Not my cup of tea, but the animation is great

Rating: 4/10 (19 May 2013)

(Dubbed version). I was really interested in watching "Akira", since everybody still mentions it as a cornerstone of Japanese animation, 25 years after its release (1988).
You van definitely tell that the animation still looks pretty good, 25 years after. A lot of details in the backgrounds, and the way the main characters were draw. It is important to also mention, that the scenes of violence and topics covered (anarchy, experimentation in human subjects) were not common in animation by 1988 (at least in western animation, which is the one I am familiar with), which is probably also one of things that makes it a hallmark in animation.
However, after watching the movie, I was never too engaged with the plot. In my opinion, there were too many things going at the same time (the fight of Kei's revolutionary group, what was the whole point of the ester's, the concept of the internal energy in every human) that did not allow me to focus in any of them, so I felt the narrative and the story a bit chopped.
I know it might be because they tried to condensate a whole manga into a movie, but these should be 2 independent pieces of art, the movie should not rely on you reading the book to understand it, otherwise what is the point.
Overall, I was not fully satisfied by the movie, making it an experience that I did not hate neither enjoy. (I learned also that I am not the biggest fan of Cyberpunk, as Akira belongs to this SciFi genre) Score (5)