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Akira is a manga and 1988 anime movie by Katsuhiro Otomo, generally
considered a classic of both genres.
The setting is that of Neo-Tokyo, a Tokyo rebuilt (over what is today
Tokyo Bay) after World War III destroyed it. As it turns out, World War III
was really started by the uncontrolled growth of the superhuman powers of a
child named Akira, who was enrolled in a secret government research program.
In the story's current time, 40 years after WWIII, a gang of young bikers
led by the cocky Kaneda is involved in a fight with a rival gang when the
gang's youngest member, Tetsuo, collides with a mysterious child on the
highway. This child has escaped from the government psychic research
program. Tetsuo finds and eats a pill (dropped by the child in the
collision) which awakens Tetsuo's own latent powers, with disastrous
consequences both on the personal level, as old interpersonal conflicts with
his friends resurface, and on the larger level, as Neo-Tokyo is threatened
by another Akira incident.
Akira, like Otomo's other work (such as Domu, A Child's Dream), revolves
around the basic idea of humans with superhuman powers, in particular
psychokinetic abilities, but much of the story does not focus on these
abilities themselves, but rather the people involved, social issues and
politics. The social commentary is not particularly deep or philosophical,
but rather a wry look at youth alienation, government corruption and
inefficiency, and a military grounded in old-fashioned Japanese honor,
displeased with the compromises of modern society. As with most science
fiction, the issues in the future world are clearly treatments of
contemporary social issues.
This classic movie led the way for the growing popularity of anime, and
according to many people caused anime to become quite popular in western
Europe in the mid-1990s. In North America Akira was the beginning of the
current wave of anime fandom and served as inspiration to the Wachowski
brothers' The Matrix trilogy motion pictures.
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