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I thought I knew what Akira was. I’d seen the clips, that bike slide, the gifs, the fan art. Everyone talks about it like it’s this holy thing from the past, and honestly, I figured it’d feel old or boring or like one of those movies you say you respect but don’t really care about. Then I watched it last night, full focus, just me and the screen. And yeah, now I get why people won’t shut up about it. That movie moves different. It feels huge, not because it’s loud or dramatic all the time, but because there’s something weirdly alive in every scene. Like it breathes.
No one warned me that the visuals would mess with my head like that. I found out after watching that they actually created about fifty new color tones for this film. Like, those colors didn’t even exist commercially in animation before Akira. They built them from scratch just to get that specific vibe. And you feel it. The city looks like it’s sweating neon. Everything is layered and glowing but also kind of rotting from the inside. It’s hard to describe. It doesn’t look futuristic in the way movies try to now, all sleek and minimalist. It’s chaotic. And what’s wild is that back in 1988, this was their version of the future. Now we’re in 2025, and we’ve ended up in this clean, quiet, beige reality. Even fast food logos are toned down. They thought we’d be living in chaos, and instead we’re stuck in safe mode.
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There’s something about the way the story unfolds that makes it feel personal, even though it’s obviously huge in scale. Tetsuo’s whole spiral didn’t feel like some big villain arc. It felt like watching someone break, and I mean that in a human way. He’s not evil, he’s scared. He’s desperate. The power stuff is just an amplifier for all the shit that’s already eating him up inside. Kaneda, Kei, the resistance—it’s all part of the noise surrounding that emotional center. The city’s crumbling, people are panicking, and there’s this big philosophical thing about control and identity and what happens when you don’t know who you are anymore. It doesn’t spoon-feed you answers. It just kind of throws you in and lets you feel it.
Also, I didn’t know they recorded all the voice acting and sound before animating anything. That blew my mind. Usually it’s the other way around, but here they did what’s called prescoring. And it works. Everything feels timed to emotion, not just movement. The screams, the silence, even that weird chanting soundtrack—it hits in your chest. You can tell they weren’t just making a movie. They were building something way more intense. It’s like watching a breakdown and a prophecy at the same time. There’s nothing sterile about it. It’s all guts.
Watching Akira in 2025 is kind of surreal. It’s this loud, messy, beautiful warning about a future that never showed up, but somehow still makes sense. It’s not about flying bikes or psychic kids, even though that’s what people always remember. It’s about what happens when systems fail and people get lost inside the mess. It’s about the kind of power that burns you from the inside out. And honestly, I walked away feeling kind of haunted. Not because the movie was scary, but because it looked at the future with such wild intensity, and we ended up here instead. Quiet. Flat. Predictable. Akira’s still out there screaming. We’re just not listening as loud anymore.
That. That is the biggest horror "ordinary" people face every single day. Customer service interactions. Stores not having stock, or sending the wrong things. At least, in the first world.
Or, a Crowdstrike issue making BSODs on Windows Operating systems, globally. The tighter and tighter systems get integrated, the more they will fail, and the harder, and more complicated those "times" will be.
Anarchy can bloom like a flower in those moments, but "systems" are just that.
I need to get my wife to watch this (and I need to rewatch it, too, as its been more than a decade since I've seen it) - to experience for myself how it stacks up today against technological process and my own development over time.
You know, @holoz0r? There is a Blue-Ray version of this film... I'm not sure if you got the diolay for it or even the blue-Ray disc but this anime films, ay least one time in our lifetime should be watching and contemplate with the finest visually tools there may be able...
Yes, compression artefacts, and lower dynamic range on streaming services really ruins some films. For anything that I thoroughly enjoy, I always get a 4K Blu-Ray with HDR if it is available. The bit rates and sound quality of the physical media is far greater than any streaming service.
I am a real stickler for quality when it comes to media!
Good! You do understand the importance of experiencing a good film, such as this one, with the top quality available. Thank you for stopping by, friend!
Not a problem! And yes, absolutely. One of my favourite films is The Matrix (they should have made sequels!) - and I've owned it on DVD, BluRay, and now 4K HDR (from the 35mm original film) - and recently, I got the chance to experience it again in a traditional movie cinema last year, when they did a screening from the original 35mm actual film!
It was wonderful.
Matrix and I believe, the Fifth Element were inspired by Akira. This anime film is beyond its plot. Is creative, pioneer and it shows what talent can create with support and cooperation
Absolutely! You've put into words what so many of us felt the first time we saw it. You're drawn to Kaneda's motorcycle fame and stay for Tetsuo's existential collapse. It's brutal. What you mentioned about the colors and sound are key, which is why it feels so alive and hasn't aged at all. It's one of those works that, the more you know about how it was made, the more you're blown away.
I'm glad many people in here knows about Akira. Meanwhile I was writing this review I was questioning about the importance of this film for younger generations. Loved to see everyone cares about this.
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That muchachona you encouraged to see a pretty strong classic, I saw it as a child on a channel called locomotion, I did not understand anything haha but I was impacted by what ceia
This reminds me that I have to watch it again to understand it now as an adult 😃
I made, not a long ago (I think( a post about Locomotion (the TV Channel) in Latinamerica. When I was a kid I've found myself watching this animes everyday and knowing about this whole world... So nice to heard about the massive influence from this.
Your review makes Akira so unforgettable, not only animation or technique, but also its feeling. "Watching a breakdown and a prophecy at the same time” That line really stuck with me. It is wild how something has been made in '88, even today can feel more chaotic than most of others. Beautifully written.
Watching in retrospective how bright and full of colours, designers, artist and illustrators thought it would be the future, makes me love even more this film. Thank you @shoyebxyz
It is when we watch that anime that we really get what it is about and fully do understand instead of someone telling you about it
In life as in art, the main importance thing is living the thing xD. Thank you @aikay
Akira is incredible, I find it hard to believe that such animation was made even before the 90s. It's a must see classic, I watched it recently (last year) and when you watch it as an adult you understand it much more because it touches on very common and dense society issues, the story is not only about speed.
You're right, watching this movie today is not the same as watching it twenty or thirty years ago. In my case, I'm not that old, but I never had the chance to see it when I was young. However, when I watched it for the second time recently to talk about it in a previous review, I noticed the differences it has with anime from today or from a decade or two ago. Still, its audiovisual quality was far ahead of its time. Now we understand why it is said that Akira revolutionized cinema and the anime industry as such at that time. A priceless gem of the science fiction genre, without a doubt.
Good review.