"Woah..."

Rating: 7/10 (21 August 2001)

So here I am, the only animation fan I know who's over the age of ten, and I had never ever watched "Akira" before yesterday morning. I am very ashamed of myself.
So let me just say that "Akira" is awesome. It's pretty much everything I'd ever heard about it and much more. It will literally blow your mind.

I'll only share a few things because I don't want to spoil it. You'll want to be in the same mind-set as the unsuspecting folk who went to see this movie in the late eighties, back when animation meant Disney and nothing else. Two small bits of information might help, though.
First of all, the story is a little confusing. Fortunately, I read a criticism of the movie a long time ago and one of it's helpful points came back to me while I was watching it, so I'll share it here. The story is basically a darker "Star Wars", one where Luke goes insane after all he's been through and Han Solo is a horny jerk.
I'm also telling you not to eat while you watch it. It is *very* gory in parts. The final half-hour is especially insane. As I told my sister, "Well, it's real pretty they way they animated the horribly mutating corpse!" (Poor, poor Tetsuo...)
I should note that the version I saw was the letterboxed subtitled edition. I know many people make a big deal out of that sort of thing.