Compelling, One of Otomo's best stories

Rating: 9/10 (6 March 2001)

Note: when I write this I am already an avid fan for several years of Otomo's work. I just didn't get around to write a review on Akira.
In the past 13 years I have watched Akira numerous times, and I still think this is one of the best Animes out there. But, all these times I have watched it one the small screen, VCR was the only way to see this. Until last night. I was able to see this masterpiece on the big screen at one of my local arthouses, it was a one-time screening, so the theater was packed with fans. Great atmosphere. This movie blew me away as if I had never seen it before. The sheer power of the imagery and the sound effects and the music coming at you through the screen and the speakers was tremendous.
Although, regrettably, the print was the dubbed version, making it a little easier to follow, I still prefer the original subtitled version. Thankfully I have this one on tape. Enough ranting about the screening, on to the movie.
Still incredible. I am also an avid fan of Ghost In The Shell (by Shirow, the other great Japanese artist) and I thought Ghost had surpassed Akira in brilliance. I have to take that back, there are on the same level entirely. Both of them are very, very cool. Akira displays a deep understanding of the human psyche and the balance that we all have to achieve to keep ourselves in line. Tetsuo is not able to do this, he has been bullied all his life and being orphaned at an early age this was not easy on him. He always saw Kaneda as his big brother and looked up to him and worshiped him in a way because Kaneda was able to contain his inner balance. When through some strange encounter with an experiment gone wrong, Tetsuo isn't able to contain his powers anymore and loses himself in the labyrinth of his brain. He gets visions of someone called Akira and has to find this Akira to restore his own self.
This all seems very complex, and it is. This is just the tip of the iceberg that is Akira. There are numerous subplots and motives and themes as only Otomo can write them. Otomo has displayed this before in the terribly complex story Domu and Mother Sarah (great comic stuff, find and read it). The complexity of the story is often what puts people off at the end of this movie. They seem to like the animation, the motorcycle scenes in particular, but the story seems to elude them at the very end. To these people I would like to say: go see it again, and again, and again. Or even better, go see if you can get your hands on the comic book.
As you can see I am not very fond of saying something bad about Akira and Otomo, but still there are some things that bothered me when I viewed this on the big screen. It had never really occurred to me how awful this movie is sometimes cut together. At times the scene you are watching is just picking up the pace and then it is cut off to dissolve to another scene. This was something that could have gotten a little more attention from Otomo. This is all probably because he had to make sacrifices toward the length of the movie and just didn't seem to get the movie right without the remaining cut pieces. Or at least, that is what I hope is the reason.
Well, this is enough from me at this time. I am certainly looking forward to a theatrical re-release of this with a completely enhanced soundtrack and visual quality (please Katsuhiro, make it happen), and the same goes for Ghost, of course.
9/10
PS. my review of Ghost In The Shell is also somewhere here on IMDb.