Akira

Adapted by Katsuhiro Otomo from his sprawling, post-apocalyptic cyberpunk tale of government conspiracies, street gangs, and psychic powers that can save or destroy the world, it's still an all-time classic, and has never looked better. Read full review

Conceived on an unprecedented scale in ambition and technique, Otomo’s rich visuals and awe-inspiring action depict a post-apocalyptic dystopia where the threat of feral biker gangs is dwarfed by the rise of an uncontrollable psychic. Read full review

One of the few unanimously acclaimed classics of Japanese animation. Read full review

A landmark production that can be watched with equal satisfaction as a metaphorical psychodrama or as a sheer visual spectacular. Read full review

It’s a towering achievement of imagination and the detail of each frame is a miracle of film artistry. Read full review

A remarkable technical achievement in every respect, from the imaginative and detailed design of tomorrow to the booming Dolby effects on the soundtrack, pic’s only drawback is the slight stiffness in the drawing of human movement. Read full review

As befits a distillation of 1,318 pages of the story so far, Akira the film is teeming with incident and detail. Read full review

Akira is substance, and should be considered of the same weight as the works of creators like Disney, Spielberg, and Kurosawa. Read full review

Akira’s strangeness is very startling and sometimes bewildering. But there is a thanatonic rapture to its vision of a whole world ending and being reborn as something else. Read full review

Violent as it is on the surface, Akira is tranquil at its core. The story's sanest characters plead for the wise use of mankind's frightening new powers, lending the whole film the feeling of a cautionary tale. Read full review

The most expensive animated feature ever made in Japan (over 1 billion yen) and it's easily the most impressive, as well. Read full review

Otomo's masterwork uses its brilliantly detailed images to illustrate an epic commentary on the choices that face society and the possibilities for destruction in the near future. [15 Jun 1990, p.7]

Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and based on his cult cartoon, the film is a computer graphics showpiece: best at swooping round structures (skyscrapers) and rotating three- dimensional objects (lots of explosions). But it's the hallucinogenic sequences that tell you why it has become a cult. [03 Feb 1991, p.24]

Akira offers moments as eerily powerful as anything I've seen in animation. (Highlights include the kiddies bringing toy animals to sinister marauding life, and Tetsuo's nightmares of disintegration.) Unfortunately, those moments are badly undermined by a weak script, a facile scenario and some wretchedly screechy voice-acting. [11 Jan 1990, p.G4]

Some kind of fever-dream masterpiece, easily the most breathtaking and kinetic anime ever made and one of the most eloquent films about atomic afterclap. Read full review

All this pain and growth occurs in a story whose plot elements turn over so rapidly that it's hard to track them. One furiously violent episode follows another, each seeming to step on the heels of the one ahead. [29 Dec 1989, p.F09]

Otomo's vision is as dark as his palette is vivid. [15 Nov 1991, p.G17]

The powerful movement of the movie is exhilarating, but it's all action with little characterization or plot. There is a moral here about mankind's lust for power, but it never clearly emerges from the spectacle of destruction and violence. Ultimately, AKIRA is really all about the animation. Read full review

Akira remains the work of a cartoonist, rather than a born animator: Too much of the movie is played out in the static frames of a comic strip, and when movement is used it isn't to define character (as in Disney) or establish a rhythm (as in the Warner cartoons) but simply for its physical impact. Pounding away, it becomes monotonous. [30 Mar 1990, p.D]

Otomo's movie, set in the usual sci-fi post-apocalyptic world, has all the narrative fascination of a Godzilla movie (not much). The filmmaker does have a vivid visual imagination, but this imagination has more to do with composition and color than with motion (i.e., animation). [01 Jun 1990, p.7]

Grade-school violence freaks may find a few kicks here, but even they may have trouble coping with this ugly movie’s ending about eight separate times. Read full review

Akira is a jumble of high-tech visuals that will appeal only to hard-core Japanese animation fans. Viewers in search of a coherent narrative or polished animation should look elsewhere. [14 Mar 1990, p.F3]