Akira (1988 film)

Akira is a famous Japanese animated film from 1988.

It is a landmark in Japanese animation and helped grow the popularity of anime worldwide. The movie is based on a manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Otomo also directed the film. It tells a story set in a future city called Neo-Tokyo. This city is a huge, sprawling metropolis. It is a place filled with gangs and protests. The story follows a biker named Shōtarō Kaneda. His friend, Tetsuo Shima, gains powerful psychic powers after a motorcycle accident. These powers become very hard for him to control.

The film uses a very special way to make its art. The creators used more than 160,000 animation cels to create smooth motion. They also used early computer graphics to help with certain tasks. These computers helped show patterns and how light looks. They also helped show how objects fall through the air. This was a very big job for the animation team. The film also used a special way of recording voices. The actors recorded their lines before the animation started. This helped the artists make the characters' lips move perfectly with the words.

Making this movie required a lot of planning and money. A group called the Akira Committee was formed to pay for it. This group included several large Japanese companies like Toho and Bandai. They needed a huge budget to reach an epic standard. The budget for making and advertising the film was very high. Katsuhiro Otomo had to write a new ending for the movie. He did this so the story would fit into two hours. The film was released in Japan on July 16, 1988. It arrived in the United States a year later.

There are many interesting details in the story and its music. The soundtrack was composed by Shōji Yamashiro and performed by Geinoh Yamashirogumi. It uses sounds from traditional Indonesian gamelan and Japanese noh music. The characters in the film have names inspired by an older series. For example, Kaneda and Colonel Shikishima share names with characters from Tetsujin 28-go. The story takes place in the year 2019. This is a time after a world war destroyed Tokyo. Neo-Tokyo is built on land that was reclaimed from the sea.

Akira has had a massive impact on the world of art. It is considered a very influential work in the cyberpunk genre. Many people in the West discovered Japanese culture because of this film. It paved the way for more anime to be shared globally. Many other creators were inspired by its style. You can see its influence in modern movies, comics, and television. It even influenced the way people make video games. The film's popularity grew through theater releases and home videos. It eventually earned over $80 million in home video sales worldwide.