Schlocktoberfest XVI – Day 27: Akira (1988)

Akira (1988)

Trailer:

*Spoilers Throughout*

What’s This About: Friends. And how many of us have them.

Here are some of my observations as I watched the film:

OK, let’s see if anime will work in a Schlocktoberfest.
It’s summer 2019 and World War III was 31 years ago. Fuck. The summer of ’88 was a good one for me.
I’m guessing the looks of all these bikes was influenced by Tron.
Golly. These biker gangs are far tougher than the ones from Grease 2. Not like that’s a high bar or anything.
I despise Adrian Zmed and there is absolutely no need to ask me why, suffice to say I have my reasons.
When people shoot and kill dogs in anime it doesn’t hit as hard. Maybe they should animate Cannibal Holocaust to try to deaden all the animal cruelty in that opus.
Are we gonna get any sort of expo on bleeding guy and blue midget here?
Blue kid has Banshee powers so it seems.
Not to sound like the back of the VHS box, but this truly is a visual spectacular for its time.
Evil child Patton Oswalt in a MODOK air car wants Smurf kid to come “home” with him.
These so called Paramedics must have been absent the day they taught how to deal with spinal injuries, am I right or wrong here folks?
I can’t read Japanese, something to do with the Olympics I think?
I could have screen-capped it and ran it through Google translate, but we’re not monetized and I’m talking to noone.
To be a 25 year old in Neo-Tokyo really puts the years on ya.
The old disappearing behind a moving bus as you walk away trick even works in anime.
This movie was released on July 16, 1988, the same day WW3 destroys Tokyo in the film. Cute marketing.
I never understood why ‘tough” biker dudes never wanted women hanging around them all the time.
Imagine how lonely the Pink Ladies must have been.
Sounds like Tetsuo was getting the Ludivico. If you know, you know.
Don’t forget Tetsuo’s chick has her tits ripped out and is punched dead in the fucking mush there boys.
The sudden no use of sound at all is interesting – or my mp4 is fucking corrupt.
Is this bike gang named, “The Whiny Pussies?” I never thought I could meet anyone that the Jets and Sharks could take.
No matter how stupid you look, you really only can yell, “She’s got a gun!” with absolute conviction after she fires it.
Shot through the jaw, and she’s to blame! Etc. Etc.
Tetsuo’s tripping scenes could have used a little of that missing expo as well.
What’s with all of these goddamn scary blue children? It reminds me of swimming lessons too early in the fucking morning to be in the freezing fucking pool.
Im not bitter.
At least the little girl’s name is 25 and not 11.
That was a long way to go top decipher that everything’s running normal.
The Duffers have said that Stranger Things was heavily influenced by Elfin Lied (another anime). I hope they mentioned this movie too.
The whole weaponizing children with psychic powers thing.
Speaking of, did ya ever think that Carrie White could have taken down the Crimson King? I always thought her Shine was the most powerful. Even more so than Dick Hallorann’s or Danny Torrance’s.
Had to sneak it in there once this year.
Back to Akira…
Hey everybody! It’s J. Jonah Jameson.
Gentlemen please! There’s no fighting in the War Room!
Again with Tetsuo and his night sweats.
Sneaking into the complex dressed as sanitation workers is probably easier than going in as Stormtroopers.
However an argument can be made that that is exactly what Han and Luke did.
I don’t know if its because of the dub or whatever, but this movie has some odd sound design.
Tetsuo’s mind fuck is almost as weird as the ending to Xtro.
If you clicked the link to Xtro, tell it I said fuck you.
That was a joke against Stormtroopers a few back by the way.
Tetsuo’s feet are bleeding. Did Karl scribe dem fenster?
Tunnel security rides those things Zartan and The Dreadnoughts did in Revenge Of Cobra.
Now we’re riding around a Death Star looking for someone with mind powers. Stop me if you heard this before.
The dangerous but frail psychic walks out of the cell slowly with nothing but bodies behind him.
This committee truly is a meeting of the minds.
This scientist is marvelous. Tetsuo is clutching his head like his brains are Jiffy popping out his ears, and Dr. Obvious asks, “What’s the matter, is your head hurting?
Sounds like if Akira wakes up, it’ll be almost as bad as if Cthulhu does.
“Where’s the frigging baby room?” asked a J. Epstein more than once.
Yoda in pigtails to the rescue.
This is a classic anime and all, but I should done Heavy Metal instead. The Loc-Nar can be categorized as apocalyptic no?
Greta Garbo, stand outside, this kid’s got
Local cops vs. Feds? Is this an American election day?
Very odd cut to black there.
Is Tetsuo evil or not? The fuck?
All of this because of Kaneda’s bike, and you thought Pee-Wee Herman had a bad day with his.
Oh. Akira is energy. Now this is sounding like Final Fantasy VII.
These “Espers” as it were, have to pick Prot or Ant in the agonist department pretty damn quick.
With 45 minutes to go here folks, I gotta be honest with ya- this lost me for some reason. I’ll keep going naturally, but oof, yeah makin’ lots of spitballs.
To be faithful, it is a little hard to follow.
Is this Tiananmen allegory? Or did it not happen yet. I can’t remember.
That looked That looked like MAgneto’s attack on the bridge in X-Men 3.
Hand drawn cell animation, when it comes to explosions, is still the fucking coolest.
It took this long foe Tetsuo to get the dark / light side speech?
Turns out Akira, the Chosen One (indeed), is long dead and his remains are stored in jars for research. Fuck you religion. Fuck you very much.
Anakin vs. Obi-Wan as they air their grievances like a couple of wash women over the fence.
Laser rifle vs. The Force in a garbage dump.
The soundtrack to this movie is quite odd at times.
And now a huge blast from an orbital super weapon. C’mon.
Christ, now it’s Dragon’s Lair.
Now there’s lots of explosions.
Tetsuo loses an arm but makes a mechanical one. C’mon twice.
Jars of Akira next to a stone throne in a destroyed Olympic stadium. Any mail for me while I was gone?
Now Tetsuo’s doing that scary as fuck robot woman thing from Superman III.
Wouldn’t be an anime without some sort of tentacle porn or violence.
A small blue floating kid controlling rocks. C’mon thrice.
Tetsuo is one helluva bullet sponge.
Now he’s morphing into some sort of kaiju Jabba The Hutt. I’m checked out.
Not straying too far away from the Tatooine theme, now he looks like the fucking Sarlaac.
Akira comes back as a naked 10 year old Sulu. Oh my.
I can manage trippy shit, I mean I get it. But this is just craziness on acetate at this point.
To quote Tom Servo, “End!”
This is the coolest music in the soundtrack yet, it sounds like Phantom Of The Paradise a bit.
Is this a good ending?
I honestly can’t tell.
Much like the ending to Demon Seed, Tetsuo is alive and is making universes now.
Such a talented boy he was.

What year?: 2019

Who are the Enemies?: Cool-looking motorcycle gangs

What Happened to the Earth?: Massive Global War

Final Thoughts: This is it folks, the one that they give to you first when you say you want to get into anime. I got my start with Battle of The Planets, Gundam, and Macross – but that’s not neither here nor there. I know how important this movie is in the Anime Hall Of Fame, but I guess my tastes lean a little more towards mecha and kung-fu, so I found it kind of meh. Sorry aficionados. Don’t get me wrong, it is everything you’ve always heard about as far as the visuals are concerned; but if I want to have an existential fucking crisis I’ll watch the first Matrix.

Was It Entertaining: