Akira, is, frankly, an artistic masterpiece in both its available mediums, because of the care that went into the aesthetics. With the movie, though it is fairly dated, having been released in the 1980s, the animation is fluid, and is often amazing because of the sheer dedication you know that went into this project. Speaking of dedication, the 2000-page manga is nothing less than extraordinary. Those manga artists out there know the patience that it is required during the process of manga, an our Katsuhiro Otomo and his merry crew were tone paper fanatics, and the about it would have to cut each piece of tone paper exactly to size on each page, following the explicit action that paces well throughout.

I saw the Akira movie before reading the manga. I was taken aback by the storytelling factor in the anime, and how epic I believed the scope was: needless to say I was impressed. The music and the colours used, as mentioned in the production report, create an incredible atmosphere in which the tale happens. I thought this was the best anime film I’d ever seen (this was also before I saw any Miyazaki films). Then I proceeded to buy the manga. I had come across many web pages on the Internet which were petitions for Otomo to recreate the manga as a series. I have now signed many of them, though it will never happen. Though the manga can only be appreciated with sight, whereas the movie has sound, there is no hindrance to the flow of the action and the story because of this. And through the 2000-page, there is definitely an overwhelming sense of epic, and not just because of the ridiculous number of pages. The story starts small, with two rival biker gangs in conflict, but develops towards a battle to try and control an overflowing power in order to save the known world.

What I love about the manga, which I had not seen often in the manga I’ve come across, is the position of the catastrophe in the story’s timeline. Most science-fiction stories set with a ‘try-to-save-the-world’ will have the catastrophe as a potential event which the hero and his comrades are trying to prevent. Whilst this is true of Akira in both mediums, in the manga, there is the initial catastrophe which an newly released Akira performs in volume 3 and 6. This destroys the entire infrastructure of the city of Neo-Tokyo, leading to a post-apocalyptic setting for the last 3 volumes: again, one of my favourite elements. But what is achieved in the manga, which is more accessible than my last point, is the character development and depth of the story. This was definitely put on the proverbial backburner in the film adaptation, making way for the nevertheless impressive visuals, but in the manga there are no such limitations. Motives are made clear through carefully thought out means, interactions and relationships are built on feasible foundations and are experienced through events with subtle subtext which the reader can notice without too much of an effort on his part. The story itself is one of the best ever told. Whilst this is anime, and there is action, guns, bikes, explosions and most importantly and prominent of all, superpowers, the emphasis is not on the superpowers themselves, but the consequences of these abilities on the people who have them, and the relationships they are a part of. The human element that is sometimes lost in ’superpower’ anime or manga, or not given much attention (e.g. Dragonball Z) comes across very well in the manga, allowing the story, although fantastical, in a way to be emotionally feasible based on the interactions of the characters.

I’m sure some people are wondering why I wrote this. Well, RedRoot was initially going to be an anime website, but I didn’t have the time to put up any content (when I do this will be the Fanboy section). I had just finished my Akira Manga collection, and read all 2000 pages of it, and realized that in my opinion, the story in the Akira Manga is the best sci-fi story ever told, including not just manga, but novels such as Dune, Day of the Triffids, Peter Hamilton’s and Iain M. Banks work, so I just thought I’d express how much I enjoy the story of Akira by writing up a little appreciation on my website. So, if you are an anime or manga fan, or just a sci-fi fan, with a surplus of money in hand, and want a good story, may I suggest purchasing Akira, because once you get through the first volume, I guarantee you will be hooked.

This entry was posted on Thursday, November 16th, 2006 at 8:37 pm and is filed under Anime. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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