After the unbridled hype amongst sci-fi geeks and film nerds, I finally decided to give this a try.
First thing that hit me like a ton of bricks is that it looks like a generic anime.
The second thing is how slow and dumb it is.
Edit: aaaannd I'm out. I gave it a full hour. This is the cinematic equivalent of Otomofan's posts but less fun. A anime turd is still a turd. I don't give a crap about the characters or story. Utter fail on the filmmakers' and animators part. No thanks. I'm sure I'll be accused of "just not getting it" but I just call it like I see it. Slow paced animes are fine if there's compelling characters or story...this is just wankery. No wonder this aired on the sci-fi channel.
Try genocyber.... so much better. Genocyber has similar themes and touches upon some of the same elements, but it is done sooo much better, higher quality in every way .
The story is a lot more complex, the characters are more interesting, the plot is a lot more engaging,
Even the gore is not just done for the sake of shock, even the gore in genocyber is more meaninful than Akira.
Akira sometimes feels like the creator forgot about the story and just went wild with the visuals, feels like he just had a very basic premise and focused more on going wild on the amount of shocking imagery he could create.
But that story is not that great. And outside the shock factor it tends to be very boring.
Is hard to talk about it without spoiling genocyber, but it is more faster paced, more engaging, you care more about the suffering of the characters, the action is awesome, i just love it.
Akira is just all about the visuals, doesnt have the substance.
And even if you love shock and gore there are a lot better options than akira.