Peel the Onion｜Akira: A personal retrospective, visionary anime returns to HK in 4K

By J. B. Browne

That was awesome, but what the f**k just happened? Said my imaginary interlocutor as we left the PALACE IFC Broadway Theatre. I'm not sure. Rebirth? Earlier in the week, I'd invited myself to see acclaimed Japanese anime director Omoto Katsuhiro's 1988 cyberpunk epic Akira as it returned to HK cinemas in newly restored 4k. It would be my third time but first HD renovation, big screen, and mask-wearing experience. The first time I can't remember—the second time was on a friend's big brother's VHS recording? [1]

Impressively long, futuristic, shouty, unsettling, powerful, mind-blowing, and epic, the story follows a biker gang in futuristic Neo-Tokyo as they try to save the city from one of their members who has acquired powers beyond his control causing much telekinetic-cartoon mayhem. I never really got it. And it seemed to me that anyone who had seen and loved it would nod-enthuse without being able to explain why or what it was all about. Maybe, like me, suffering the same ineffability. There's something about Akira. A vagueness that shines and lingers on your thoughts for days (and through life after multiple views). Though, as I'm about to discover, it's not the characters, plot, or masterful artwork, but the tiny, now prescient details that make people go back.

The Future Is Now?

Wow. This original foreign language version hits much harder than any faded VHS memory. I can't NOT concentrate. If I miss a word or tic, this whole convoluted plot will implode, and then I'll be here for two-plus hours listening to insanely fast 4k Japanese. But wait, something's off. Everything looks familiar. The citizenry has regressed to perpetual violence, civil unrest, and rioting; a cop just shot a teargas canister in someone's gut (point-blank); Blade Runner hologram billboards project ads; there are turf wars, biker gangs, religious cults. The film's beginning depicts a signboard counting the days until the 2020 Olympics: "147 Days Until The Games," it says with another line saying, "With everyone's support, let's make this a success!" But some cyberpunk, probably a biker ganger, has graffitied "Just cancel it" in white.

In many distinct ways, Akira is just another in a long line of dystopian science fiction films. But on this re-watch in all my 4k subtitle scanning, it has become an unsettlingly powerful/prescient/cautious view of society today. Akira's world still resonates with images, sounds, and ultimately unanswered questions about inner-city youth, social (in)justice, corruption, and public gullibility. [2] Cute characters of Studio Ghibli with moral tales [3] from Magical Fantasy Land A this ain't. Gritty, neon-drenched, post WWIII Neo-Tokyo 2019 from 1998 this iz. 

Cyberpunk'd In Hong Kong?

Earlier this year, in that not too long ago living our best pre-COVID lives, Hong Kong-based photographer Michael Kistler took to HK's streets for a solo exhibition called "Cyberpunk's Not Dead." And though HK's neon-soaked streets have always been a point of inspiration for artists generationally, Kistler's icily saturated images sought to explore themes of "High tech. Low life" as core tenets of the subgenre.

Realistically, HK is not quite the dystopian Bladerunning landscape Kistler and others perhaps wish it to be, but there is an unignorable potential that it could be. Another more apt city comes to mind, Actual-Tokyo. By definition, cyberpunk is a dystopian sci-fi subgenre that usually features a gritty underworld of gangs, drugs, and black market trade but with huge corporations and militia-type private security forces at the other end. Hovering ominously in the grey areas between are politics, corruption, and social unrest. Cyberpunk youth always carry an anti-govt; brand-averse; tech-savvy, etc. attitude. [4]

More widely, Akira's sweeping influence within cyberpunk is almost unimpeachable. Distinct from Western takes of the subgenre, [5] Japanese cyberpunk started in 1982 with Otomo's manga series. But it was 1988 film Akira that set ablaze a succession of Japanese cyberpunk works that have in their own right become classics with complimentary Hollywood remakes, such as Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop, and many more. But like its omnipotent-omnipresent shriveled little boy title character, [6] Akira has been cited and is an evident influence on major Hollywood films. Matrix, Chronicle, Looper, Inception spring to the immediacy of mind. Prominent British film magazine Empire once gushed "Simply put, no Akira, no Matrix. It's that important." More recently, Speilberg's Ready Player One [7] outright lifts Kaneda's motorbike's iconic design. Hell, I even once shared the bill with a band called I Am Tetsuo in the noughties.

WTF Just Happened?

Well, firstly, does Akira stand the test of time? Despite predicting the dire events of 2020, including the Tokyo Olympics getting canceled (among others), Akira does eerily get some things happening in the now right. It's elbow-shove-wink at autocracy, showing protestors vs. police, isn't just felt recently in HK but is happening now at mass scale in the "land of the free," let alone echoing every other civilian-student police clash in history, including the Zenkyoto student protests in Tokyo in the late sixties. [8]

It's long [9] and – some would say – gratuitous with violence. There's an argument too that it romanticizes misogyny, but what action-packed eighties flick probably didn't? Thankfully we've grown out of that. The action and animation remain outstanding. Allegedly, every one of the film's 172,000 frames was hand-drawn with speed and dynamism as essential to the film's aesthetic. The Tron-inspired light trails from the bike chase at the beginning of the movie are still a marvel. [10] And, quite welcomely, where this type of scene in a movie now would be all crash-bang-wallop decibel freakout, Otomo and his team opt to show the stunning visuals in silence, which adds to the delightful 4k tension. Don't even get me started on the experimental gamelan and Japanese noh music soundtrack. [11]

It's about political and social issues. It's about humanity's careless abusiveness. It's about ego. It's about death. It's about anarchy. It's about friendship. It's about regret. It's about insecurity. It's psychological. It's shocking. It's powerful. It's Akira.

So, is it also about rebirth?

As he would refer himself, J.B. Browne is a half "foreign devil" living with anxiety relieved by purchase. HK-born Writer/Musician/Tinkerer.

Footnotes:

[1] I recall a fourth time or rather an attempt with LoveFilm in London. LoveFilm was a United Kingdom-based provider of DVD-by-mail and online streaming services on demand in the UK, acquired by Amazon.com in 2011 and a direct competitor to a then-nascent NetFlix. I vaguely recall returning the DVD unwatched to avoid an overborrow late charge.
[2] Twitterverse sleuths even found ways to connect the Akira Olympic Games timeline to the emergence of COVID-19 because THEY KNEW in 1988.
[3] Also fluffy tails. 
[4] Ok, maybe some HK Zennials aren't too different.
[5] Which has roots in New Wave literary movements. 
[6] Akira, an allegorical figure whose destructive telekinetic abilities are a substitute for nuclear weapons or WMDs, a comment on the morally depraved-dubious nature of their existence. Colonel Shikishima even says, "Maybe we weren't meant to meddle with that ultimate power." 
[7] He's still got it. 
[8] Born in 1954, Otomo would have likely seen or been aware of Zenkyoto, or at least the significance and aftermath. 
[9] The film.
[10] Especially in 4k.
[11] It's amazing. I'm sourcing the 150g clear with red splatter vinyl 2018 reissue right now.