Akira is a very beautiful flower, despite the thorny stem.

Rating: 9/10 (13 May 2010)

9.4
Why do we like films? Why do we like moving pictures? Is it just a form of storytelling? It surely is. In fact, it's a very good form of storytelling. But is there more to film? Are more traditional forms of art, such as drawings, paintings and sculptures storytelling? Is music more than storytelling? What about books?
I believe that there is more to film than storytelling. Saying that film is about storytelling is like saying that music is about the lyrics. There is a lot of fine music out there that has poor, or even no lyrics. In fact, one might argue that opera is more than storytelling. That doesn't sound far-fetched, right? The question is, does film relate to books more than it does to music and paintings?
It may be difficult to make a film without a story. It would probably end up being described as, "abstract". This might be because it is hard for the audience to find rapport with the film. I find it limiting to the art of film for people to see storytelling as a crutch, or necessary foundation. However, it is easy to see that storytelling is commonly seen that way in film. Whereas music is divided into genres of tone and style, film is divided into genres of content and narrative. There is an aspect to film that is what makes it the medium, platform or canvas for artistic expression that it is. It is on this ground that I personally try plant my expectations and critiques when I watch a film. Anything else is complimentary.
Akira is a 1988, animated adult film. I say adult because in the West, animation is usually associated with children. Akira is definitely not for children. The story is based on a 2,182 page manga. It is a science-fiction, heavy story. Turning this into a 2 hour film should have been difficult. What is left feels like a very compressed script. There is little room for the audience to develop a relationship with the characters. I have seen this film about 4 times. The first time I saw it, I was intrigued at the plot at first, but lost interest about halfway through, and had no idea what was going on by the end of it. The fourth time I saw the film (on Blu-Ray), I payed lots of attention, and I still found it to be obscure and compressed. This makes the film drag during certain scenes. I usually don't experience this "drag" emotion that people talk about when discussing movies, but I can definitely testify that Akira, if any film I've ever seen, drags. This is ultimately what separates those who fell in love Akira and those who absolutely hated it.
But like I said earlier, I believe that storytelling in film is just a stem for what ultimately leads to a flower. (And if you think that a story can be so good that it doesn't matter if the flower is ugly, you should have written a book.) Akira is a very beautiful (in a gritty sense) flower. The animation is very impressive for its time. I don't like to compare works of art, but in 1988, Disney released Oliver & Company and in 1989, The Little Mermaid. These two films, while not mediocre in terms of animation, pale in comparison to what is found in Akira.
The depiction of dynamic lighting and shadows looks very natural in Akira, and it is almost a blessing to see animators paying much attention to these things. There is a scene where you can see the trails of light that a motorcycle leaves behind, mimicking the effect that is seen when using actual film. What else is impressive is the extensive use of smoke. There are a lot of explosions in Akira, and every explosion either has a large explosion or little pockets of smoke that animate very realistically. If you don't believe me, go and compare the other works of animation that came out at the time. While this may sound like it is a purely technical aspect, its result for me when watching the film was that it elevated the animation to an almost transparent level, where it was no longer a cartoon and now a near real event. The backgrounds of Neo-Tokyo are also very nicely depicted, and drawn. Another aspect of Akira that greatly exceeded my expectations was the music. The original soundtrack uses sounds that I'm not too familiar with, call it maybe a cultural difference. Still, I would have never imagined the music to have sounded the way it did. The use of percussion and... well... screaming paints a image of Neo-Tokyo that is rivaled by the work done in Blade Runner. (Which Akira is heavily influenced by.)
Akira is ultimately a very clear definition of a love/hate piece. The compressed, obscure plot and unfamiliarity with the sounds and sights, especially it's depiction of postmodern industrial Japan, may confuse, literally, audiences. Or, you may be drawn in by the animation, enchanted by the music, intrigued by the science fiction plot early on, and come out of it satisfied. Overall, whichever side of the theater you are in, it is definitely a must-see for animation buffs, and a recommendation for film lovers. Simply put, some people might not be able to hear the music (figuratively speaking) in Akira, and only hear the lyrics, which appears to be incoherent. To answer the question posed earlier, film does not relate to books, paintings and music. Although they are derived by human hands, the aesthetics that belong to them are unique. Akira is a very beautiful flower, despite the thorny stem.