In brief some explanations on the web seem to indicate that the psychic kids were actually walking nuclear weapons the military had developed for war. Other explanations propose that they were specially bred humans, designed to access a powerful source of energy, again for war.
Both seem to indicate that Akira was somehow responsible for the blast at the start of the film.
Any thoughts??
Cheers
Pushkin
I once heard it explained that they created akira and the kids by channeling energy from a nuclear reactor through them, thus increasingly their physic powers to incredible amounts.
The film was a waste of celluloid IMHP. It simply makes no sense from beginning to end unless you already know what’s going on. Which is probably why it’s popular with Otaku, Japanese or American, but it’s hardly a brilliant film.
Anyway, I think your question is answered in the Manga that spawned it.
Alas, this is the nature of Anime. The stories are what they are, and you just have to accept world that they are set in.
Then how would you explain Tetsuo? His power seems to arise after his run in with the kid who was trying to escape.
We can’t do that if they NEVER EXPLAIN WHAT THE WORLD AKIRA’S SET IN IS!
I had always figured that the kids were a (somewhat) natural occurance, possibly enhanced or “activated” by the government program, and that the government was just hunting down those who had such potential. But I don’t think I ever noticed any connection with nuclear power.
And it’s hardly fair to judge all anime based on Akira. Most anime (or, at least, most I’ve seen) is set in a far more straightforward world, and gives whatever exposition is necessary. Akira is just plain weird, for any medium.
Years ago, my brother managed to get his hands on a bootleg copy of Akira, straight from Japan, with no subtitles, dubbing, or plot synopsis. We watched it, and tried without much success to figure out the plot.
Later, I saw a dubbed version. I expected the translation to make the story clearer. It didn’t.
I’m just telling you the theory I heard. I suspect the manga would make a lot more sense.
There’s a part in the anime where they talk about how the kids are part of a project that was designed to help humanity gain it’s “true potential” by accessing more than the 10% of the brain we actually use. There are lots of little theories out there that, if this were possible and man kind was able to utilize 100% of their brain’s potential, they’d become a being of pure energy. It’s my understanding that Akira was the first (and so far only) child to accomplish this. Of course, when you take an amount of matter in the size of a small child and convert it instantly into energy, there’s a huge release, adn this is what the big explosion at the beginning of the movie was. After that happened, the other children were subjected to drugs to prevent their further growth and development in this aspect, and that’s why they’re perpetually young, although really creepy and wrinkly. I don’t know if the research was originally part of the military, but after what happened with Akira, they stepped in to take over and make sure the same thing didn’t happen again.
At least, that’s what I gathered from the movie.
Doesn’t “akira” actually mean “power” in Japanese? I seem to recall hearing that somewhere.
I don’t see what’s so tough to understand about Akira. I had to watch it a time or two to figure it all out, but it’s not much harder than, say, 2001, or Donnie Darko, or any number of similar American movies. It’s not immediately obvious what’s going on, but it only takes a little effort tp put all the pieces together. Here’s what I understood about it, although bear in mind that I haven’t seen it in several years, I’ve only seen the dub, and I’ve never read the manga nor any secondary sources. So a lot of this could be wrong.
Basically, there’re these children who are the next step in human evolution: powerful psychics. For the most powerful of them, their human bodies are just chrysalids: once their powers fully mature, they no longer need physical form, and evolve into… well, something else. Pure energy, star children, whatever. The movie doesn’t take us that far.
Now, some few years prior to the beginning of the movie, the government found out about these kids, and pu them into a special school where they could study their powers, presumably with an eye towards using them in some sort of weapons program or espionage capacity. The most powerful of these kids was the titular Akira. Unfortunetly (and perhaps as a direct result of government tampering to make him even stronger, sooner) Akira manifested his entire potential, and destroyed Tokyo in the process of his evolving to whatever comes next after human beings. The rest of the kids in the program lived, and were apparently given some sort of drugs or treatment to prevent them from doing what Akira did: that’s why they look so strange. They’re people in their forties (or so) who have been artifically held in childhood.
One of the kids escapes, and crosses the path of Tetsuo, a biker juvenile delinquint. The feds come in to grab him up, and take Tetsuo, for reasons I’m not entirely clear on. Possibly because he was injured, and they were just going to render medical aid. But it turns out that Tetsuo is a latent psychic himself, the most powerful one discovered since Akira went thermo-nuclear. They hope to activate his psychic powers and control him the way they control the other kids, but they blow it. His powers activate and he busts his way out of the government installation, and goes on a rampage, avenging himself on society in general for a life of being poor and bullied. But the more he uses his powers, the more powerful he becomes, and soon he can’t control himself anymore. He starts the same transistion Akira went through. This is the bit where his body starts growing big fleshy tentacles. He figures out (through telepathy, or precognition, or something similar) that the government has been storing the human remains of Akira under the Olympic stadium, and tears the place apart trying to find an answer to what’s happening to him. I’m not sure what the remains signify. Possibly, when Akira underwent his transformation, he was killed before he could complete it. Tetsuo is more succesful: he completes his evolution, and ascends to a higher plane of exsistence. The remaining kids from the program, who have had years of practice with their powers, are able to observe and somehow tag along on his coattails without undergoing a radical mutation. By the end of the movie, they’ve all ceased to exsist as humans, and have become, for all intents and purposes, gods.
That leaves out a bunch of stuff, of course, such as the resistance movement, and the entire Kaneda sub-plot, but that stuff should be fairly clear on its own. It’s a good little movie, and even without the plot, is plenty entertaining just on the strength of its visuals alone.
its not that akira evolved and exploded.
a big theme in the manga is that if you push the universe then the universe pushes back. tetsuo uses his powers… but eventually turns into a big blob, akira has even more powers and
This made me think of the review of Akira in the book Baked Potatos:A Pot Smokers Guide to Film and Video.
I have the first three volumes of the manga, and there’s a lot in there that couldn’t be fit into the movie. A lot of good subplots, recurring characters, and a fair amount of explanation. I highly recommend it.
[Miller] did really well in his first half of the story, but the second half is rather off in some places. The main being, Tetsuo doesn’t achieve what Akira achieves…he comes close, but his desire for power prevents him from attaining “perfection” and instead, he becomes the big ameoba-like moster that starts to envelope the city. Lukily, Akira awakens and takes care of him.
THe big confusion is “what does it all mean?” The plot is fairly simple, until the very end, and at that point, the meaning of the film comes into question. I got the plot right away, but to this day, there’s still a big “Wha?!” going on in my head.
From the article “It Came From Asia” by Dave Davis on CHUD.com…
Anyhoo…
No, “Akira” is a very popular given name in Japan. Think Akira Kurosawa. Although, as such, it doesn’t “mean” anything, it’s usually written with characters that mean “light”. In the manga, it’s written phonetically (in katakana).
The movie is a bit different from the manga and it’s a little hard to explain the former with the later. The movie condenses the first two volumes of a 12-part series. (The English translation has two volumes per book, for 6 books.)
In the manga:
The end of the movie was pretty changed from the manga, because the manga doesn’t end there. They had to force some sort of resolution and weren’t entirely succesful. I’d recommend reading the manga, it makes a bit more sense and there are a few interesting subplots and more background is given on characters.
Ahhhh…
Thanks for the clarification. Makes more sense now.
P:erhaps I should clarify. I like anime. I like good anime. Akria is not good.
I can accept the idea of psychic powers in the movie. That is no problem. But the movie left out absolutely vital information, with no explanation of what was going on or why any character was doing anything.
Akira is crap because of this. Good anime, like any good story, gives the audience the information they need. Being anime does not excempt it from this. This is, however, an especially common disease in anime. Comes from having every hack in Japan making anime.