Finally watched "Akira" the movie.

[Bobbie Sellers]

Hi Reader and Typers, anime lovers

For years I have heard about Akira and I even bought a used copy of the
movie before Covid but did not get around to it earlier as my roomie
severely impacted my viewing time. Now she is in the hospital severely
ill and I have more watching time.

The first time I spotted Akira was on a book cover in Japan town in
the 1970s I believe but I was with a friend and did not investigate.
I was busy with Underground Comix reading and collecting at the time.

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Akira. An apocalyptic SF story
with super mutants escaping the Tyranny of the Government and destroying
Neo-Tokyo along the way. In case you never got the plot, in 1988 an
Atomic Bomb destroyed a good piece of Tokyo and in 2019 the mutants are
old enough to act. Tokyo in 2019 is getting ready for the next Olympic
Games building a new stadium over the sit where the remnants of Akira
are stored at close to absolute Zero.
Science Fiction in Japan assumes a faster rate of change than happens.
So in 2019 before Covid-19 hit Japan was indeed getting ready for the
2020 Olympic Games but no bomb hit in 1988, thank kami-sama. The 2020
games were poorly celebrated due to Covid-19.

I have read many such stories over the years in Science Fiction
magazines and I don't even remember the title of the first one i read
but the mutant yields to the fear of the normals and walks into an
atomic furnace to keep them less fearful. I recommend the novel,
"Odd John" about another group of mutants.

bliss - brought to you by the power and ease of PCLinuxOS,
the Perfect Computer Linux Operating System(for me),
and a minor case of hypergraphia.

[Wasabi]

Post by Bobbie Sellers
Hi Reader and Typers, anime lovers
I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Akira. An apocalyptic SF story
with super mutants escaping the Tyranny of the Government and
destroying Neo-Tokyo along the way.

Akira is a classic movie that has stood the test of time. Apart
from the cartoony billowing smoke the animation looks very modern
compared to other anime films of that era. I like the realism of
the grimy city and the flickering fluorescent lights etc.

I love how all the many plot strands intertwine - the military
backed government of old fogies, pro-democracy demonstrators,
religious cults, terrorists, biker gangs of delinquent teenagers,
and, lurking in the shadows, mad scientists experimenting on the
brains of orphaned children in order to tap into the primal
psychic forces that underpin the universe....

The manga is also a classic, but very different. As with Nausicaa,
the anime only deals with the first part of the story and comes to
a different ending.