Top five reasons the movie “Akira” is the most mackingest.
(in reverse order)
5. Freaky Psychic Children.
Children are generally freaky enough sans the psychic powers; with the psychic powers and trapped within a perpetual childhood, they are a freak tour de force. The top moment in this category: their attempt to kill Tetsuo as giant milk-bleeding children’s toys.
4. The mack-tastic soundtrack.
I had to jump through hoops to buy this soundtrack. Fun fact: apparently it was written before the animation on the movie was complete.
3. The fact that it was set in the (not too distant) future, yet all the characters look like they’ve stepped out from an 80s fashion party. In a good way.
Mustard polyester jackets with shoulder pads? Check. Moonboots? Check. Evasive hairspray manoeuvers? Check.
2. The fact that it’s made up of more than seven frames of animation (cf. the last episode of Evangelion).
Hideaki Anno had to solicit salarymen on street corners to afford the crayons and duct tape to finish his series Evangelion (to receive his prize of sustained and violent death-threats). Katsuhiro Otomo had money left over from the production budget of Akira to a level a large deciduous forest, because he wanted to.
1. Exploding People/Amoeba Tetsuo.
A tie for first position. On the one hand, the exploding people sequence in the hospital is so awesome one wonders why Tetsuo would not subsequently opt to explode all those who stand in his way. On the other hand, do I really need to argue for the awesomeness of Tetsuo’s assumption of giant blob form in the middle of a half-constructed Olympic stadium as bits of a remote-controlled laser-spitting satellite weapon fall to the ground? Answer: no.
Word to JB.
