It's all about the bike...

Rating: 10/10 (17 September 1998)

I feel that "Akira" is one of the best films ever made. If it were a live action film, it would be without a doubt regarded as such. But "Akira" is a film that alienates some of its viewers with the very complexity that secures its greatness. Next time you watch Akira, try this; A) Forget it's an animated feature, look at the screen and imagine the same shots are live action, it's not hard to do and you'll suddenly see visuals that would have made "Titanic" look like a Kevin Costner postcard epic. B) Forget the sub-plots! The sub-plots in Akira are intricate and elaborate, but they are there to enhance subsequent viewings of the movie and provide the background to a masterpiece that upon each viewing you discover something new about the world you thought you knew so well... C) Focus on one thing, the red bike. I was with a group of my friends, and we had just finished viewing Akira and began talking about it. One friend was explaining how the movie was about Bhuddaism, another was explaining how the movie was a microscopic perspective of a macropolitical situation, others had similar interpretations... a couple people mentioned it was about the relationship between the alpha male and the omega male. From different perspectives, they were all right about what "Akira"'s about. Then I explained that at it's core, the movie is about the Bike, Kaneda's bike. The bike symbolizes everthing going on about the film, and how all the events are on a parallel course, oddly enough, with the physical condition of that bike. I could go on and on relating everything in the movie back to Kaneda's bike, but I digress. Just, next time, before you sit down to watch Akira, say to yourself; "It's all about the bike."