I recently have gone through some of the highly talked about anime (should that be capitalized?) of my youth. Mostly films that I skipped over but always intended to see. I grew up with anime, to an extent. I never did get into Dragon Ball Z, but instead I got turned onto the import DVDs, watching shows that weren’t popular in America other than through anime crowds. I really did enjoy anime at one point, but that slowly died off, mostly because the costs got too ridiculous. One DVD that contains 3-4 episodes of a show cost me $24. And since most sets come with 4 or more DVDs, I would be spending over $100 on one TV show! Outrageous! Especially when I get get all three seasons of Arrested Development for $30 (I <3 you Amazon).

And so now, with the magic of Netflix, I’m finally checking out all the big anime movies that I missed out on. This includes Jin-Roh, Ghost in a Shell, Spirited Away and Akira.

The first three I watched a while ago, and I enjoyed Spirited Away most of all. Jin-Roh was good, but not what I was expecting. And Ghost in a Shell… Well, it brought back memories of mind fucking animes. Any message it had went way over my head because I was still coming to terms with cyborgs and an entity that lived in a limbless body that had weird powers over people. It reminded me a lot of the series Lain, one of the few complete animes sets I own, because of how crazy everything was and how I didn’t understand just what the hell is going on.

Before Akira I watched Steamboy because that’s how Netflix rolls unfortunately (Akira had to be shipped from another state). It was decent enough. Animation was superb. One of the benefits of making films like this in the 21st century. Storyline was okay, but it did get exciting by the end and I enjoyed myself. Huge fan of steampunk myself.

Akira was nothing like Steamboy, that’s for sure. Okay, so it did come out years before, but I was expecting some similarities to storytelling between the two since it was by the same writer or something like that.  Nope, two distinct movies. Akira definitely was a 90s anime with its telling of a dystopian society and mindfuckery. I don’t know if I enjoyed it. The hype that I saw behind this movie has me a little confused, but like Ghost in a Shell, perhaps the message went over my head. The weirdness took control, especially by the end, oh my. I’ll go ahead and say I enjoyed it, but not nearly as much as I thought I would.

What I found funny is that I started comparing a lot of what was on screen to Final Fantasy 7. The structure to hold Akira reminded me of Jenova. The cycle riding and the clubbing of other riders with some metal object. Tetsuo going power crazy like Sephiroth.

I read a while back that there were talks of a live action Akira which would be interesting to see, though I would have to assume it’d be a failure. If Dragon Ball Z’s live action adaptation is any indication, Hollywood would butcher Akira.