Simply too important to miss.

Rating: 9/10 (25 June 2008)

Probably one of the most claustrophobically dark and atmospheric anime films out there, Akira is also an incredibly important movie. First of all, the back-story and the politics would lose a tremendous amount of impact if not for the chilling darkness, and the perpetual "end of the line" environment that these teenagers live in. This dark depiction is owed largely to William Gibson and his invention of the "cyberpunk" ("high tech, low life") environment; towering, pristine skyscrapers lit up like plastic Christmas trees, and cracked pavements and old, dilapidated buildings left to rot in the 20th Century, it simply adds marvellous tone to the film.
And the back-story itself? Seamlessly interwoven flashback scenes not only reveal a lot more about the characters' histories with each other, but the white, washed-out optics and the dreamy tone make it seem like a world away, and thus we are left with one window to light and innocence in this dark, coming of age tale. Teenagers fighting for themselves in gangs, teenagers subjected to psychic experiments, all paint a tragic picture. A brilliant picture at that. A picture that has influenced other favourites of mine, such as The Matrix.
My qualms are that, whilst it remains an influential piece of work, there are better anime (the Ghost In The Shell franchise has consistently delivered 10 out of 10 perfection, for instance, well, save the first film) and there are less confusing, more rewarding ones. The story can seem a bit unreal at times; the pacing often throws the film into an intangible realm which the viewer can not understand with flashback after dream sequence and so on; the dark atmosphere sometimes throws off the reader from the plot itself.
A marvellous film, nonetheless, only shy of a perfect 10 due to a slightly confusing presentation of plot and often counterproductive pacing that doesn't focus as much on plot as we should do. This does little to cloud the fact that this piece is an artful depiction of a high tech, low life environment, with credible characters and realistic dialogue.