Considered to be the original manga movie

Rating: 9/10 (18 September 2011)

The problem with this movie is that the creator attempted to squeeze a huge comic series into a two and a half hour movie, and unfortunately is leaves people a bit confused. The second time I watched it, I was able to understand it a little better and was able to follow the plot reasonably well. Basically the movie opens with a huge explosion in Tokyo which starts World War III. Thirty years later, in NeoTokyo, a motor cycle gang, during a rumble, stumble across a very secretive military operation. They are all arrested and let go, except their friend Tetsumo, who was wounded in during the operation, and is taken away. At first they think his is taken to hospital, but then he turns up later brandishing some rather nasty powers. Basically this movie is about the dangers of advancing faster than we can naturally evolve. It rests upon the belief that we as a species exist purely to evolve into the highest form possible, and that is a state of pure energy. This seems to be a Hindu philosophy, where we are constantly reincarnated until a time when we achieve Nirvana. I could argue that this is fantasy land, but in fact it is. Still there is no evidence to disprove evolution nor is their enough evidence to support. It all comes down to faith, even moreso if we believe that we will evolve into energy beings. What is happening in the movie is that the military are using experiments to hasten humanity's evolution. Though in three cases it began to succeed, in the case of Tetsumo, it has gone horribly wrong. One could argue though that they reason Tetsumo became so aggressive is because he had been trodden on all of his life, and his greatest desire was to be able to strike out. Yet he has a purpose that he does not understand himself. He is not a chaotic fiend destroying everything around him, but rather somebody possessed. This is seen when he screams, "so that is what has been beating around in my head all this time!" The question then is "who is Akira?" Akira is not the guy on the cover holding the laser and leaning against a bike. I cannot remember who he is, and he is a major character, but he is not Akira. Akira is actually the cause of the explosion in Tokyo thirty years earlier. Back then the scientists had succeeded in transferring humanity into the form of pure energy, and thus first person was Akira. Unfortunately he could not control what he had become, and this resulted in the destruction of Tokyo and the beginning of WWIII. We see this in Tetsumo as well for his begins to grow out of control, and nobody is able to look after him. In fact the three children must sacrifice themselves to rescue the Colonel and Tetsumo's friend. There is no real victory in this movie, only a Pyrric one. Most of the characters are dead and NeoTokyo has been once again destroyed, and the only way to save Tetsumo was to let him go.