in the effort at the cost of being unable to return to this reality. In the singularity, Kaneda experiences Tetsuo's and the espers' childhood, including how much Tetsuo trusted Kaneda and how the children were trained and altered before Tokyo's destruction.

The espers help Kaneda escape and inform him that Akira will be taking Tetsuo to safety; Kiyoko reveals that Kai is developing psychic powers. In the aftermath, Kaneda discovers that Kei and Kai have survived, and they drive off into the ruins, while Shikishima watches the sunrise. Finally in control of his powers, Tetsuo triggers a big bang in an alternate universe.

Production
While working on Akira, Katsuhiro Otomo did not intend to adapt the series outside of the manga; however, he became "very intrigued" when the offer to develop his work for the screen was put before him. He agreed to an anime film adaptation of the series on the grounds that he retained creative control of the project — this insistence was based on his experiences working on Harmagedon. The Akira Committee was the name given to a partnership of several major Japanese entertainment companies brought together to realize production of an Akira film. The group's assembly was necessitated by the unconventionally high budget of around ¥1,100,000,000, intended to achieve the desired epic standard equal to Otomo's over 2,000 page manga tale. The committee consisted of Kodansha, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Bandai, Hakuhodo, Toho, Laserdisc Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation who all forwarded money and promotion towards the film. The animation for the film was provided for by animation producers, Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment).

At the time, most anime was notorious for cutting production corners with limited animation, such as having only the characters' mouths move with basic lip sync while their faces remained static. Akira broke from this trend with detailed scenes, 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, 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, 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 teaser trailer for Akira was released in 1987. The film's main production was completed in 1987, with sound recording and mixing performed in early 1988. It was released in 1988, two years before the manga officially ended in 1990. Otomo is claimed to have filled 2,000 pages of notebooks, containing various ideas and character designs for the film, but the final storyboard consisted of a trimmed-down 738 pages. He had great difficulty completing the manga; Otomo has stated that the inspiration for its conclusion arose from a conversation that he had with Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1990. He later recalled that the film project had to begin with the writing of an ending that would bring suitable closure to major characters, storylines, and themes without being extraordinarily lengthy, so that he could know in reverse order which manga elements would make the cut into the anime and thus suitably resolve the manga's various elements into a lean, two-hour story.

Otomo is a big fan of Tetsujin 28-go. As a result, his naming conventions match the characters featured in Tetsujin 28-go: Kaneda shares his name with the protagonist of Tetsujin 28-go; Colonel Shikishima shares his name with Professor Shikishima of Tetsujin 28-go, while Tetsuo is named after Shikishima's son Tetsuo Shikishima; Akira's Ryūsaku is named after Ryūsaku Murasame. In addition, Takashi has a "26" tattooed on his hand which closely resembles the font used in Tetsujin 28-go. The namesake of the series, Akira, is the 28th in a line of psychics that the government has developed, the same number as Tetsujin-28.

Theatrical
Akira was released by Toho on 16 July 1988. Fledgling North American distribution company Streamline Pictures soon acquired an existing English-language rendition created by Electric Media Inc. for Kodansha, which saw limited release in North American theaters on 25 December 1989. Streamline is reported to have become the film's distributor when both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg labelled it unmarketable in the U.S. In the UK, Akira was theatrically released by ICA Projects on 25 January 1991 and was re-released on 13 July 2013 celebrating 25th Anniversary of the film and again on 21 September 2016. In Australia, Akira was theatrically released by Island World Communications and distributed by Satellite Entertainment, later on by Manga Entertainment, then Madman Entertainment after Manga Entertainment's Australian branch merged with Madman. In Canada, the Streamline dub was released by Lionsgate (at the time known as C/FP Distribution) in 1990. In 2001, Pioneer released a new English dub which was produced by Animaze and ZRO Limit Productions and was presented in select theaters from March through December 2001.

Home media
VHS releases included the initial Streamline Video offering (May 1991), later wider distribution by MGM/UA Home Video, and a subtitled edition from Orion Home Video (September 1993). In the UK, Akira was released on video by Island World Communications in 1991. The success of this release led to the creation of Manga Entertainment, who later took over the release. The original VHS release of Akira started up Manga Entertainment Australia and VHS distribution was handled by Ronin Films and PolyGram until 1994 when Siren Entertainment took over all of Manga Entertainment Australia's distribution including Akira under a special license from PolyGram, who handled Island's video distribution. Akira was re-released on video in 1994, and again on DVD in 2001 and distributed by Madman Entertainment and The AV Channel. Pioneer Entertainment issued a DVD and a VHS with a new English dub (the dub produced by Animaze) in 2001. This was one of the few releases from Geneon to feature THX-certified audio and video, making it the first anime certified with THX. In 2002, Manga released a two-disc DVD featuring the new Pioneer/Animaze English dub followed in 2004 by another two-disc set containing the original Japanese as well as both the Streamline and Pioneer/Animaze dubs. This version did not contain standard English subtitles, only closed captioning subtitles. In 2005, Manga Entertainment and Boulevard UMD released Akira on UMD for the Sony PSP in the United Kingdom using the original Streamline dub.

In 1992, video-distribution company the Criterion Collection, which specializes in licensing "important classic and contemporary films", released a LaserDisc edition of Akira. The release is notable in that Akira is the first animated film to be released by Criterion and for more than twenty years their sole animated film to be released until their 2014 Blu-ray/DVD release of Fantastic Mr. Fox (2009).

A Blu-ray disc edition of the film was released on 24 February 2009 in North America by Bandai Entertainment under the Honneamise label. A Blu-ray edition of Akira was subsequently released in Australia by Madman Entertainment under exclusive license from Manga Entertainment UK and Kodansha. Madman has recently released a DVD/Blu-ray combo which license is separate from the standalone Blu-ray release because instead of the DVD version being the Manga Video UK version, it uses Madman/Manga's 2001 Special Edition DVD release which is licensed from Manga UK. The Blu-ray release is the very first to use the highest sampling rate currently possible (Japanese Dolby TrueHD 192 kHz because of its analog roots) and is also the first to use the hypersonic effect (only available in this track and via a high-end audio system). As well as Japanese with English subtitles, the Blu-ray also features the 2001 Pioneer/Animaze English dub (Dolby TrueHD 48 kHz). The DVD version of Akira has been re-released in 2012 by Bandai Entertainment. The film was licensed again by Funimation following Bandai Entertainment's closure shortly after its DVD release. The Funimation release includes both the Streamline and Pioneer dubs. Funimation released the 25th anniversary Blu-ray/DVD combo and separate DVD release on 12 November 2013, which contain both English dubs.

Television
The Pioneer dub of the film has aired twice on Adult Swim's Toonami block. Once on 7 December 2013, with a rating of TV-MA-V, and again on 20 December 2014, both times with explicit language and nudity censored. The Streamline dub version premiered on The Sci-Fi Channel in the mid-90s during their week-long anime events and Saturday Anime block. It has aired numerous times on Australian FTA station SBS.

Reception and legacy
Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times selected Akira as his "Video Pick of the Week" in 1989 on Siskel & Ebert and the Movies. For its wider 2001 release, he gave the film "Thumbs Up." As of September 2014, the film has an 87% "fresh" rating on Rotten Tomatoes, based on 46 critics, the general consensus states: "Akira is distractingly bloody and violent, but its phenomenal animation and sheer kinetic energy helped set the standard for modern anime." The title has been regarded as one of the greatest animated movies of all time and prompted an increase in popularity of anime movies in the US and, generally, outside Japan. It is still admired for its exceptional visuals. In Channel 4's 2005 poll of the 100 greatest animations of all time featuring both film and television, Akira came in at number 16. On Empire magazine's list of the 500 greatest movies of all time, Akira is number 440. It showed again on Empire's list of The 100 Best Films Of World Cinema, coming in at #51. IGN also named it 14th on its list of Top 25 Animated Movies of All-Time. The Akira anime also made TIME magazine's list of top 5 anime DVDs. The film also made number 16 on Time Out's top 50 animated movie list and number 5 on the Total Film Top 50 Animated Films list. The film was ranked #1 on Wizard's Anime Magazine on their "Top 50 Anime released in North America".

Akira is regarded by many critics as a landmark anime film, one that influenced much of the art in the anime world that followed its release with many illustrators in the manga industry citing the film as an important influence. Manga author Masashi Kishimoto, for example, recalls becoming fascinated with the way the poster was made and wished to imitate the series' creator Katsuhiro Otomo's style. The film led the way for the growth of popularity of anime outside Japan. Akira is considered a forerunner of the second wave of anime fandom that began in the early 1990s and has gained a massive cult following since then. It is credited with setting the scene for anime franchises such as Pokémon, Naruto and Dragon Ball to become global cultural phenomenons. Akira has also been cited as a major influence on live-action films such as The Matrix, Tetsuo: The Iron Man, Chronicle, Looper, Midnight Special, and Inception, as well as television shows such as Stranger Things. John Gaeta cited Akira as artistic inspiration for the bullet time effect in The Matrix films. Akira has also been credited for influencing the Star Wars franchise, including the prequel film trilogy and the Clone Wars film and television series. The film has also influenced the work of musicians such as Kanye West, who paid homage to Akira in the "Stronger" music video.

Anime News Network's Bamboo Dong commends the Limited Edition's DVD for its "superbly translated" English subtitles and the commendable English dubbing, which "sticks very close to the English translation, and the voice actors deliver their lines with emotion". THEM Anime's Raphael See applauds the film's "astounding special effects and clean, crisp animation". Chris Beveridge comments on the Japanese audio, which brings "the forward soundstage nicely into play when required. Dialogue is well placed, with several key moments of directionality used perfectly". Janet Maslin of The New York Times commends Otomo's artwork, stating "the drawings of Neo-Tokyo by night are so intricately detailed that all the individual windows of huge skyscrapers appear distinct. And these night scenes glow with subtle, vibrant color". Richard Harrison of The Washington Post comments on the pace of the film, stating that the author "has condensed the narrative sprawl of the comics to provide coherence, though there's a bit of "Back to the Future Part II" incompleteness to the story. That hardly matters, since the film moves with such kinetic energy that you'll be hanging on for dear life".

Variety commends the film's "imaginative and detailed design of tomorrow to the booming Dolby effects on the soundtrack" but criticizes the "slight stiffness in the drawing of human movement". Kim Newman of Empire commends the film's "scintillating animated visuals, with not one – not one – computer-assisted shot in sight". Phelim O'Neill of The Guardian draws a parallel on Akira's influence on the science-fiction genre to Blade Runner and Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. Chicago Tribune's Dave Kehr commends Otomo's "excellent animation-specific ideas: Vehicles leave little color trails as they roar through the night, and there are a number of dream sequences that make nice use of the medium`s ability to confound scale and distort perspective". Helen McCarthy in 500 Essential Anime Movies claims that the anime "remains fresh and exciting, easily holding its own against the products of two decades of massive technical advancement". Meanwhile, on February 2004, Dan Persons of Cinefantastique listed the film as one of the "10 Essential Animations", simply referring to the film as "the film that changed everything."

Akira was one of the four nominees for the American Anime Awards' "Best Anime Feature" award, but it lost to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Johnny Yong Bosch, Kaneda's voice actor in the Pioneer English dub, was nominated for Best Actor and Best Actor in a Comedy at American Anime Awards, but lost to fellow Naruto and Persona voice actors Vic Mignogna and Dave Wittenberg, respectively.

When Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in the 2013 bidding process, several commentators claimed that Akira predicted the future event.

Awards
At the 61st Academy Awards, Akira won eight competitive Academy Awards including Best Foreign Animated Feature (as a special achievement award with Alice, Gandahar, Grave of the Fireflies, and My Neighbor Totoro), Best Foreign Language Film (Japan), and Best Picture. It became the first animated feature (and the first anime film) to win Best Picture tied with Rain Man, and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. It won Academy Awards for Best Art Direction, Best Sound, Best Original Score, Best Foreign Animated Feature, Best Foreign Language Film, and Best Picture. It was also nominated for six more including Best Sound Effects Editing, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actress for Mami Koyama, Best Actor for both Mitsuo Iwata and Nozomu Sasaki, and Best Director for Katsuhiro Otomo.

Akira was one of the four nominees for the 2007 American Anime Awards' "Best Anime Feature" award, but it lost to Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children.

Johnny Yong Bosch, Kaneda's voice actor in the Pioneer English dub, was nominated for Best Actor and Best Actor in a Comedy at American Anime Awards, but lost to fellow Naruto and Persona voice actors Vic Mignogna and Dave Wittenberg, respectively.

Soundtrack
AKIRA: Original Soundtrack (Symphonic Suite AKIRA) was recorded by Geinō Yamashirogumi (芸能山城組). The music was composed and conducted by musical director Shoji Yamashiro (pseudonym of Tsutomu Ōhashi). It features music which was additionally re-recorded for release. "Kaneda", "Battle Against Clown" and "Exodus From the Underground Fortress" are really part of the same song cycle — elements of "Battle Against Clown" can be heard during the opening bike sequence, for example. The score is generally sequenced in the same order that the music occurs in the film. The North American version featured extensive production notes by David Keith Riddick and Robert Napton.

AKIRA: The Original Japanese Soundtrack; an alternate soundtrack was also released. This version included music as it appeared in the film with dialogue and sound-effects albeit ordered out of sequence.

The soundtrack spawned an album of electronica remixes from Bwana, called Capsules Pride.

The soundtrack won the Academy Award for Best Original Score.

Video games
In 1988, Taito released an Akira adventure game for the Famicom exclusively in Japan. Another Akira game for the Super NES, Genesis and Sega CD was being developed, but cancelled along with prospects of another Akira title for the Game Boy and Game Gear handheld consoles. International Computer Entertainment produced a video game based on Akira for the Amiga and Amiga CD32 in 1994. To coincide with the DVD release in 2002, Bandai released Akira Psycho Ball, a pinball simulator for the PlayStation 2.

Live-action adaptations
In 2002, Warner Bros. acquired the rights to create a live-action remake of Akira, and since then several attempts have been made to write a script and start production. In June 2010, producer Andrew Lazar explained that they contemplated splitting Akira in two movies based on manga volumes 1-3 and 4-6, respectively. According to Gary Whitta, at one point the script had the events taking place in a Japanese-owned Manhattan.

Since the project began, several writers, directors (including George Miller and Christopher Nolan), producers, actors and actresses have been attached to the project.

George Takei spoke with The Advocate in April 2011 about the casting rumors at that time, stating that any decision to cast white actors in Akira would offend both Asians and the fans of the original manga or animated film.

As of 14 July 2014, the latest writer known to be working on the script was Dante Harper.

On 8 March 2015, the planned director Jaume Collet-Serra told Collider.com in an interview that there was no progress on the film and planned to take a break from directing. However, the studio might get the film made eventually. On 8 June 2015, The Hollywood Reporter has reported that the studio has resumed work on the film and Marco Ramirez, known for his work as one of the showrunners for Marvel's Daredevil, will write the film. Warner Bros. offered George Miller the chance to direct the film at one point but he turned it down due to commitments to other projects. According to Jeff Snider at Meet the Movie Press, the studio are in talks with Justin Lin to direct the film. After the success of Get Out, Jordan Peele was offered the director's chair but passed on it.

In January 2016, Katsuhiro Otomo revealed in a French comic festival that an anime television series was being considered.