1.Prologue
In Spring 2020, as the world scrambled to contain to the spread of the new coronavirus, countries around the world announced lockdowns and other measures at the regional and national level. Italy, France, Germany, Spain, and the U.S. Meanwhile, in Japan, the government asked schools to shut down and spent weeks debating whether to announce a state of emergency. (Japan’s postwar constitution is predicated on the notion that national emergencies do not occur, and the government only has limited powers to take any sort of decisive action.) The number one thing on many people’s minds was what was to become of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics.
Around the end of March, the anime classic Akira began trending on Japanese Twitter. Akira begins with a scene set in 1988, where Tokyo is destroyed by a nuclear explosion, triggering World War III. The main story is set thirty-one years later, in 2019, when a new city, Neo-Tokyo, has been rebuilt near the ruins of the old one. In a rare instance of a sci-fi film predicting the future accurately, Otomo Katsuhiro depicts the city getting ready to host the 2020 Olympics as a symbol of recovery. A billboard counting down the days to the opening ceremony reads “147 days", beneath which someone has scribbled in graffiti the words “Cancel it, cancel it". Twitter users took note that March 28th would mark exactly 147 days to the scheduled July 24th start.
#中止だ中止
— 恋々 (@zombie0928) February 27, 2020
中止発表するタイミングは今日が一番いいぞ。 pic.twitter.com/Rhy2alw0JG
Back in 1988, when Akira was released, Japanese anime was still not a thing in the West. While TV anime in the 60s—such as Tezuka Osamu’s Astro Boy and Tatsunoko Production’s Speed Racer—had been a hit in the U.S., they were recognized by the general public as children’s cartoons rather than anime—thought of as more American than Japanese.
While in Japan it was Tezuka’s Black Jack that elevated anime from children’s entertainment into something geared for adults, in the West it was Akira that blew open the doors and unleashed anime as a cultural force to be reckoned with.
In this article I will be writing about Akira and the influence it had on Japanese pop culture and Hollywood.
2.How Otomo Katsuhiro Sparked a New Generation of Dynamism in Manga and Anime
Otomo Katsuhiro was born in Miyagi Prefecture in 1954. He grew up reading manga like Astro Boy and Jungle Emperor Leo by Tezuka Osamu, and Tetsujin 28-go by Yokoyama Mitsuteru. He began copying his favorite manga in elementary school, and decided he wanted to become a manga artist in middle school.
In high school he became obsessed with movies, and immersed himself in classical Hollywood cinema and the films of New Hollywood. His favorites included Arthur Penn’s The Chase and Bonnie and Clyde.
Those Hollywood influences would play an important role in shaping Otomo’s dynamic drawing style. The manga critic Yonezawa Yoshihiro states that the history of manga expression can be divided into two eras: pre-Otomo, and post-Otomo. He points out that while Tezuka took advantage of the framework of comic panels and cultivated a style characterized by exaggerated and “deformed” depictions, Otomo’s style was more about drawing realistic human figures and landscapes and taking a storytelling approach that evokes a kind of cinematic camerawork. In other words, his manga style was ideally suited for transferring to animation.
When Otomo first started working as a manga artist in the late 70s, the prevailing style was all about enlarging characters’ eyes, making male characters look as cool as possible, and making female characters look as cute as possible. Audiences were into the graphic novel aesthetic of Saito Takao and his seminal manga Golgo 13. Otomo, on the other hand, stripped down the excess elements of the aesthetic to create settings that felt more real. In his early work, he became known for drawing Japanese characters naturally, without exaggeration.
Otomo’s work began including sci-fi themes in the 80s, and by the end of the decade he would produce his magnum opus: the Akira manga, followed by the anime. With Japan in the peak years of the bubble era, Akira was produced with a budget of more than 1 billion yen—the largest of any anime film up until that point. In contrast to the prevailing limited animation of the era, that allowed Otomo to bring his vision to the screen in glorious full animation. The movie created the cyberpunk aesthetic and established Tokyo’s international reputation as the city of the future.
Akira had its American premiere on Christmas Day in 1989, and subsequently went on a tour of art house cinemas in major cities across the U.S. It also was shown at the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London in 1991. The film is widely regarded as having sparked the West’s interest in anime.
●Otomo Katsuhiro Picks
3.The Influence of Akira on Pop Culture Overseas
Both in Japan and overseas, Akira not only blew away audiences but influenced filmmakers, artists, and creatives in every field. It was a combination of many elements: the raw power of the visuals, the corrupted yet somehow enticing Neo-Tokyo, the action scenes, the movements of violence and body horror, the momentum of the music.
The history of anime can be divided into two eras—pre-Akira, and post-Akira. The same applies to science fiction movies. The influence of Akira is immeasurably great. Every time you see a motorcycle chase or futuristic city depicted in a Hollywood movie, you can bet that Otomo has influenced it in some way.
At the same time, Akira’s story—a teenage boy discovering he has special powers while the government tries to contain and control him—has directly inspired many Hollywood movies.
Midnight Special
When a father learns that his son has special powers, he goes on the run while being pursued by government forces and religious extremists.
Chronicle
What would three high school students do if they suddenly gained superpowers? How would they use their powers? How would those powers affect their personalities? Chronicle was released as a dark, “realistic” take on superpowers in the same year that Marvel’s first Avengers film hit theaters. The final, climactic battle that takes place in downtown Seattle clearly takes its cues from Akira.
Looper
This sci-fi film directed by Rian Johnson is set in a future when tracking technology has made it virtually impossible to commit murders undetected. In order to dispose of victims’ bodies, a crime syndicate sends them into the past, where an assassin awaits their arrival. When one of the assassins learns that a child with telekinetic powers will grow up to become a ruthless crime boss that disrupts the balance of power, he must decide whether to kill the child or protect him.
Akira’s influence extended beyond movies and into places you wouldn’t expect. Take the music video for “Scream", the duet between Michael Jackson and Janet Jackson. Tetsuo makes an appearance at the very end of the video.
The rapper Kanye West’s music video for his song “Stronger" is also heavily inspired by Akira, with scenes of motorcycles whizzing down the streets of Tokyo and Kanye himself being made up to be a Tetsuo-like figure. Kanye has called Akira one of his favorite films, and the Tetsuo connection makes perfect sense given the rapper’s inflated ego and tendency to act like a child in public.
A live-action Hollywood version of Akira has long been in production hell, but appeared to be turning a corner with the director Taika Waititi coming on board. Up until recently the film was slated for a 2021 release. The new coronavirus pandemic pretty much guarantees that date will be pushed back.
4:Epilogue: How Akira Made Japan Cool
Ask a foreigner about their thoughts on Akira, and their answer will likely contain multiple uses of the word “cool". Whether it’s the neon explosion of Neo-Tokyo, Kaneda’s motorcycle, or the music, the colorful, dynamic world of Akira was a dazzling contrast to the grey, drab, smoggy dystopian futures being depicted in Hollywood movies at the time.
It’s safe to say the Japanese government’s Cool Japan strategy likely would not exist if it weren’t for the fact that Akira was so well received in the U.S. and Europe.
Ever since the end of World War II, there have been few pieces of Japanese pop culture that have been truly embraced by the West. Early 60s anime like Astro Boy and Speed Racer were fun and entertaining for kids but not much more. And while Sakamoto Kyu had a worldwide hit with his song “Ue wo muite aruko", the song ended up being a fluke rather than a sign that Japanese pop music would be making inroads in the overseas music market. (Not to mention it was released overseas with the title “Sukiyaki".) Miyazaki Hayao’s My Neighbor Totoro and Takahata Isao’s Grave of the Fireflies, were two other movies that were released in the same year as Akira. While they were very well received, they would never be characterized as “cool". More recently, so much of Japan’s pop culture exports have embraced the kawaii aesthetic wholeheartedly and unabashedly. Looking back, it’s clear that Akira was the first piece of modern Japanese pop culture that was truly considered cool.
Akira was released during the peak years of the bubble economy, when the notion of “Japan as Number One" did not seem so far-fetched. The Japanese were buying up American real estate, while Japanese automobiles and home appliances were starting to gain traction with American consumers. It seemed within the realm of possibility that pop culture could be next. At a time when America seemed ambivalent about the future, the future depicted in Akira was at least intriguing.
The only problem was, it wasn’t that Akira had made all of anime cool, it was that Akira was cool. When Oshii Mamoru’s Ghost in the Shell was released in 1995, it was a big hit with anime fans in the U.S. and Europe—but its technical and philosophical themes made it inaccessible for general viewers. (It would take a few more years until The Matrix would change that.) Other cyberpunk and sci-fi anime followed, such as Appleseed and Kon Satoshi’s Paprika, but those films turned out to be even more ponderous and surreal, respectively. Meanwhile, on TV, anime like Dragon Ball, Pokemon, and Naruto increasingly reverted anime into something that was purely for kids. As a result, the pop culture that Japan was exporting became increasingly childlike, increasingly niche, and increasingly extreme (or hentai, in the general sense of the word). The Japanese government was convinced that when people referred to Japanese pop culture as exotic and weird, those were synonyms for cool.
