not bad, not good either

Rating: 5/10 (2 May 2009)

While the animation of Akira is impressive at the time of its release and no doubt still exceptional by todays standards the overall feel of the film was just disappointing. Was I expecting too much? I get the underlying story of humanity's capabilities of corruption and the emotional downfall of the oppressed human mind. But the dialogue and character development just wasn't there, it was just two hours of exceptional animation(9/10) coupled with a very tedious and incoherent storyline with way too many characters and no development(2/10) - (overall 5.5/10). Having only watched the remastered version I just can't put myself through another two hours of someone justifying why the original may be better. While not a strict fan of anime I watched this expecting what other's comments have said 'this will turn you onto anime.' Well I was already a bit part anime fan thanks to Ghost in the Shell(10/10) which was both very intriguing and had good story building dialogue, but this just left me feeling nothing at all by the end.