Akira

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I almost feel bad that, upon re-assessment, I found the classic "Akira" to be so flawed. The source material for the first anime I ever saw, I remembered pouring through these volumes the first time Dark Horse re-released them in their giant phone books. While my maturation of taste has definitely not rendered "Akira" unreadable by any means, I can't help but feel that there is just so much potential for this to be something that it ultimately failed to be.

Let's get started with the good:

The art for this entire series is impeccable. The character designs are spot-on, but what most impresses me are the ... background renderings. Painstaking detail is put into every last crack, stain, dent, shattered window, decimated tenement, obliterated office tower, speck of rubble of this world which starts as a mere dystopia before turning full on post-apocalyptic. I cannot imagine this scale of desolation or destruction rendered in live action. The framing of every shot is well-done and concise, and the action is always understandable and fluid. From a visual perspective, this is still a landmark of manga.

Now the not-so-good:

The story is a sci-fi story, extremely graphic in content, which also touches on common adolescent fiction or adult themes. At times, it's not too unlike a Japanese sci-fi S.E. Hinton. It straddles cyber-punk by virtue of its cast of drug-addled biker malcontents, but where it fails that level of "hard" sci-fi is also a major downfall of the narrative. Make no mistake, it's definitely about psychic powers. But the way these powers are explained and how they manifest honestly just seems more like "magic." Otomo was clearly not a science buff. "Energy" is supposed to explain away a lot of things, like why a human with psychic powers can fly into space and start carving up the moon.

The extent of Akira and Tetsuo's powers is absurd and never explained well at all. This would be fine if there was some metaphysical subtext that made this seem like a surreal exposition or magical realism, but there isn't. It becomes page after page after page of psychic blasts and things falling around people and that's all it feels like. Re-reading the books, I gave up about halfway through 5. I'd just had enough. It stops telling any sort of meaningful story and almost becomes a Shonen. The point of the story stops being about government intrigue or youth rebellion and shifts to "Tetsuo is really powerful, look at this powerful display of power, man, the good guys better get him."

Further, while the character designs themselves were good, their story arcs and character development left a lot to be desired.

Let's start with main character Kaneda. He is a bad ass biker boy who tries to feel your tits and steals your gun and doesn't get killed because he's a bad ass, end of story, and oh yeah, he can't stop finding reasons why "this time Tetsuo's gone too far," hilariously even well after Tetsuo has obliterated the entire city.

Kei, his sidepiece; She's a nonentity. Like, literally, at one point. She lacks so much characterization that the little psychic kids possess her body in a last ditch effort to do battle with Tetsuo. Unlike Kaneda, she is presumably intelligent and cunning enough to be a pivotal member of some underground terrorist cell (whose aims are never really explained, by the way). Despite this, she ends up helpless and useless in just about every key moment of the story. Brash biker badass powers mean more than all the womanly cunning you can muster in Neo Tokyo.

Tetsuo: Your basic school shooter type. He's actually the only character anyone would bother remembering from this book, because there are moments early on when his instability and anger are actually kinda scary. His psychic powers are grotesque and so follows his own mind. In the real origin story of Kaori, who in the film is a meaningless plot device, she is the lone survivor of a drug orgy he conducts, a scene that is honestly really chilling. At the same time, you find him somewhat sympathetic, so obviously unable to control his power. Once again, the Shonenesque final chapters of the saga squander this on psychic blasts and whatnot.

The rest of the cast are the typical ensemble of people who exist to help these main characters get through the story. They have flashes of being interesting; Ryu and the Biker Clown alone have more dynamic story lines, downfalls and revelations than any of the aforementioned. But the story isn't about them. The story is using them for things. Not much more.

So I just trashed the all-immortal "Akira." Why a rating of 7? Because of the ambition, no matter how misguided, and the detail of the artwork. With proper writing (which is actually hinted at early on in the series, like say, the first couple books), "Akira" could have had a story up to par with its amazing visuals. As it stands, it's just a kinetic jumble of great imagery that doesn't withstand much scrutiny as a whole.

Oh boy. Re-reading this was eye-opening. It's been on my personal favourite list for decades, it was the first anime and manga I ever saw, so it'll always have a special place in my heart. I rewatched the movie on 4K bluray recently and it holds up well. The Akira Club artbook is also gorgeous. The manga though...

I'd recently bought all 6 volumes (the long-selling English ones by Kodansha), and was excited to re-read them for the first time since the late 1990s, but after reading one volume I was shocked to feel that nothing meaningful had happened. Despite the fact that the story is ... 99% fast moving plot. But that crucial and paltry 1% dedicated to characterisation is what's upsetting me.

It reminds me of a golden rule of storytelling that I believe in: you can have the most amazing plot ever, but if you don't have engaging characters, your story isn't worth a damn. People will barely rewatch movies with good plots with unmemorable characters, but people will always rewatch movies with mediocre plots just because the characters are awesome. Character is everything in storytelling.

The movie adaptation works because it's streamlined and razor focused. The characters are not deep, but they're coherent. There is a palpable relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo. Also, unlike the manga Kaneda is not a repugnant piece of shit in the movie (who likely impregnated a random girl in the manga and abandoned her!). There's a clear rites of passage involved in the movie, set against a broiling backdrop that is rich in symbolism. I even wrote a university dissertation on the movie and its thematic commentary on Japan's relationship to technology. I cited my theories with numerous references to behind the scenes interviews with Otomo and the staff.

Akira the manga however has almost no characterisation whatsoever. Most characters are either just dumping exposition or reacting to explosions and gunfire. If you asked me to tell you something personal about Kei I honestly couldn't. In the movie she takes a life for the first time and is clearly shaken by it, but in the manga there's no reaction whatsoever during the same moment. It's weird how the movie can take the time to depict such a small character moment, but a 6 volume manga rarely stops to take a breath.

I sense no thematic exploration despite the deep cyberpunk atmosphere in the beginning and the post-apocalyptic tropes in the second half, there's barely any character arcs despite the lengthy tale, every character except for Tetsuo is exactly the same personality-wise at the end as they were at the beginning, there's no growth or development to be seen. There's barely any subtext or metaphor to chew on. What is this story actually about? I'm not talking about the plot, I'm talking about subtext and theme, why Otomo decided to put pencil to paper all those years ago.

For some reason Akira and Tetsuo are trying to kill each other almost immediately in the manga. At least in the movie Kaneda's immediate reasoning is revenge for the death of a friend, but in the manga Kaneda is trying to kill Tetsuo despite him not having done anything to Kaneda yet! Literally the only reason implied is that Tetsuo is running his own gang. That's it. That's the reason Kaneda and his friends want to kill Tetsuo. It's beyond stupid.

In volume 2 Tetsuo is intent on finding Akira, and then once he does, there's zero conversation, zero insight into his motivation, absolutely nothing. It's just "ok, let's get out of here".

It's shocking how shallow this manga is. Comments online are always praising the manga as having "such a better story than the anime". What story? There's no story! It's nothing but chase scenes for 6 whole volumes.

The art remains iconic and one of my favourites of the medium, and Otomo's ambition is infectious, which is why I've rated the manga so highly, but I find myself stunned by how little I care for anything that's happening from panel to panel.

As a digression, the popular and long-in-print English volumes of Akira are terrible. I was stunned. There are so many typos that Kodansha have left in all these years. The left to right format had no effort put into it, so all characters are left-handed, etc. In fact, I'm uncertain whether my next issue is because of the flipping, or because of Otomo himself but I was profoundly baffled by the panel progression in this manga. Traditionally you want big reveals or dramatic panels on a new page, so as not to spoil a reader's wandering eye, or even their peripheral vision. But in this translation, all the dramatic panels are on the second (right hand) page. I kept getting spoiled on big moments constantly. Then when you flip the page over, the start of the left-hand page just has mundane things going on.

If you get this manga, get the 35th Anniversary boxset, because it's unflipped for the first time ever.

So yeah, I found this re-reading experience sadly disappointing. Akira has a propulsive plot that has so much stuff happening, so much violence and characters running down corridors, and yet...it feels like nothing meaningful actually happens. The ending is also another huge question mark. No, I'm not talking about what on Earth happened in the climax (which again, is much more clearer in the movie than in the manga), but why the main characters behave the way they do. I won't spoil their inexplicable actions, but suffice to say some characters decide to exhibit emotions resembling nationalism for the first time ever, which almost made me angry with how nonsensical it is. This is not a character arc, this is not thematic exploration, it's just pulling shit out of thin air.

It's been a profoundly disappointing experience rediscovering this manga. I will try to cling on to my memories of the 1990s, reading Manga Mania magazine and learning to draw by tracing the manga as a teenager.

If Akira was published today, I very much doubt it would get a fraction of the praise it now gets (even if it was updated to the "present time").
The good about this manga has already been told extensively, so I will talk about the bad.

Kaneda, one the main characters, is a normal human being, yet somehow he can wrestle with Superman, outsmart Batman, and overcome the Fates and the angels of Death. Additionally, he drives the fanciest motorcycles (and is the best rider, obviously), and gets the girl (another obviously, as all good heroes are supposed to get the girl). By the way, Kaneda is ... a teenager, like many of the readers to whom the manga was targeted. Coincidence?

There is supposed to be a relationship between two characters like the one you can find in Berserk and other manga. But here the relationship is poorly developed - okay, maybe I am being too soft here. The relationsihip is rather not developed (a couple of drawings to tell a sotry which, admittedly, didnt need more because it was cliché even back in the day).

Wondering whats behind the powers of some of the characters? Well, dont. It is just military experimentation and that kind of stuff. You do not need to know more, and you wouldnt understand it anyway. Think of it as a world with magic, but no rules, so the author can have whatever they want, and need, any time.

There are characters that can read the thoughts of other characters, fly, survive in space, cause explosions more destructive than the bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. But, a regular Joe can kick their asses.

There is no consistency as to what sort of skill can is a "power" mastered by a character. In Akira, we may find a characer than can simply jump very high, another that can move objects with their mind, yet another that can apparently see what is going on everywhere in the world and, further, has the ability to direct that vision to precisely what is of interest to them - instantly.

Etc. etc.

If you are not bothered by thinks like those above, then Akira is a great read. Otherwise, dont waster your time.