Akira

In 1988, Tokyo was destroyed by a nuclear explosion , which led to the outbreak of World War III . On the ruins was built a new city - Neo-Tokyo.

After 31 years, in 2019, the Third World War is over. The titanic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo is on the verge of rebellion and revolution. The conservative government does not want to understand the seriousness of the situation and only disperses rallies and demonstrations.

During a showdown between teenage biker groups, Tetsuo’s boy encounters, having lost control of a motorcycle, a strange child whose skin is dry and bluish. It was one of the experimental “mutant” children stolen by a member of the anti-government group, whose incredible abilities have long been secretly studied by scientists and the military. Suddenly helicopters fly to the scene of the accident and take both with them. Meanwhile, the military discovers that due to contact with the child, a young biker began to manifest and grow with enormous speed the forces that are not amenable to science, which the studied children possess. Scientists and Colonel Sikishima are trying to curb and control Tetsuo, they fear that the disaster that wiped out the city of Tokyo from the face of the earth in 1988 will happen again. Indeed, in fact, that catastrophe happened because of one of the experimental children - a boy named Akira, who was stronger than the others and is now imprisoned underground in a huge steel sphere, at a temperature close to absolute zero . And the forces awakening in Tetsuo are very reminiscent of Akira's abilities.

Kaneda, a friend of Tetsuo, and his team are in turmoil, they cannot understand why the troops took the guy with them. Kaneda teams up with Kay, a teenage girl with an anti-government terrorist organization, who is trying to free the mutant children from the labs. Tetsuo, thanks to the awakened forces, escapes himself and turns his attention to the remains of the laboratory that was engaged in the study of Akira. A religious cult worshiping Akira gathers around him.

Katsuhiro Otomo deliberately abandoned the usual way for anime to distinguish characters by lightening their hair and coloring them in different colors. He tried to portray the heroes as close as possible to the Japanese, which complicates the viewer's ability to distinguish one hero from another. ^[13]

• Setaro Kaneda ( Japanese 金田 正 太郎 Kaneda Shё: taro :) ( Seyu : Mitsuo Iwata ) - the leader of the biker gang and Tetsuo’s best friend before school, since the time of the orphanage.
• Tetsuo Shima ( 島 鉄 雄 Shima Tetsuo ) ( seiyu : Nozomu Sasaki ) is a member of a motoband led by Kaneda who has gained unprecedented strength and capabilities like Akira. Tetsuo's design is noticeably out of the general row. It is on his figure that most of the emotional component of the work is concentrated. ^[13] The image of this character will become one of the inspirational director for the filming of a cyberpunk series of films that began with Tetsuo - the Iron Man in 1989. ^[14]
• Kei ( ケ イ イ ) ( seiyu : Mami Koyama ) is the girl who met Kaneda in the police and bailed out. Member of an anti-government organization.
• Yamagata ( 山形 山形 ) and Kai ( 甲 斐 ) are members of the same biker gang as Kaneda and Tetsuo.
• Kaori ( カ オ リ ) is a girl who is friends with Tetsuo.
• Colonel Sikishima ( 敷 島 大佐 Sikishima taysa ) is the head of a secret project to study mutant children.
• Kiyoko ( キ ヨ コ ) , Takashi ( タ カ シ ) and Masaru ( マ サ ル ) are the three mutant children studied by scientists. They wear numbers 25, 26 and 27, respectively.
• Akira ( Jap. ア ラ - ) is a “mutant” child with tremendous energy and powerful parapsychic and physical capabilities. Number 28.
• “Doctor” ( ド ク タ ー Dokuta:) - scientist and participant in a project to study “mutant” children.
• Ryu ( 竜 Ryu :) is a member of an anti-government organization.
• Nezu ( 根 津 ) ( seiyu : Hiroshi Otake ) is a member of the government working for an anti-government organization.
• The owner of the bar is the owner of the bar, where members of the Kaneda motor-gang often met.
• Miyako ( ミ ヤ コ ) is the head of the Akira cult.
• “Clown” ( ジ ョ ー カ ー Jo: ka :, from the English Joker ) is a rival motoband, its members are also called.

Manga began to be published in 1982 in the Japanese magazine Young Magazine and was published until July 1990 . The full collection of 2000 pages was published in 6 volumes by the Japanese publisher Kodansha ^[1] . First published in the USA in 1988 by Epic Comics (a division of Marvel Comics ).

The manga drawing was recognized as outstanding and is considered a breakthrough for both mangaka and the entire manga industry. ^[3]

The budget of the film amounted to about $ 10 million, which made it at that time the most expensive in production of all the animes. ^{[15] [13]} The anime premiered on July 16, 1988. VHS movie theater and worldwide sales fees totaled more than $ 80 million. ^[sixteen]

"Akira" has become one of the works that caused a sharp increase in interest in anime in the West, largely due to the high detail of frames and a complex and interesting plot. ^{[17] [18]} Akira became the first Japanese anime with a frequency of 24 frames per second (in the 1980s, the standard frequency was 8-12 frames) ^[18] and on a large-format 70-mm film . ^[13] In the process of its creation, computer special effects were widely used ^[18] . The technical performance was at the level of the Hollywood cinema of its time, the anime kept the bar even in comparison with one of its ideological inspirers - “ Blade Runner ” by Ridley Scott . ^[13]

The design of the city and its filling are especially noted - the streets are presented not half-empty, but filled with passers-by and appliances. The character design is much weaker. ^[17]

Thanks to the film "Akira" in the early 1990s, interest in anime among the English-speaking audience sharply increased. The popularity of the film abroad was even higher than in Japan ^[19] . "Akira" was among the most famous anime films in the world ^[20] .

Critics and researchers have repeatedly noted the similarities between the films Akira and Blade Runner . ^{[13] [19]} However, Jonathan Clements and Helen McCarthy specified that the theme of cyberpunk is not so clearly seen in Akira. They also mentioned the presence of references to real historical events in Japan - the activities of Detachment 731 and the failed Olympic Games scheduled for 1940 in Tokyo ^[19] . Susan Napier claimed that it was Akira that marked the beginning of the anime boom in Western countries ^[21] . Robin Brenner compared the film to a “cultural bomb,” which led to a steady audience of fans of anime and manga in the United States ^[22] .

In 1984, the manga was awarded the Kodansha Publishing Award for Best General Manga. ^[23]

Steve Oliff was awarded the Harvey Prize for painting manga in 1991 and 1992. ^{[24] [25]} In 1990, 1992, 1993 and 1996, the work received the Harvey Award as "The Best American Edition of Foreign Work." ^{[26] [25] [27] [28]}

• Japanese cyberpunk

in Russian

• Ivanov B. A. Introduction to Japanese animation. - 2nd ed. - M .: Cinema Development Fund; ROF "Eisenstein Center for Film Culture Research", 2001. - 396 p. - ISBN ISBN 5-901631-01-3 .

in English

• Brenner, Robin E. Understanding Manga and Anime. - Greenwood Publishing Group, 2007. - 356 p. - ISBN 978-0-31-309448-4 .
• Clements, Jonathan. The Anime Encyclopedia: A Guide to Japanese Animation Since 1917 / Jonathan Clements, Helen McCarthy. - 2nd ed. - Stone Bridge Press, 2006 .-- 867 p. - ISBN 978-1-93-333010-5 .
• Gresh, Lois H. The Science of Anime: Mecha-noids and AI-super-bots / Lois H. Gresh, Robert E. Weinberg. - Thunder's Mouth Press, 2005 .-- 259 p. - ISBN 978-1-56-025768-4 .
• Napier, Susan J. Anime from Akira to Howl's Moving Castle. - St. Martin's Press, 2005 .-- 355 p. - ISBN 978-1-40-397052-7 .
• Brian Camp, Julie Davis. Anime Classics ZETTAI! 100 Must-See Japanese Animation Masterpieces. - Berkeley, California: Stone Bridge Press, 2007 .-- 408 p. - ISBN 978-1-933330-22-8 .

• Anime "Akira" in the AniDB database
• "Akira" on the Internet Movie Database
• Akira (English) on allmovie