- Actors: Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Mitsuo Iwata, Tesshô Genda, Hiroshi Ohtake
- Directors: Katsuhiro Ohtomo
- Writers: Katsuhiro Ohtomo, Izô Hashimoto
- Producers: Haruyo Kanesaku, Hiroe Tsukamoto, James Yosuke Kobayashi, Ryohei Suzuki, Sawako Noma
- Format: PAL
- Language English, French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish
- Region: Region 2 (This DVD may not be viewable outside Europe. Read more about DVD formats.)
- Number of discs: 2
- Classification: 15
- Studio: Manga
- DVD Release Date: 23 Jun 2003
- Run Time: 124 minutes
- Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (75 customer reviews)
- ASIN: B00009MGHU
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Amazon Bestsellers Rank:
16,540 in Film & TV (See Top 100 in Film & TV)
- #92 in Film & TV > Science Fiction & Fantasy > Animated
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Reviews
Amazon.co.uk Review
Artist-writer Katsuhiro Omoto began telling the story of Akira as a comic book series in 1982 but took a break from 1986 to 1988 to write, direct, supervise and design this animated film version. Set in 2019, the film richly imagines the new metropolis of Neo-Tokyo, which is designed from huge buildings down to the smallest details of passing vehicles or police uniforms. Two disaffected orphan teenagers--slight, resentful Tetsuo and confident, breezy Kanada--run with a biker gang, but trouble grows when Tetsuo start to resent the way Kanada always has to rescue him. Meanwhile, a group of scientists, military men and politicians wonder what to do with a collection of withered children who possess enormous psychic powers, especially the mysterious, rarely seen Akira, whose awakening might well have caused the end of the old world. Tetsuo is visited by the children, who trigger the growth of psychic and physical powers that might make him a superman or a super-monster.
As befits a distillation of 1,318 pages of the story so far, Akira is overstuffed with character, incident and detail. However, it piles up astonishing set pieces: the chases and shoot-outs (amazingly kinetic, amazingly bloody) benefit from minute cartoon detail that extends to the surprised or shocked faces of the tiniest extra; the Tetsuo monster alternately looks like a billion-gallon scrotal sac or a Tex Avery mutation of the monster from The Quatermass Experiment; and the finale--which combines flashbacks to more innocent days with a destruction of Neo City and the creation of a new universe--is one of the most mind bending in all sci-fi cinema. --Kim Newman
On the DVD: as befits this film's status as a Manga classic, Akira has a wide selection of extras spread across two discs, including a "Making of Akira" documentary, a photo gallery, a quiz and a "Make your own trailer" feature, as well as one hidden feature on each disc. The film has been digitally remastered and presented in widescreen format, with Dolby Digital 5.1 for the English-dubbed version, and Dolby Digital 2.0 for the original Japanese language version. The only disappointment of the disc is the animated Scene Selection, where the clips are rendered so small that they can be a bit difficult to decipher. --Rob Burrow
DVD Description
It’s 2019, the world is on the brink of absolute destruction. Tokyo shimmers with tech-noir fetishism, gangs of cyber-punk bikers cruise the sprawl of the post-atomic city and rioting crowds surge under the neon-topped buildings looming a thousand storeys into the sky. Now, old gods return to do battle with Akira and something more than comic book ultra-violence is unleashed. Prepare to enter this astonishing nightmare of hyper-reality created by one of the world’s leading animation directors, Otomo Katsuhiro.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
59 of 63 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Shame about the subtitles,
By
This review is from: Akira - The Ultimate Collection [1991] [DVD] (DVD)
I don't intend to offer a full review here, just make a couple of remarks regarding this version of the film. I originally bought the collector's edition of Akira when it first came out on VHS. I love the film and it is as good as its reputation, so if you've never seen it and are hesitating about buying it, go right ahead.But just a few words for those hardcore Manga fans out there regarding this particular release. If, like me, you prefer watching the original language versions of Manga films you may want to think twice about the Ultimate Collection. Why? Well, there's only one English subtitle track and it's for the hearing impared. This means that, along with the dialog, you get a load of little notes regarding what sort of background sounds accompany the scene, which is, frankly, as annoying as hell. Take the opening, for example, with the dramatic shot across the crater, you're just getting into the mood of the film when up pops "[wind blowing]" along the bottom of the screen. This sort of thing spoils the atmosphere of the film, especially when you can hear the wind blowing for yourself. I'm not saying there shouldn't be comments for the hearing impared, I'm saying that there should be the option to have regular subtitles as well, without all the little sound effect comments. Second issue; one of the selling points of the re-mastered version is the new translations. Sadly, though some parts of the dialog are much better and flow more naturally, many other parts lose out. The original had more 'peotic' phrasing in some areas where the new version sounds cold and awkward. For example, where the orginal version wonders whether Akira's power might be "divine", the new version wonders if it "comes from God". On the whole I prefer the original text. Once again I am commenting on the subtitles, I'm afraid I still can't bear watching the dubbed version of the film (even this "improved" version) - it is still not anywhere near as good as the original Japanese voice acting. Aside from the niggles regarding translation and subtitles, the image quality is very good, I've finally rediscovered the subtelties in colour shades and crisp image I experienced when I first saw the film in the cinema, both of which were sadly lacking from the VHS version. So, does this version merit the "Ultimate Collection" tag? I'd say close, but not quite...
8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
wow,
By Brammers (Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Akira - The Ultimate Collection [1991] [DVD] (DVD)
not only the best anime i have ever seen, but one of the best films. absolutely brilliant. just finished watching it and everything about it was great. the characters, the animation, the storyline- which is complicated, but no more than the next sci-fi film. the soundtrack was also brilliant, better than the usually unnavoidable sickly score to more animes around, and what is more is in Akira the lack of soundtrack in key scenes adds weight, very clever.
im not a hardcore anime fan, but i know a good one when i see it and this was excellent. weaknesses...well the character kei is a bit underdeveloped, and there are a few mystery minor characters but aside from that it was awesome. highly recomended but not for those looking for a bit of light entertainment or a "cartoon".
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Up there with the greats of science-fiction cinema,
By
This review is from: Akira - The Ultimate Collection [1991] [DVD] (DVD)
Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira (1988) is a bold and vivid cyber-punk saga; wherein the story is a simple tale of good versus evil blown up to multi-layered proportions, further developed through the sublime, visually-transcendent animation and intricate character details, which both combine to create one of alternative cinema's greatest ever achievements. Everything you could hope to find in a science-fiction film is brought into play here, with warring street-punks, shadowy government conspiracies, psychological manipulation, body horror and nuclear holocaust all figuring heavily within the writhing and labyrinthine plot. It shows a continuation of the themes established in earlier classic of the sci-fi genre, most notably Fitz Lang's Metropolis (1927), Ishirô Honda's Godzilla (1954), LQ Jones' A Boy and His Dog (1975), Andrei Tarkovsky's Stalker (1979), George Miller's The Road Warrior (1981) and Ridley Scott's iconic Blade Runner (1982), with the post apocalyptic theme and the further depiction of a technologically advanced, noir-like metropolis spiralling out of control.
Alongside this we have the ghosts of Hiroshima and Nagasaki referenced in the opening sequences, and the parallels of those atrocities revisited here as the trigger of World War Three. However, despite these more elaborate historical juxtapositions and themes of science fiction, the story's main focus is that of friendship; in this instance the friendship of two characters being pushed and strengthened throughout the film, finally reaching a climax with the final fight between Kaneda and the bizarre mutation of Tetsuo. This theme is central throughout Akira, posing serious questions of loyalty, contempt and ambition, as well as ending with the ambiguous idea that further battles must be fought before any of the characters (and by extension, the audience as well) know the truth about Tetsuo and the tree, mystical little children so central to the plot. If you're already a fan of Manga and Anima, then Akira should be an absolute must see, that is, if you haven't experienced it already. However, please don't let a lack of interest in animation, or more appropriately, Japanese animation deter you from experiencing this film, as really, it is one of the most interesting, intelligent and accessible works of sci-fi cinema produced in the last twenty-five years. It is also incredibly influential, with its influence apparent in a number of subsequent great works of science fiction, including Shinya Tsukamoto's Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1988), and sequel Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), Rintaro's Metropolis (2001), Spielberg's A.I, (2001) and Minority Report (2002), Takashi Miike's Dead or Alive: Final (2002), Michael Winterbottom's Code 46 (2003) and Wong Kar-Wai's misunderstood masterpiece 2046 (2004). Already twenty-years on from its original release, Akira remains a bold, interesting and unforgettable work of vibrant, visceral, intelligent science fiction cinema that deserves to be experienced.
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