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Akira (アキラ) is a manga and 1988 anime movie by Katsuhiro Otomo. In general, it is considered a classic manga, but reviews of the anime movie have been mixed.
The manga originally began publication in 1982 in Japan's Young Magazine and finally concluded in July 1990. The collected manga totalled over 2000 pages and was released in 6 volumes by Kodansha. In 1988, it was published for the first time in the USA by Epic, a division Marvel Comics. This colorized English version ended its run in 1995. An English version of the 6 volume collection was released in the USA in 2000 by Dark Horse Comics.
The setting is that of Neo-Tokyo, a Tokyo rebuilt (over what is today Tokyo Bay) after World War III destroyed it. As it turns out, World War III was really started by the uncontrolled growth of the superhuman powers of a child named Akira, who was enrolled in a secret government research program. In the story's current time, 40 years after WWIII, a gang of young bikers led by the cocky Kaneda is involved in a fight with a rival gang when the gang's youngest member, Tetsuo, collides with a mysterious child on the highway. This child has escaped from the government psychic research program. Tetsuo is then taken to the government psychic research base with the child and subjected to various guinea pig experiments. The incident with the mysterious child as well as the tests awaken Tetsuo's own latent powers, with disastrous consequences both on the personal level, as old interpersonal conflicts with his friends resurface, and on the larger level, as Neo-Tokyo is threatened by another Akira incident.
Akira, like Otomo's other work (such as Domu, A Child's Dream), revolves around the basic idea of humans with superhuman powers, in particular psychokineticPsychokinesis (literally "mind-movement") or PK is the more commonly used term today for what in the past was known as telekinesis (literally "distant-movement"). It refers to the psi ability to influence the behavior of matter by mental intention (or pos abilities, but much of the story does not focus on these abilities themselves, but rather the people involved, social issues and politics. The social commentary is not particularly deep or philosophical, but rather a wry look at youth alienation, government corruption and inefficiency, and a military grounded in old-fashioned Japanese honor, displeased with the compromises of modern society. As with most science fictionScience fiction generally speaking, is a form of speculative fiction which deals principally with the impact of imagined science and/or technology upon society or individuals. There are, perhaps, exceptions to (or at least, some very unusual examples of), the issues in the future world are clearly treatments of contemporary social issues.
This movie led the way for the growing popularity of anime, and according to many people caused anime to become quite popular in western Europe in the mid-1990s. In North America, Akira was the beginning of the current wave of anime fandomKeen aficionados of any phenomenon such as authors, hobbies, ideologies, genres or fashions can collectively manifest as fandom . Fans (or the plural fen typically are interested in even minor details of the object of their fandom; this is what differenti and served as inspiration to the Wachowski brothers' The MatrixThis article is about the film The Matrix, for other usages of the term, see Matrix. The Matrix is a film first released in the USA on March 31, 1999, written and directed by the Wachowski brothers (Andy and Larry). It stars Keanu Reeves, Laurence Fishbur trilogy of motion pictures.