Animated Film Akira: Plot, Style, and Cultural Impact Analysis

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the animated film Akira, exploring various aspects such as the plot, characters, and setting within the futuristic Neo-Tokyo. The paper delves into the film's distinctive visual style, including the use of lighting, animation techniques, and its influences from Japanese culture and manga. It examines the movie's impact on viewers, its industrial, social, and economic factors, and the critical reception it received. The essay also highlights the film's themes, including the exploration of inner power and cultural reflections, ultimately positioning Akira as a landmark achievement in Japanese animation and a significant cultural artifact. The analysis covers the movie's influence on various art forms and its lasting legacy.

Running head: ANIMATED FILM AKIRA
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Japanese movie has always been regarded as a kind of its own. According to Liu et al.
(2018), Japanese videos are progressive, unique and intriguing in Style and are always out of
the box. Be it their taste or culture, and the Japanese always seemed to have high popularity
for striking a nerve with the audiences when it comes to the question of its different art forms.
However, in the explication of the Japanese movie Akira, different things shall be discussed
in this paper. It shall elaborate on presenting the plot, hoe the substantial influence the
reaction of the viewers, how the setting and the lighting designs that shape the perception of
the characters, moods and spaces. Also, culturally, the movie would be critiqued based on
how the Japanese culture has shown throughout the whole film, the structure of how the
different characters in the film have progressed and the conflicts among them. The paper
shall also highlight how the industrial, social and economic factors have influenced the film
and what the critics have claimed about it.
Akira is originally a 1982 Japanese film, directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and was
produced by Shunzo Kato and Ryonei Suzuki collectively. There are about six volumes of
this movie, namely, Tetsuo, Akira I, Akira II, Kei I, Kei II and Kaneda. It is a planned
science fiction live-action film that is based on the Japanese Manga, Akira. Notwithstanding
these facts, it is to note that "Akira" starts with a giant flash of lights that signalled a high
explosive, which decimates the 1980s Tokyo and starts the World War II (Gangnes, 2014).
The main characters in the movie include Tetsuo Shima, Kiyoko, Yuji Takeyama, Shotaro
Kaneda, Colonel Shikishima, Ryusaku, Doctor Onishi, Takashi, Masaru and Mitsuru Kuwata.
The film then jumps forward to the year 2019, which is, a year where the metropolis rebuilt
itself as the Neo-Tokyo. It is to note that the 2019 movie Akira is centred on a motorcycle
gang called the Capsules, which was led by Chummy Kaneda and that involved in the fate of
the city itself when Tetsuo, one of the members, has a run-in with a strange boy who has

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some psychic powers within him. This further has encountered the activate a latent power
within Tetsuo.
The Plot- Set in 2019, Akira tells the story of Shotaro Kaneda, the leader of local
biker gang whose friend Tetsuo Shima, gains incredible telekinetic potentials after a bike
accident, gradually threatening a whole military complex among the rebellion and chaos in
the sprawling futuristic metropolis of Neo-Tokyo (Dixon & Graham, 2017). While the
majority of the characters in this story settings and designs were adapted from Manga, the
plot differs considerably, and at the same time, it does not include much of the next half story
of the Manga. Apart from this, according to Klausner, the soundtrack of the movie that draws
highly from the traditional Indonesian gamelan and the Japanese noh music is composed by
Shoji Yamashiro, one of the famous Japanese singers and the same is performed by Geinog
Yamashirogumi (a Japanese musical collective).
The Style and visuals- According to Ogihara-Schuck (2014), in Japanese anime
movies, the Style and realism have an extraordinary interplay that ensures to remain its
defining visual motif. Having its root in Manga, the anime artist of Akira commands both the
elements and make sure to take complete control. The realism of Otomo presents itself in the
form of painterly images that further depicts the particular iridescent cityscape of the city of
Neo-Tokyo. It is claimed that these images were just less fantastic as compared to the other
futuristic visions of Ridley Scott in the movie like "Blade Runner (1982)" (Haguchi, 2014).
In the other scenes, Otomo further has employed a much more comic-book stylization,
especially in the more actionized and less weighty or comic relief scenes that involve
Kaneda.
Furthermore, it is also to mention that there are several attractive visuals in Akira
along with some wide range of science fiction concepts and the rousing bike actions. As per

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Gangnes (2014), “It is impossible to watch Akira’s opening scenes and not immediately think
of the United States’ bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II”. The Style of the
move rams home all the car crash, death and explosion defying stunt. Furthermore, it is also
to mention in this context that the movie used more than 1 lakh animation cel for creating all
the detailed scenes and the fluid movements. Use of cel animation means that the animators
had to produce the background, foreground and middle of every scene on three different cels
(Poitras, 2014). It is a very detailed and time-consuming process that has profoundly fallen
out of practice today.
Influence on the viewers- Often the movie “Akira” has been cited as “influential” by
many viewers. Akira has changed the world of animation forever (Fujii et al., 2017). Many
viewers noticed that this anime movie is not like the other anime movies that previously
come out of Japan. The film used more than 1 lakh animation cel for creating all the detailed
scenes and the fluid movements. It is a very complicated and time-consuming process that
has profoundly fallen out of practice today. It is a pinnacle of its genre, and at the same time,
it continues to inspire the whole world, even today. It is a great entertaining movie to watch.
The use of light in the film is considered to be an innovation of Akira. It is merely proof of
the fact that animation is not just for children.
Even George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were also offered the opportunity for
bringing the property to the western Audiences, but they believed that it would not suit the
taste of Americans. However, this did not stop the movie from being rapidly successful all
around the world. It has influenced several musicians too (Geraghty, 2017). Even Michael
Jackson included a clip of Tetsuo falling from skyscraper during the end of the music video
of Scream. The different samples of the thunderous polyrhythmic soundtrack of the movie
along with the English Dubbing have made their way into the tracks by the artists like
Sunbeam; Pop Will Eat Itself, Underworld, Atari Teenage Riot, Sonic Sub junkies etc. Apart

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from this, it is also to mention that "Akira" has also influenced how people dress. The bootleg
patches of the iconic capsule logo of the movie- "good for health, bad for education" have
found their way onto thousands of leather jackets over many years after its release.
Lighting design shapes our perception of character, mood, space-The whole movie is
drawn with paint, which was light. They did it employing creating contrast and making use of
different colours, intensities and hues. The amber-orange light that is illustrated against the
dark black pictures further evokes a neo-futuristic and surrealistic "cyberpunk" feeling. If one
blurs down the images, one can feel that the emotion and mood of the scene from where the
picture is taken and also he or she can better see the colours as well. Akira" starts with a giant
flash of lights that signalled a high explosive, which decimates the 1980s Tokyo and starts
World War II. The use of light in the movie is considered to be an innovation of Akira. It is
merely proof of the fact that animation is not just for children.
Purpose of the movie- It is to note that the primary purpose of this film is to spread the
message among the audiences that AKIRA is a concept that every human being has an inner
power and that power is infinite (Rees, 2014). That power is the birthplace of the whole
universe, and that is pure power and pure light. Every human being is born with an "Akira"
within himself or herself. It is just that we need to unlock that inner power of us.
Industrial, social and economic factors that influence the film- it is to mention that in
reality, putting together one of the most expensive anime movies in the world, was
considerably much more complicated than it sounds. No company had this amount of
financial resources or human resources for creating a project on the scale of this movie.
Furthermore, it is noted that the total amount of money that was used for the making of Akira
was never before heard for any Japanese animated film. As per Balik (2015), about 10
million dollars was used for the same and at the same time, it was recorded as the most costly

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animated film for some time. Even if the committee of production was willing for spending
that amount, they still were not able to entice the directors from the west for coping up with
the project. It is to note that even George Lucas and Steven Spielberg were also offered the
opportunity for bringing the property to the western Audiences, but they believed that it
would not suit the taste of Americans. According to many, Akira had saved the industry of
animation single-handedly. It is to mention that Japan is considered to be the largest exporter
of animation and comics in the world with a yearly rate of more than 375 million dollars of
sales of the animated DVDs in the United States and Canada alone. Before the introduction of
Akira, the audiences of America had very little exposure to Japanese Anima, but after the
popularity that Akira gained, the anime industry of Japan was exposed to the entire world.
The movie features some of the fantastic artistry with minute details. The world of Akira is
very much similar to Japan and its culture. One of the most apparent similarity prevails with
the period of recovery of Japan from the atomic blast. Placing the movie in the future after
the Second World War has allowed its filmmakers a striking distance for commenting on
Japan in the 1980s without even making any apparent connection. By the year 1988, Japan
had experienced the tale-end of the “Bubble Economy", a thirty-year economic growth
headed and spurt directly for a financial crash and this crash had devastating consequences
for Japanese people, the total inflated housing market left the homeowners who have homes
worth 1% of their original sale prices.
Culture relation- It is to note that the term "Akira" in the literal terms illustrated some
violent and harsh transition between adulthood and childhood. While considering Japan as
having a child-like identity, then one must consider what Akira represent. Akira is a story
about change and growth. As the character Tetsuo becomes strong and sturdy, he tends to
become corrupted. Further, his power also tends to become the reason behind his destruction
(Franks, Mayer & Miyajima, 2014). Hence, in this context, Akira could be interpreted as a

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warning, During the twentieth century, the economy of japan progressed and increased at a
rapid rate, a parallel society to the superannuated children of Akira have given much power
and wisdom, and in many ways, they were unable of controlling the power.
Hence, from the above analysis, it is to conclude that Akira is the best-known
examples of modern Japanese animation. This anime movie has opened up minds and
boundaries throughout the world. It is an astonishingly influential movie, and its impact is
made highly challenging to judge so quickly. However, though it has its roots of 16 years
ago, it did not make any initial impact outside the country. Furthermore, rather than being
suffered from humiliation of being advertised, the movie filtered, just like a software virus
into the rooms of Generation X. The main thing that makes AKIRA special lies in its
stunning and creative visual impact and the narrative that is both thought-provoking and
complex. The movie is all about "hyper-reality", and this gradually came to be known as
"bullet time". It is the animation and imagination that have allowed impossibly free and
kinetic camera movements in the movie.

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