The cult sci-fi anime by Katsuhiro Otomo about a dystopian future and the destructive energy of coming of age is a landmark both in the genre of cyberpunk and the history of Japanese animation.
A massive explosion destroys Tokyo, marking the beginning of World War III. Thirty years later, in 2019, Neo-Tokyo, built on the ruins of the old city, is plagued by crime, police brutality, and rising ideological radicalism. During a biker gang clash, a teenage boy called Tetsuo falls off his motorbike and almost crashes into a strange child with a gray-green complexion and an old man’s face. The boy, emanating a strange force, is unharmed and Tetsuo himself starts demonstrating new psychic abilities. Tetsuo and the boy are taken away by the military, and Tetsuo’s biker friend Kaneda goes searching for him. Meanwhile, cultists in the streets of Neo-Tokyo talk about the coming of a new messiah known as Akira.
Based on the manga of the same name published from 1982 to 1990, the anime was made before the graphic novel was complete and follows the main events of the story. The flashy and brutal world of the future is filled with references to postwar Japan: the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the student unrest of the 1960s, and the aggressive youth subculture of bōsōzoku (biker gangs) in the 1970s and 1980s. The most striking image of the film—the transformation of Tetsuo’s body— works both as a metaphor of growing up in a story about teenagers and a body horror exploring the consequences of atomic bombings.
The film will be screened in Japanese with Russian subtitles.
Akira
Director: Katsuhiro Otomo
Japan, 1988. 124 min.
18+