Is Akira Good?

Akira is one of those films that every anime fan is told they have to see at some point because of how iconic and revolutionary it is. There are a lot of good reasons for this, it was one of the first anime to become popular in the west thus acting as a gateway for anime in the future to be exposed to a brand new audience. Truly anime would not be where it is today if it wasn't for this film. But at the same time, every anime fan that i've talked to all seem to agree on another sentiment of the film "It's good, but not great" and that's something I also believe. It's strange in a fanbase so opinionated and even aggressive to the point where they're willing to shit on classic and popular things just because they don't live up to the hype, yet everyone seems to have an undying respect for Akira even if they personally don't love it. Don't get me wrong i'm sure there are people who genuinely view it as one of the best anime films and also those who do think of it as overrated garbage, but the majority, atleast those that i've talked too don't actually think it's that good.

It's brilliantly animated of course (Except for the lip syncing) and it an interesting world, but the characters aren't very interesting or even well developed, the story seems choppy at points and there are moments of just pure...unpleasantness. Now most of these complaints can be understood seeing as it's based on a manga so big that the movie only covers the first half of the book, even then they had to take things out for time. Because of this a lot of things in the film doesn't work and things aren't very well explained, like why people are protesting in the streets, what the local government is doing wrong, even the ending kind of comes out of nowhere. Also people like to poke fun at the silliness, like how often people like to yell out Tetsuo's name. And I don't think these are flaws of the time because fellow anime films that came out the exact same year (My Neighbour Totoro, Grave of the Fireflies, etc) still hold up remarkably well.

Of course none of this is me saying that the film doesn't deserve its place on the mantel as an icon amongst anime, like i said, it's because of films like this that anime started to become popular in the west. I just think it's fascinating how a film with so many flaws that is acknowledges by the community is still given a pass because they respect it just that much.

-Danny