Actually, in the case of Akira, I think it just comes from trying to cram more story than you can fit in a single movie. The movie wasn’t so succesful because it skipped over a lot of what made the manga good (character development, background story, personal motivations, etc) and spliced an artificial “closure” where there was none in the original story.
The stated reason was that he was “in contact” with Takeshi. Now why they’d take Tetsuo and not try to quarentine the entire crowd Takeshi ran through the night before is anyone’s guess. I’ll have to go back to the Manga to check.
BTW, It’s been years since I’ve seen the movie, but the two different versions make a huge difference IIRC. The “old one” (can’t remember the production company) was great and filled in a lot of the gaps and added/changed dialogue to make sense. The Pioneer version almost seemed like a straight translation with no regard for filling anything in/subtracting distracting elements. If you get a chance, the older version is much better IMO.
As I recall, the Akira movie was a companion piece to the manga which ran in a teens’ magazine, not meant to be taken as a standalone movie. As such, the movie relies on people knowing the manga for specifics and uses that as a starting point to cut loose with more pseudo-mysticism and teen angst/we’re special/misunderstood in a much more spectaculr fashion than the manga.
For those who have read the Manga, can you give us a little insight as to what happens after the movies “conclusion”? I’ve read the first three books and know about how Tetsuo tries to build a little army for Akira (or himself, depending on his motivation), but what goes on from there. Does he eventually become the big huge ameoba thingy, or does he get his head straight?
Also, how was the meeting with Takeshi and Tetsuo made possible? Shouldn’t Takeshi have been imprisoned by the government due to his potentials?
Elvis: Get the rest of the books. It’s well worth it. IIRC, the ending that we see in the movie is even trippier in the manga, then there’s a second ending that really sucks ass, but fits in a kids-sieze-the-zeitgeist that the rest of the book was about.
Cactus: Takeshi was imprisoned by the government. The dude he was running away with was part of the underground that Kai and Ryu belonged to. The other kids (girl and dude in the hoverchair) were his “classmates.”