Anime On the Big Screen: “Akira”

Venue: Dendy Cinemas, Level 2, North Quarter, Canberra Centre, 148 Bunda Street, Canberra City, ACT
Date: Saturday 24 October 2020
Distributor: Madman Entertainment
Format: Digital Projection, Japanese dialogue with English subtitles
Length: 124 minutes
Production Date: 1988
Currently on Home Video in English (as of writing): Yes, Bandai Namco Arts/Emotion (Japan, 4K Ultra HD Version; Japanese dialogue, English dub, English and Japanese subtitles)

I didn’t think I’d be watching this film on the big screen. To be honest I had deliberately avoided watching the film back in the 1990’s that way. I had already seen it on VHS (the old Streamline English dub) and had no desire to watch that shitty, poorly mixed dub again via a scratchy, worn out 35mm print. Local distributors, Ronin Films, had the rights to the film for decades and would often play it at midnight screenings in their own (now defunct and sadly missed) Electric Shadows cinema. That cinema was the only place in town which played any anime films and even hosted the local screenings of Japanime 02 back in 2002. Now, like every other anime title in this country, Madman owns the rights to the title. “Akira” is getting a re-release in cinemas now as part of a promotional push for a forthcoming 4K Ultra HD blu-ray release.

I had originally bought my ticket early in the week online, but by the end of the week there was torrential rain and intense thunderstorms forecast for Saturday. Luckily the weather forecast didn't pan out that way. There was some rain on and off during the day and was frustratingly inconsistent in the morning; there would be a torrent of rain for about a minute, then it would stop, then start again. The weather was drab and quite humid, even though the temperature was only 20°C. It was one of those spring days where you could not decide if it was t-shirt weather or not. I went to the earliest screening, 10am, with Dendy was running four sessions of the film today and Sunday, which kind of surprised me (with Hoyts in Belconnen also screening the film). Dendy had already ran the film as part of an earlier mini anime film festival two months ago, so apparently there is a pent-up unquenchable demand to see this 32 year old anime film in cinemas here. I suppose being 2020, it is an excellent time to revisit the film.

The audience was mostly made up of young people in their late teens or early twenties with few women in attendance. 18 people showed up altogether. A couple sitting near me would not shut up and pretty much provided a running commentary on the film. Another guy at the front constantly left the cinema and returned throughout the entire second half of the film. There were two living, breathing otaku stereotypes in attendance, both quite obese, one constantly feeding his face non-stop and make a bit of noise doing so. At the end of the film, pretty much everyone just got up and left the very second the credits started rolling. A couple of guys behind me called the film “boring” and one said he fell asleep five times. Boring is not exactly how I'd describe the film, but OK, whatever. So, all in all, not one of the best outings I’ve had at the cinema. It surprised me that a fair wack of the audience had seemingly never seen the film before. That really shouldn't be surprising. I guess most younger fans haven't seen the film, so I'll quickly give a rundown (or attempt to) on the story;

31 years after World War III, which was seemingly caused by a nuclear blast in Tokyo on 16 July 1988, Tokyo has been rebuilt into what is now called Neo-Tokyo. Crime and urban decay are rampant with seemingly never-ending civil disobedience in the forms of violent protest and even more violent suppression of it’s citizens by riot police. The 2020 Olympics are being held in Neo-Tokyo next year, but no one seems to really care, especially when society seems to be on the verge of collapse. The city seems to be overrun by bosozoku gangs, a type of Japanese bike gang who are very territorial, noisy and disruptive, and on occasion, violent. Leader of one of those gangs is Shotaro Kaneda. Their enemy is another gang called the Clowns. After a bloody and violent confrontation with the Clowns through shopping streets and then onto a highway, Kaneda's best friend, Tetsuo Shima, chases down a Clown member who has broken away from the group. Though he manages to beat him down, Tetsuo collides into what initially seems to a young boy, with his bike oddly exploding upon impact with him.

Kaneda and the other members of the gang arrive and come to Tetsuo’s aid, and Kaneda is confused at the presence of the young boy who is wrinkled like an old man. He shouts out to him but the boy walks away. Suddenly several military helicopters arrive on the scene. Unbeknownst to Kaneda, the young boy is an esper in his late 30’s, called Takashi, who was part of a secret experiment since his childhood into developing a trio of children with psychic powers. Earlier that day he had been freed from a government laboratory with the aid of an anti-government resistance group, who has ties to a politician within the opposition party in parliament. The man who helped free Takashi was killed by government forces and he had been wandering the city alone looking for the leader of the resistance group. Colonel Shikishima, who has been tasked with Takashi's capture, takes him back and also orders the capture of the injured Tetsuo. The other members of the gang are arrested and taken away, with many of them confused thinking the military has seemingly joined forces with the police.

The next day the gang are interrogated with a bunch of suspects thought to belong to anti-government resistance movements. Upon discovering they are nothing but a bosozoku gang, the authorities release them. However, before they do Kaneda manages to convince them that a young woman who has taken his fancy, Kei, is part of their gang. Kei is part of the resistance group that freed Takashi. She thanks Kaneda and runs off, much to his annoyance. Meanwhile the doctor heading up the esper project, Doctor Onishi, realises that Tetsuo's contact with Takashi has somehow awakened his own psychic abilities and proceeds to use him a test subject. This is despite his power being very similar to another esper, Akira, who was the actual cause of Tokyo’s destruction in 1988. Takashi's fellow esper, Kiyoko, forewarns Shikishima of the destruction of Neo-Tokyo. However, at a council meeting of at Neo-Tokyo's parliament, the politicians dismiss Shikishima's concerns and his handling of the situation, saying they will formally investigate him.

Tetsuo tires of his treatment and the experimentation and escapes in order to return to his girlfriend Kaori. He hatches a plan to escape the city by stealing Kaneda's motorcycle. But members of the Clown’s gang ambush him and severally beat up Kaori. Kaneda and rest of his gang who have been in pursuit of Tetsuo after he stole the bike, save the pair from the Clowns. Kaneda has an argument with Tetsuo; however, he begins to have intense and disturbing hallucinations due to withdrawal from the medicine he has been taking. A team led by Doctor Onishi retrieves him, much to Kaneda and the gang’s anger and confusion. Afterwards Kaneda joins Kei's resistance group after following her post chaos and confusion of a train station bombing led by her group. The group decide to let him join as his friend is being treated in the same complex as the other espers they plan to liberate. However, the infiltration by the group goes badly. Several of the group are killed by armed guards and Tetsuo’s psychokinetic powers awaken. He becomes egomaniacal and unstable after the trio of child-like espers attempt to stop him. Tetsuo flees the facility after learning from Kiyoko that he can gain help from Akira, who is in cryonic storage beneath the Olympic Stadium construction site.

This film is of course based on the classic manga by Katsuhiro Otomo which ran from 1982 to 1990. Otomo had been producing manga as a professional since 1979 and gained recognition the following year with “Domu”, which I think to a large degree is quite an underrated manga, or more correctly was totally overshadowed by “Akira” which followed it. I feel “Akira” (both the manga and the anime) to a large degree are products of their environment, or more correctly a by-product of the Japanese bubble economy. It feels as if it is simultaneously a celebration and criticism of that period in the 1980’s. Like the rest of the world at the time, in Japan during the 1980’s there was a culture of excess and over consumerism. You could argue that this includes this film, which at the time was the most expensive animated film ever produced in that country. At the same time youth subculture was on the rise. In this case of this franchise, the focus was on bosozoku gangs, who had hit their peak in membership the same year the manga first began serialisation. Again, the inclusion of this subculture elements feels like both a celebration of it and criticism of the society that they were born from.

Otomo really hadn’t had much experience in the director’s chair up to this point. In the year prior to this film he had directed short segments in the omnibus anime films “Labyrinth Tales” (aka “Manie-Manie” or “Neo Tokyo”) and the opening and ending segments of “Robot Carnival”. It’s kind of nuts to think that the producers were OK with handing such a large budget to a rookie director, even if the “Akira” manga was a massive success at the time. But of course, Otomo made an incredible film. As a director he did the complete opposite to what other directors and studios would in making an animated film in Japan. The dialogue was pre-recorded before most of animation was even begun. Not only did this mean that the lip flaps matched perfectly, the animators could used the performances to animate the characters, which arguably meant both elements matched each other perfectly. The film also used more animation cels than any other anime film of the time; 160,000 in it’s 124 minute run time. Computer animation was also used extensively, though in ways that weren’t obvious. The most obvious CG is of course the pattern indicator used by Doctor Onishi, but it was also used extensively to plot the path of falling objects like glass shards and the falling Lego blocks in the scene where the esper kids fight Tetsuo. The CG animation was then rotoscoped onto animation paper.

Besides the incredible visuals, the other major element of the film is the soundtrack. Otomo specifically chose music collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi to perform the soundtrack. You could safely say that no other anime soundtrack, before or after this film, sounds anything like it. The most prominent elements are traditional Indonesian instruments such the Jegog and Gamelan as well as musical elements and vocalisations based on Noh theatre performances. Mixed in with these elements are digital synthesizers and waling electric guitars. It truly sounds like nothing else I’ve ever heard. It feels quite ancient and tribal but also otherworldly. I remember reading comments years ago from younger fans saying they didn’t like the soundtrack because it wasn’t typical of other more conventional soundtracks. Honestly that baffled me as to why those fans wanted everything to sound the same. Also, about a decade ago Brisbane band Regurgitator preformed their own version of the soundtrack at the Sydney Opera House. While it was interesting (and drowned out pretty much all of the dialogue in the film), for the life of me I could not see the point of removing one of the most iconic soundtracks ever and replacing it with a rock band. Imagine doing the same thing to “Psycho”, “The Godfather” or “Jaws”.

Although I do love the film and pretty much watch it at least once a year, I do have some issues with it. The biggest one I have is the relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo. I can understand Tetsuo’s frame of mind would be out of wack upon receiving an absurd amount of power after living a life of being bullied and abandoned. And yes, I can understand Kaneda is a young man who wants to assert himself in a world that is totally hostile to him and everyone around him. Maybe Kaneda just has no fear and is a complete idiot, but with society literally collapsing around him, the army battling the psychic powers of Tetsuo and firing destructive lasers from satellites at him, he doesn’t seem to pause and say, “maybe I need to sit this out”. Instead he seems to be totally focused on fighting Tetsuo regardless of the utter chaos around him. The second issue I have is with the female characters in the film. Compared with how they are portrayed in the manga, here they are relegated to bit parts, especially Lady Miyako who only gets a couple of very short scenes (cameos really). Kaori, who is in a completely different role in the film, possibly comes off the worst. However, I completely understand that due to time constraints of a two hour film, certain storylines and characters need to be truncated or removed completely. But the resulting film does feel totally male focused.

The reactions to the film from fellow patrons reminded me that "Akira" is not for everyone. You could easily argue that it isn’t exactly a commercial work; an utterly bonkers, ultraviolent animated film with motorcycle gangs, wrinkled kids with destructive psychic powers and a kind of airy-fairy spiritualist ending which doesn’t really explain what happened to the protagonist, nor fully explain who this Akira guy is. For years, especially in the west, it’s been a “midnight movie”. The kind that would often rotate in the in the same set of films like “The Rocky Horror Picture Show”, “The Evil Dead” and other B-movie or cult films. Because of this, the film didn’t receive a lot of praise (or even appraisal) from mainstream critics. Although the film did introduce a new audience to anime (as well as influencing countless creators) and caused a new wave of anime fandom to emerge in the 1990’s, possibly it could have turned off a large percentage of people to anime as a whole. Over the years I have overheard a number of people (non anime fans) in conversation saying they either hated the film are were totally flummoxed by the plot.

As I previously mentioned before, this re-release of the film is part of an international push (well in the UK, USA and Australia at least) to promote a new 4K transfer of the film which will be released on Ultra HD blu-ray at the end of the year. Filmed on 35mm stock and of course being largely cel animation with a few composites of CG animation, "Akira" looks pretty damn amazing on a large theatrical screen. This time around I managed to spot a few little details I had never seen previously. The audio has been remixed in 5.1 surround, which I think is a brand-new mix to previous 5.1 mixes. In the theatre I found it brought out a lot of little elements in the music as well as elements of sound effects which I hadn’t noticed before. The subtitles were produced by Funimation, but I am not sure if it is a completely brand-new translation. The company seemingly cannot subtitle signs in a subtle or non-evasive way, which detracted from the experience. They also did not translate the infamous “Just cancel it!” graffiti on the sign counting down the days to the Olympic Games.

While the re-release of this film is just to promote the forthcoming Ultra HD blu-ray, the screenings couldn’t have come at a better time. The film and manga have predicted a number of current day events; the Tokyo 2020 Olympics, a pandemic (in the manga version), a society in disarray with social unrest (albeit not in Japan), who also are now prone to believing crazy rumours, a ruling class who only look out for themselves and increasingly disillusioned youth who are mostly underpaid or unemployed. We’re just missing the espers, cool looking bikes and full on laser weaponry. I think to a large degree the film has withstood the test of time and still looks and sounds great. It’s possibly even more relevant today than it was in its initial release, even if the younger people at the screening would probably disagree with me. Overall, it was definitely worth my time revisiting the film in the cinema.