Holy cow, this was fantastic!

Rating: 10/10 (30 July 2014)

People are voting Disney's Frozen (2013) as the best animated film of all time... how dare they? Akira is the most amazing animated film I've ever seen. The animation, all incredibly detailed and hand-drawn in manga style, it beats any Disney animation. Neo-Tokyo is a colossal super-city ruled by a corrupt government. Something happened in the past involving a strange entity called Akira that left the city in ruins. The Capsules, a teenage biker gang, most of them orphans and drop-outs, decide to fight a rival gang, the Clowns. While doing so the youngest of the group, Tetsuo, narrowly misses running over a strange child with a shriveled-looking face... suddenly an invisible force makes his bike crash. The leader, Kaneda, comes to Tetsuo's rescue but he and his gang are quickly arrested by the army. Tetsuo is taken away along with the bizarre child; the child is telekinetic and has recently caused a mess in the city when his guardian was shot to death and he screamed, unleashing his powers in front of everyone. Tetsuo becomes a test subject for the army's scientific division; he is operated on and vivisected and suddenly has hallucinations, beginning to become telepathic. He escapes and meets up with his girlfriend Kiori, telling her about his horrific experience. Meanwhile all the members of the Capsules avoid being arrested narrowly, and Kaneda starts perusing Kei, a teenage agent and spy. She disappears from him suddenly; she is looking for her best friend, Ryu. Tetsuo finds his gang after Kiori is savagely raped by the Clowns, but he suddenly has disturbing hallucinations: one of himself falling through the concrete into the earth, another of his internal organs falling from his body. He hears the voice of Akira calling him before the army comes to retrieve him. While locked up, he meets Kyoko, Takashi and Masaru, three adults, middle-aged, who were the original subjects of the scientific department back when Akira was alive. They are kept as children by taking various drugs but still have the appearance of both a child and an old person. The trio try to use their telekinesis to play with Tetsuo, but he gets scared and attacks them. Soon he escapes again, discovering he too has telekinetic talents, and this time he has no intention of going back to the army to be their lab rat. Akira was filmed in 1988 and in considered the most detailed animation in history. It has been dubbed from Japanese into other languages but to be honest the Japanese version is the best; if you can't speak Japanese, like me, read the subtitles, they're very accurate to the film. The soundtrack was spectacular; my favorite soundtrack was the song 'Doll's Polyphony', which played during one of Tetsuo's bizarre hallucinations. It had elements of Stephen King's Carrie: Tetsuo has had a hard life, abandoned at a school by his parents who never came back for him, made fun of by other children, and as a teenager being treated like a loser tag-along by the gang. Finally he can't take it anymore and unleashes his powers on all who bullied him in the past. And who hasn't ever dreamed of doing the same type of thing, having those powers, at least once? Akira is a thrill-ride from beginning to end. They didn't need to rely on CGI or lousy singing to make a fantastic and awesome adventure, unlike Frozen (2013) and Rio 2 (2014). There is a book series as well, which the film was based on. I can guarantee you'll love Akira, it's got unlimited imagination and leaves you with millions of thoughts and questions... sometimes a movie comes along that can make you dream, make you think beyond your limits. Akira is that kind of film.