This year marks the 35th anniversary of one of the most influential films of the modern era of film, “Akira.” The film is an acclaimed adaptation of the titular manga. Though the film was made before the manga was complete, the core themes of the narrative were adapted into a tight two-hour film.
The film opens on Tokyo just as a portion of the city is destroyed in an unknown explosion and leads into a third World War. Jump ahead to Neo Tokyo in the year 2019, and the city has succumbed to civil unrest, rapid militarization and street gangs.
The film quickly establishes our main characters Kaneda and Tetsuo, a pair of friends whose relationship often veers into a sibling dynamic. Their respective stories intertwine as a revolution ceases the nation.
The film has created a legacy in the realm of animation and film. This can be seen in the reoccurring image of the “Akira” slide which has become a popular visual homage, most recently seen in “Nope” as well as dystopian-inspired films like “Looper” and “The Matrix.”
To understand creator Katsuhiro Otomo's “Akira,” one must look at its inspirations. This includes manga like Tezuka Osamu’s “Atom” (which is known as “Astro Boy” in the United States) and Mitsuteru Yokoyama’s “Tetsujin 28,” which each had some creative influence on Otomo. Narratively, the film reflects a Cold War-era Japan that has experienced occupation by the U.S. and post-war reconstruction.
These influences come across in Neo Tokyo’s ever-present military and a city that is evocative of futurist Antonio Sant’Elia. The designs of Sant’Elia would go on to inspire Fritz Lang’s “Metropolis.” Lang’s work would go on to be the main source of inspiration for books like “Atom” which in turn inspired Otomo.
For Otomo, the Tokyo of tomorrow exists both horizontally and vertically in space. Movement can occur along highways and in the air. The prioritization of movement has made Neo Tokyo biological as it mimics a living cell, layers of roads, walkways and highways demonstrating the systems that facilitate life. The failure of individual parts reflects its eventual collapse.
This is seen in the opening scene of the film, a top-down view of Neo Tokyo in red, the city appears as a neuron cell. The city itself represents the cells that make up the citizens that occupy it. The constructed environment becomes both the biological and psychological space people occupy. The eventual collapse of order precedes the destruction of the city. While the design of the city defines the characters that occupy it. This is exemplified in the character of Tetsuo.
Tetsuo’s contact with other psychics unlocks his latent abilities. His rapidly escalating powers manifest in the physical as he obtains powers to teleport and fly. Tetsuo's ability to move both vertically and horizontally within his own space reflects the futurist design of the city.
This escalation in power escalates in his expanding body, which crosses both technology and biology in a single body. The rapid expansion of the city becomes internalized within the body and results in another collapse and period of reconstruction. In this way, the city becomes an extension of the Japanese consciousness of the period. It is the desire to rationalize an identity within rapid industrialization.
This is the lasting theme of the film “Akira,” as its story is a unique crossroads of inspiration and history that represents the current moment of a rapidly developing nation in a post-war era. “Akira” is interested in the humans that exist within these spaces and how those spaces shape them.
Benjamin Ervin is a senior studying English literature and writing at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Want to talk more about it? Let Benjamin know by emailing him be425014@ohio.edu.
