Akira (1989) - 4K & Blu-ray

I had heard of this film but up until now I had never watched it, as I had no idea what anime was all about (apart from fond memories of Laputa when I was small) so I always passed it by. How glad I am that I have finally gotten around to watching this amazing film. The film is set post WW3 in neo Tokyo. It is a place of grandeur and degeneration, in long shots we see the futuristic beauty of it all; colourful and sparkling with the feeling of unbounded possibility, but close up things aren't as rosy as we see decay in the vice of its inhabitants and in the dirt and graffiti which litter the streets. It is in this juxtaposition of these contrasting states as shown in the artwork of the setting that permeate to the very core of what the films storyline is about. On the surface it is all punks and futuristic motorbikes; the evils of authority. It is beautiful and gruesome all at the same time. Violent with hints of a darker depravity and it all comes together under a tale of an almost eternal repetition of decay, collapse, rebirth and growth. It is a story of cycles, of journeys journeyed without the questions of beginnings and endings. The soundtrack bubbles away in the background giving a nice techno industrial sound to the events which include gang wars, casual violence, futuristic bike battles, rebel explosions and government clean ups. Our main character is a boy named Tetsuo, a weakling coming to terms with the forced development of some pretty god like powers, powers which were also previously held in the narratives past by a character called Akira, whose strength led to the collapse of the city. The story comes down to control; who controls this power and what they will do if they can't control it. The animation is solid; being a good mix of detail and focus, which conveys well a gritty and violent world and its effects on the characters that live in it. This is an anime that lives and breathes its harsh, often brutal, realities and as such you will not be blinded by bold colours and strong contrasts because unlike a lot of anime Akira's pallet is darker, drawn more from the brown and grey range. The characters draw you in very well and make sure that you are actually emotionally invested in what happens to them by the end of the film, which actually gets more gruesome as we head towards the ending... or beginning. This anime is a must watch; it had action, violence, a brilliant cinematic style and plenty of philosophical muse points to keep you conversing into the early hours of the morning with whoever you choose to watch it with, even if you end up talking to yourself.

As with manga, I was worried that maybe I wouldn't enjoy this anymore after so many years, but Akira looks as amazing as back then. Animation quality beats most of modern shows, it's just so detailed and expressive. You'll hardly see any still scenes in Akira, and certainly not any where characters freeze only to move their lips while talking. If you know, you know. Everything in the movie is just top quality, including the hand painted backgrounds that are basically pieces of art. I highly recommend rewatching Akira just to focus on those, you'll be surprised with amount of detail. I do see people complain about the plot, but personally I don't have a problem with it. You can't squeeze entire manga into just one movie, so of course there will be a lot missing from the story but it doesn't make it worse or incomplete, just different. I do recommend reading manga at some point though, it is made of awesome. As for collector's edition of Akira, it comes in a sturdy case with acrylic slip. Inside there's a set of four gorgeous postcards with Otomo's art, a folded poster and an extra disc with bonus features. Small touches that make it worth the extra money.

For many years I have had a Blu-ray editor and this UHD 4K transfer is magic to the senses. The colours pop along with the sleek hand crafted animations and luxurious painted backdrops. The audio offers three different dubs the original Japanese and two English ones - I chosecthe two latter and I did have a preference for the 2001 audio performances. Overall an decadent steel book design that perfectly captures the movies atmosphere.

I am admittedly not a fan of anime and find a lot of it to be quite cringe worthy. However, there is something about Akira that I have always found fascinating. When I saw the bluray disc was sitting at £4.99, I decided to jump on it. Not only to refresh my memory but to show my kids that anime can be something other than mindless dumb cartoons like Attack on Titan (Yeah, I went there!). For those who don't know, Akira is an animated film from 1988. The story takes place in a dystopian 2019 in Neo Tokyo, a city built out of the ruins of Tokyo. A city decimated in the '80s after a huge blast engulfed the a vast majority of the area. We follow a group of teenagers from the violent streets through secret military bases and even into an Olympic stadium as they try to uncover and foil a government plot. A plot that involves creating telekinetic humans and one's inability to control their power. The film was written by Izo Hashimoto and director Katsuhiro Otomo. The production was handled by Ryohei Suzuki and Shunzo Kato. As a film, I found my latest viewing (the first in many years) to be utterly fascinating. It's the first time I have seen the movie since the VHS days and seeing it on bluray was just incredible. The illustrations and animation in the film is second to none. It's virtually impossible to deny the artists involved because the detail in the huge cityscapes, underground lairs and throughout all the action sequences is absolutely incredible. The use of cyberpunk styles was very tastefully done. I loved the use of neon and bright colours, it really makes the film image pop. The story isn't necessarily difficult to follow. It does start off a bit disjointed and a bit hard to differentiate certain characters. But after a good half hour, you sink into the excellent atmosphere of the film and that becomes less of an issue. I loved the fact that the script kept some of the plot points very vague. It doesn't outright explain to you what is going on, something that puts me off a lot of modern films. This means that they drip feed you a piece of plot every now and again, but it's up to you to piece it all together. They don't even explain the end with any great detail and I loved that. This major climax happens and it leaves you just sitting there thinking, "What in God's name did I just witness?" It's sort of similar to the space classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey in some regards. You see a particularly stunning and impressive set piece, but you're not entirely sure what it is going on. This might put off a lot of people who like their plot explained to them but it's works well for me. The music in the Akira is something that really stood out to me. It wasn't the usual over dramatic stuff we usually hear in this kind of film. Instead we had some form of chants and rhythmic beats that set quite an unsettling tone to the film. It's definitely one of the most underappreciated scores in film if you ask me. Every scene that used music, used it sparingly. But the music they used fit the scene perfectly. Looking it up on the internet, the music was composed and conducted by Shoji Yamashiro and was performed by the Geinoh Yamashirogumi collective. The style of music in the film is apparently a mix of traditional Indonesian gamelan music and elements of Japanese Noh music. I'm not familiar with these styles of music and that's probably what made it for me. It was different, it was unique and you don't hear that sort of thing in these sci-fi films. I loved it. I would assume that because I don't really like much in the way of modern anime, that my opinion on this film won't mean much to some. But for those out there who are like me and are quite the hit or miss with the style, I recommend checking this out. It's not only a gorgeous looking film, but the music is beautiful and the plot is quite unique. This by definition is a classic film and it's worth every penny. I wish I had bought it sooner.

Film hat beide Audioversionen (originale aus den 90ern plus die Nachvertonung aus 2009) und Untertitel für Hörgeschädigte (ist aber nur auf Deutsch). Das Video war vollständig fehlerfrei. Keine Spuren von Artifacting oder dergleichen. Eine interessante Cyberpunk-Dystopie, die einen mitunter auch an Elfenlied erinnert und z. T. sogar so wirkt wie ein schlechter Trip. Sehr zu empfehlen, vor allem für den Kontext den es auf den Rest des Cyberpunk Genres als ganzes genommen hat.

Amazing movie, really well done with the HDR Re master as usually it is difficult for an animated film... This is one of the best written films ever do check it out

I’m so happy I made the decision to buy the definitive 4k bluray release of this classic film! I have a high system here at home and the Hypersonic mix was just absolutely mind blowing. Total for me was $77 USD which is ¥11,700 I think it well worth the price and I bought it here from Japan through and sent to the United States. Just a Jaw dropping release. The filmmakers did this release with care.

Yo era de los que tenía el DVD que salió hace unos años, de la cual si podíamos de quejarnos de la calidad de imágen, que yo en su momento tuve a un amigo en casa preguntandome si eso era normal (yo disponía de la edición italiana y la española, y se veían igual... de mal) pero se ve que era así en todos los paises. En el Blu-ray se arreglaron todos los problemas de imágen y sonido, y casi parece una película actual, envejeciendo muy muy bien. El problema es que los extras para variar son pocos, e incluso hay algunos que desaparecen de otras ediciones. Por ejemplo, en la italiana del DVD se incluían entrevistas con Otomo que aquí, al igual que en el DVD español, tampoco están. Los extras son los típicos de trailers y poco más. Yo voy a aprovechar para extraer la peli en DVD (creía que al ser una edición sencilla no tendría, pero viene) y poner en su lugar el de extras que tengo de la italiana, o bien comprar una caja amaray para 3 discos.

Een can die beste movie allertijden