Anime Review: 'Akira'

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Earlier this month at my local comic-con I bought myself a used copy of Akira, the landmark anime film that started the anime boom in the West. I had actually seen it a few months earlier online, and after seeing it I wanted to own it. So here we are.

The famous bike slide scene

Akira is based on the manga by Katsuhiro Otomo. Interestingly, the manga was still being produced when the film adaptation hit theaters in 1988, finishing in 1990. Otomo himself even directed the movie. What sets this film apart from other anime is that it is animated at 24 FPS (frames per second) and it shows the characters lip-synching, meaning that the voice acting had to be recorded before the animation. While this is normal for a Western animated feature, this isn't for anime; animation is mostly limited and audio is recorded after animation. Because of this, the film was the most expensive anime production until Studio Ghibli's Spirited Away in 2001.