Akira · reception & legacy

1988 · Katsuhiro Otomo

How Akira has been received, argued over, and remembered.

The arc

A hit in Japan on release, but in the West it lived on grainy VHS tapes and midnight screenings, where it single-handedly converted a generation to anime — now it's routinely called the film that made 'adult animation' a category outside Japan.

What's debated

The eternal fan debate: does the film's compressed ending do justice to Otomo's sprawling manga (which wasn't even finished when the film came out), or is 'read the manga' the most tired reply in anime discourse?

Its footprint

Kaneda's bike slide is arguably the most homaged shot in animation history — spot it in everything from Batman: The Animated Series to Jordan Peele's Nope — and the anguished 'TETSUOOO!' / 'KANEDAAA!' exchange is a meme unto itself. Kanye West is such a superfan he built the 'Stronger' video around it.

Where it stands

The canonical gateway anime — a permanent Letterboxd top-250 fixture and the 'you must have seen this' title of animation, full stop.

★ Did you know? Unusually for anime, the dialogue was recorded BEFORE animation began, so the characters' lip movements could be matched to the actors — one reason the film's budget made it the most expensive anime ever produced at the time.

Named by the director

Influences Katsuhiro Otomo has publicly named — the director's own word, distinct from the inferred lines of influence.

Tetsujin 28-go (Gigantor) (1963) — Otomo has said Akira began as an homage to the classic series — Kaneda and Tetsuo are named after its characters, and 'Akira' being subject number 28 is a direct nod.
Moebius (Jean Giraud) — Otomo has repeatedly cited the French comics master as a formative influence on his detailed, densely-lined visual style.