Directed by
Katsuhiro Otomo
Starring (the voices of)
Mitsuo Iwata .... Shôtarô Kaneda
Nozomu Sasaki .... Tetsuo Shima
Mami Koyama .... Kei
Tesshô Genda .... Ryûsaku
Hiroshi Ôtake .... Nezu
Kôichi Kitamura .... Priestess Miyako, Council A
Michihiro Ikemizu .... Inspector, Council I
Yuriko Fuchizaki .... Kaori
Masaaki Ôkura .... Yamagata
Tarô Arakawa .... Eiichi Watanabe, Council G, Army
Takeshi Kusao .... Kai
Kazumi Tanaka .... Army
Masayuki Katô .... Engineer Sakiyama, Council D
Yôsuke Akimoto .... Harukiya Bartender
Masato Hirano .... Yûji Takeyama, Spy, Council F
Yukimasa Kishino .... Mitsuru Kuwata, Terrorist, Assistant, Council
B
Kazuhiro Kamifuji .... Masaru (No. 27) (as Kazuhiro Kandô)
Tatsuhiko Nakamura .... Takashi (No. 26)
Fukue Itô .... Kiyoko (No. 25) (as Sachie Itô)
Kôzô Shioya .... Follower of Miyako
Kayoko Fujii .... Girl A
Masami Toyoshima .... Girl B
Yuka Ôno .... Girl C
Tarô Ishida .... Colonel Shikishima
Mizuho Suzuki .... Doctor Ônishi
Written by
Katsuhiro Otomo
Rated: |
Artist-writer Katsuhiro Ôtomo began telling the story of
Akira as a comic book series in 1982 but took a break from 1986
to 1988 to write, direct, supervise, and design this animated
film version. Set in 2019, the film richly imagines the new metropolis
of Neo-Tokyo, which is designed from huge buildings down to the
smallest details of passing vehicles or police uniforms. Two
disaffected orphan teenagers--slight, resentful Tetsuo and confident,
breezy Kanada--run with a biker gang, but trouble grows when
Tetsuo start to resent the way Kanada always has to rescue him.
Meanwhile, a group of scientists, military men, and politicians
wonder what to do with a collection of withered children who
possess enormous psychic powers, especially the mysterious, rarely
seen Akira, whose awakening might well have caused the end of
the old world. Tetsuo is visited by the children, who trigger
the growth of psychic and physical powers that might make him
a superman or a supermonster. As befits a distillation of 1,318
pages of the story so far, Akira is overstuffed with character,
incident, and detail. However, it piles up astonishing set pieces:
the chases and shootouts (amazingly kinetic, amazingly bloody)
benefit from minute cartoon detail that extends to the surprised
or shocked faces of the tiniest extra; the Tetsuo monster alternately
looks like a billion-gallon scrotal sac or a Tex Avery mutation
of the monster from The Quatermass Experiment; and the finale--which
combines flashbacks to more innocent days with a destruction
of Neo City and the creation of a new universe--is one of the
most mind-bending in all sci-fi cinema. --Kim
Newman
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Related Books
and Movie Tie-Ins: |
Akira
[DVD]
Akira
[VHS]
Akira
[CD]
Soundtrack
Akira,
Volume 1
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira,
Volume 2
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira,
Volume 3
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira,
Volume 4
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira,
Volume 5
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira,
Volume 6
by Katsuhiro Otomo
Akira
Buy Akira Posters At AllPosters.com
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