Akira (movie)

Overview
This movie is really getting old, despite it's great influence on later produced anime. I don't think this movie is timeless, but if you like classics or all-out sci-fi, you should have seen this. The movie has a hard time keeping up with the high modern standards and in my opinion it keeps way too many things unrevealed, while we want to know everything these days. I also don't like it when they have a huge opening shot in the beginning and there is a motorway where they forgot two junctions! Sorry, I just can't stand that kind of things.

Summary
Tokyo is destroyed in the year 1988. 31 years later, in 2019, Neo-Tokyo is build, but big parts of the city are slowly decaying. The inhabitants live in a harsh society and the joy to build up the city is long forgotten. There are riots going on and the army tries to keeps everything nicely together.
During a biker gang fight there is a strange boy (really really ugly) on the middle of the road. One of the main characters, Tetsuo, tries to stop and crashes. Suddenly the army is there and the biker gang is taken in. Except for Tetsuo, because he is taken to some kind of laboratory, without his friends knowing about him. He turns out to have something special and they start experimenting with him. Then the trouble starts... (woo, scary)

Animation
I have some mixed feelings about the animation. First of all I really liked the decors, the way neo-Tokyo is presented: there is a thin wealthy upper layer of people and a large layer of poor people who live in the streets and go to stinky bars. This is well presented by the nice buildings and offices that stand high and glorious above the streets that have cracks and rubbish and bums on them.
Second are the characters, they seem to be drawn in a quite 'normal' style (without pink hair or large eyes or stuff), but I think they are ugly. spoiler: When they are going to rescue Tetsuo and are fighting in the dark sewer-like shaft, I have a hard time keeping the characters apart (they also wear the same clothing) and if it serves no purpose it is rather annoying.
Third is the 'womg' destruction of everything. It makes me think that series like Neon Genesis Evangelion used this movie as a big example. The sphere-explosions at huge scale look a bit outdated (no wonder: 1988). But that doesn't make then less impressive. And the floating pieces of rock are also there (famous from Dragon Ball Z :P). spoiler: The strange shapes Tetsuo gets at the end are also really gruesome and I really really wonder just: how and why?!?? (oh wait, I should save that for 'story')

Story
The story starts not too strange with a possible future and things going on there. It becomes interesting when the strangeness comes, which is very fast. spoiler: The concept about a government that is researching something strange and this gets out of control is well known. But here it's bad ass catastrophic, I really didn't expect this. Yeah, how it all turned out surprised me. But what surprised me even more is that there are a whole lot mysteries in the movie, and only a few are explained. I wanted to know what happened to those tree children, at least more than what that little flashback showed. I still don't know what akira really was, or how he 'came back to life?' out of several tubes. And I had liked to know what this special power is that everybody seems to have. Of course, not everything has to be explained, but just blowing everything up doesn't really satisfy me.
What I did like about the story is the way it is build up. It's like a curve going up: 'normal world', something strange, the main characters getting involved, troubles, emotions heating up, frustration and action, things getting a little out of hand, things getting totally out of hand and the climax^^. This is also what makes it interesting to watch, a lot of stories (usually action) are almost directly 'out of control' and keep this up all the time: very tiresome to watch. Others are getting nowhere at all: booooring. So I find the way it is build up one of the main strong points in the movie.

Characters
I liked Tetsuo very much, spoiler: how he seems okay, but turns out to be totally not okay when he has the power to do everything he wants. His anger and illusions (the tree little dolls walking on his bed!! @_@) are really well done. And i love the scene of him sitting in the chair in the stadium. The bad thing is that everybody around him is also angry or confused. Kaneda, the few people that are left of the gang and the general are just angry and yell all the time, on the other hand, the tree children and the girls are just scared all the time. The scene with the scientist and the general somewhere at the end was very nice: the great contrast between science and society.