MIDNIGHT REWIND: Akira (1988)

Hey everyone, this is Jennifer Hale and you're listening to the number one show on the Citadel, the Oblivion Bar podcast. I should go. Welcome to the Oblivion Bar podcast with your host Chris and Aaron Noles. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 185 of the Oblivion Bar podcast. I'm your 60 year old man with telekinetic powers, Chris Hacker. And joining me is the leader of the American capsule bike gang charter, my cohost and BFF Aaron Oles. You could at least tell me your name, you cold bitch.

Welcome everybody back to the Oblivion Bar podcast. We are doing our third installment in the Midnight Rewind segment. This is of course our celebration of all things anime. And this week, Aaron, we are talking about possibly, probably, I think the greatest anime of all time. 1988 Akira. first of all, I guess I should say we're dumb Americans everybody. Is Akira how we're supposed to say it? Akira. Akira? Akira. See that's just too, that's too fluent for my tongue.

It feels, it feels like a little too like I'm moving my tongue too much. Akira. I can't say it like that. No comment. Because I, again, I'm a dumb American. I've officially just leaned into it. full blown weeb. that's, that's, have, have no, no like dignity left to try and save. So I'm a full blown weeb and I will do my best to, pronounce these things as closely as possible without sounding like a complete douchebag. I'm sure the listeners appreciate it. I definitely appreciate it.

You are the subject matter we've of the show. So we appreciate the fact that you're willing to take that sacrifice for us. And again, I think part of the reason I just want to speak briefly about sort of Minaret Rewind and why we decided to do it is sort of a twofold. Aaron pointed out many times throughout the history or the beginning history of the podcast that we did not really focus on anime, even though I think we both sort of liked it. I sort of liked it. You've always loved it.

But it gave us not only an excuse to talk about anime, but it also gave me specifically an opportunity to learn more about not only anime, but also manga. since we started Minet Rewind, I've even started to read manga like you have without, without being prompted, without studying. Like free ren is one of my favorite mangas currently going on volume five. I read up to volume three of Akira. So like I'm just sort of doing this on my own because it is an incredible art form.

So Aaron, I appreciate you for that. One thing that you don't really realize, you especially coming into this podcasting industry is how many, I mean, we all know that the comic book industry, the nerd industry, it just filled with a plethora of nerds and sub genres.

And when those two, when multiple genres start co-mingling, and I'm going to name drop Daniel Warren Johnson, I'm going to name drop Christian Ward, like when we do these interviews, because unfortunately some of the interviews, our audience doesn't get to see.

one of the coolest things about doing this show is when we see some of our favorite artists when we're doing these interviews and in the background and in their office, you can kind of get a little bit of a peek behind the curtain of who they are. And when they have like, there's this very specific Akira anniversary collection of all of the manga. And when they all have it in the background, you're like, I have that too.

know, like that makes you feel so much more connected and so much more aware of Like what goes into this, you know, this just being a nerd and the fact that we all share so much connectivity and so much connective tissue between the lines. It's amazing. Yeah, it seems silly to put up those walls, right? I mean, I see it sometimes in comics too. We're like, well, I only read Marvel. I only read DC. I only read small press. I only read love and rockets. That's so silly.

We can enjoy all of these things separately or together. It's fine. It's not a big deal. that's rule number one here. It's tip your bartenders 20 % or more. Don't yuck anyone's yum. And Aaron always gets off first. That's our three main rules of the podcast. That's it. I think I highlight muscle mommies. All right. Well, Aaron, before we get into our midnight rewind of Akira, can you please tell the listeners how they can support the Oblivion Bar podcast?

Absolutely. Absolutely absolutely friggin lately If you want to support the oblivion bar podcast, there's multiple ways that you can do this You can consider checking out our patreon for your support you get access to bonus episodes each week called the grid grid grid a Behind-the-scenes look at how we prepare each episode with episode transcripts, which is basically like a study guide to the episode I love them because if there's study guide for

us, but also since we release them before the actual episodes come out You can go and do some homework and kind of keep up with us and even argue with us if you want to, which we love. Fuckin have a conversation, This one is definitely one that you want to check out this as we get into this minute rewind, it is long winded. So please take a look at it so that my work doesn't feel like only Aaron and get to see it.

There's also a whole bunch of other exclusive goodies like, you know, Patreon polls as well. We give out exclusive nicknames to people that have been a Patreon member for so long. know, the other thing that's really cool and Chris just recently did this, we had some some of our our Patreon members start posting about it is he sends out he sends out every once in a while, just whenever he has a plethora of things just to give away, he will send out. Yeah, it's from us.

So what I need to start doing is bringing you like a whole bunch of stuff to take home when we make a ton of stickers like I have a ton of stickers, cards, everything. Anyways, he just packages this stuff up and sends it to all of our Patreon listeners. And it's so amazing because we love it when you guys post about it and show us what you got, because a lot of times it's completely randomized. So somebody may get something. Somebody may get something else, you know, I don't know.

Or Chris doesn't know. It's just so much fun. Not just that. You can also give the Patreon a seven day free trial just by going to patreon.com forward slash oblivion bar pod. Check it out the link in our show notes. And that's not the only way to support the show, but you can also drop us, you know, five stars or review on your favorite podcasting platform. You can talk about us. You can share us. You don't have to put money in just to be supportive. We appreciate every little thing.

will echo all of that and I will end it there Aaron, because we need to get into our, again, very long discussion of Akira. So let's go ahead and get into this next midnight rewind segment. This whole planet's suffering! like this for anything in the world. Alrighty, here we are into our next midnight rewind segment. Aaron, I love that intro music and you heard it everybody.

are here talking about Akira, also I thought this thought, Aaron, while we're sort of discussing the do to do this movie, to do this anime again, one of the greatest animes of all time. not only one of the greatest animas, I would argue maybe one of the greatest movies of all time, just in general. kind of feels like we're blowing our load a little early, right? Like this is the third midnight rewind and we're already doing Akira. No, no, no. If anything, like this is the perfect time, you know.

Sure. I think that, you know, great things come in three. We've covered two very amazing ones so far. We'll talk about those in a second, but I feel like third is a great place to have just this segment for Akira. know, it's. Yeah, this is and there's so much more out there. Yes, this is one of the greatest. Is it the greatest? That will be discussion for future iterations of this show, but like there's still some amazing ones out there.

And the other thing is with Midnight Rewind, it doesn't just have to be movies. It can also be shows as well. can, you know, it's the world is our oyster. country, the Eastern animation is our oyster. That's true. Now, if this is your first time listening to our midnight rewind segment, again, Aaron just sort of hinted at a moment ago, episode 143. I think that was last year. We discussed Princess Mononoke as our very first entry.

And then also last year in the later part of the year, we talked about the psychological thriller and the blueprint for Christopher Nolan's inception. 2006 is Paprika for episode 160. One of best soundtracks ever. one of the best soundtracks ever. it's not even it's like people. What's the weird? Remember the weird. so yeah, again, everyone, it's a it's a fun segment. We talked a little bit again in the beginning of the show.

But I think the main thing that you should really take away from this is that Aaron and I are not here to review this. These movies are these shows or whatever. Like this is a total celebration. Yeah. Right. We may critique things here and there. I don't think there's really much to critique with our first three entries, to be honest, when it comes to Princess Mononoke, Paprika and now Akira. It's hard to critique these because most of these are some of the greatest animes of all time.

I do have one small critique that we'll get into later here with Akira, but I do think that like down the road, when we start experimenting with this segment and doing more maybe personal favorites or ones that are just an interesting, you know, film or television series to talk about. We will offer critiques, I think in reality and sort of the main goal of all this is to just celebrate, you know, the Japan animation movement where Aaron and I were when we saw these movies for the first time.

cause again, we grew up in the era where this was not all readily available. Crunchy roll wasn't really a thing. Funimation was a thing, but it didn't have like the reach that it has now. And it's because, shameless brag here, our generation demanded this that now everyone, I mean, again, you could argue that anime is the largest and most successful it's ever been.

We were the era and you know, I wouldn't want to take all the credit, like really those born in the seventies and the eighties and, you know, early nineties as well, cause I have to include you. We really are the ones that really brought a lot of this, these like Japanese, like I don't want to say fandoms, but titles franchise to the United States because with, with the power of becoming like of being able to import things, you know, to be able to order internationally.

And that includes, you know, the anime movement people, people before dubbing in a lot of video games and a lot of movies and such from, from overseas, people went out of their way to learn things like Japanese in order to play like PlayStation games that were only in like only released in Japan. Some of these Dragon Ball Z games that I owned for like the dream cast. whatever. They were only in Japanese. had no idea what their names were, who they like, what they said.

I just know that that, you know, super saiyan for Goku fighting on, you know, in this Dragon Ball GT game was insane, you know, and, it was a It was a lot of the like side scroll or not side scrollers like the Mortal Kombat style like arcade fighting games. Yeah, I had a couple those as well like Marvel versus Capcom like before, imagine that just being full, full anime characters. And it was just an amazing time.

Again, being able to import these things and unfortunately without having, you know, subtitles for a lot of it or dubbing, it just, it just wasn't there, but it was still, it still created this, this subculture, the sub fandom that was just so amazing. And again, like you said, Chris, none of it was on demand. You know, when it started finally being popular, it was maybe midnight. on like a Saturday night or a Friday night on the sci-fi channel. And that was it.

Like that was the only time that you could get, you could stay up if your parents let you, if your dad let you, if your mom let you to watch these, oh my God, just pushing every limit of, you know, obscenity and sensors on, you know, on TV. And it was insane. I remember seeing some of my first like anime boobs watching a vampire hunter D on, on a sci-fi channel. was insane. Next on the SciPie Channel. It's a dramatic form of animation.

Subject and material may be graphic and provocative at times. It's a stark place and a desperate time. A brave young girl and a hunter for hire. fierce battle for her life. his name and a world ravaged by mutants and demons. Vampire Hunter 3, next. We get a pair of anime boobs in this one as well. We'll talk about those here in a bit. But I will say that like speaking from a 90s baby perspective, it was syndication for me. It was tsunami and Cartoon Network and a little bit of sci-fi.

And I've talked about that some previous midnight rewinds. Anime and manga felt sort of taboo a little bit growing up in the Midwest here in America. Like, yeah. And part of that taboo-ness came from the fact that it wasn't readily available. You had to stay up till midnight to watch it. If you just so happen to wake up from like a early you know, nap or something and you're on sci fi channel and it's, you know, one or two in the morning and you've got ghosts in a shell plan.

You're like, I've never seen anything like this before. Right. So I had that thought in my head for a while, but again, as we've gotten further and further into our culture and we say this every single time, and think it's worth reiterating when you go to New York comic con, you don't see a Batman. You see a giant Goku and giant Luffy. All right. Yeah. Yeah. You, you see these like Akira Toriyama like style.

I think it was like last year was this sand sand something game that just recently came out too long ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, it's this style has become so, synonymous with anime, with Dragon Ball, which with video game, there's so many different video games now that are just based, like, what was it? What is it called? it's like, like the guy who like, like farms like goo and you know, it's yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's you know, it's these fun little like your dragon quest. Thank you. Perfect.

There's like all these certain ones. One of my favorite games ever that has not made a reappearance since the Xbox 360 was called blue dragon. It was very that same style and yeah, it's so insane how again, you said it best. It was almost taboo. at a certain time because it was such a nerdy thing to enjoy. was such a weird, like small thing, but like everybody, I don't give a fuck. So many people secretly loved watching Toonami and everything it had to offer.

That's why it's so popular now, but it used to be such a hidden thing. used to be such a thing like, oh, don't watch it. Fucking anime isn't for nerds. know, man, yeah, yeah. I'll tell you, like I talked, I reached out to my, my, you know, one of my oldest. Best friends, Constantine, who I met in high school. We always tell the story like we met, like he was riding bikes. I was riding bikes. I was like, man, you we talked. was like, hey, you want to go ride bikes together? I was like, fuck yeah.

So we became friends. He introduced me as friends. He became like, became my anime guru. He introduced me to Evangelion. He introduced me to everything that Dragon Ball was and could have been. and like so much more. Like he had like the try gun statues. He had the characters and I was like, this is so fucking cool. And so I'm so lucky. So I reached out to him for a statement about a cure, which I'll read later on. And I just think this is such a good way to reach so many more people, you know?

Sorry, I know I'm going off on tangents here. No, no, it's okay. Cause it sort of leads me into my relationship to anime as well. We'll get into Akira here as well. I'll tie it all together. Again, growing up, I liked Pokemon. I liked Dragon Ball Z. I liked Yu-Gi-Oh, but I still just didn't fully embrace it until probably my early twenties, I would say, when I met you in the army. And I, I'm almost positive, Aaron, you can tell me if you remember this or not.

I'm almost positive that I saw this movie for the first time with you. Yeah. Okay. I thought that was correct. And I remember it blowing me away. Akira to me, kind of feels like that movie that I've only finished maybe I've seen it 10 times, but I finished it four times, you know, for whatever reason, I don't know why I like watching rewatching it for this rewind watching the ending. I'm like, wow, I feel like I've only seen this maybe once or twice before.

Right. And I've read the manga, you've read the manga. We'll talk about the differences here in just a bit. But I curious, one of those movies that it feels like there's a big gap in the middle missing, like the opening is incredibly strong. The ending is super pervasive, but the middle There's something, and again, we'll talk about it as we get through this thing.

before we get into that, and before we get into the summary here, Aaron, I want to ask you, when it comes to Akira, can you remember where you saw it for the first time, how you saw it? What was the setting? What's your preferred version? Give me all the things. the audience can't see this, but I'm wearing this Akira shirt that I've actually had for longer than we've been friends. I got this from a thrift store.

actually got this and the same one in like a bigger or possibly a smaller size when I was in high school, going to a thrift shop and I was like, holy shit, this is cool. So it's got, it's got a Canada and it's got the clown bike gang leader, like just like squaring off over the Akira logo. And it's one of my favorite fucking shirts ever. but I want to say the first time I saw this was definitely again, like midnight rewind sci-fi channel. remember my dad again, my dad, which we didn't have.

Okay. So not to be too like involved in my childhood, my dad and I didn't have a whole lot in common. My dad was a sports aficionado. He boxed, he played football, basketball. He coached, like women's leagues. He coached, he professional at one point and he, you know, he coached me and my brother when, when I did, you know, give you did the sports ball? when I did sports ball.

my brother who continued to do that for years was kind of, I always kind of felt like he was like the favorite, but there were these moments that he and I had together where, you know, playing video games, like that was the kind of thing that we had together. And then also watching like anime movies, cause he was the one that let me stay up and watch anime with him on these nights. And you know, there was the Lensman, which is based off of a Phil, a Phil Doc Smith.

or LL Doc Smith, book series, vampire hunter D like I've told you about, and then Akira, know, Akira was one of those that he and I watched together. And it was just, I think the first time I saw it, I think like, that's the one thing like I always, it inspired me to like want to ride motorcycles. It inspired me to enjoy like things like cyberpunk, bright color lights, like these leather jackets, the whole look, the whole aesthetic of what, of everything that Akira was.

What is called like neo futurism? Almost cyberpunk neo futurism. And I just I fell in love with it. And it was only on like, you know, an old school television, you know, back in the in the early 90s. And yeah, which is like in a dark living room sitting on the floor, just like watching eyes, eyes just super glued to the screen. And, know, I'll never forget. And I think, again, this was one of those ones where it was like you never heard a soundtrack like Akira. That was one of the first.

Vinyl's of a soundtrack that I soundtrack that I ever bought was the Akira soundtrack on vinyl because it just sounds so like beautiful like just you know being able to sit there and it's it's crazy because While you're listening to it You can just see the city of Neo Tokyo like in your mind and it's so crisp and so vivid because of every little detail that is put into almost every scene if not like every square inch of every scene in this movie There's only one Akira, right?

And I will say sort of to build off that from my end, I do remember seeing it in passing growing up. I remember my friends really liking it again, folks that I hung out with because they liked Dragon Ball and Pokemon and Yu-Gi-Oh!

They really liked Akira, but I think my appreciation for this film didn't happen until much later in life because of again, as you said, the detail and you know, Studio Ghibli in my opinion is sort of, it's sort of my anchor to anime like as a, you know, art form, right? But Akira, there's only one, there's like eight incredible Studio Ghibli films. There's one Akira, right? So again, you reintroducing that to me much later in life, I'd say I was like 21 or 22 at the time.

It has been a continuous pervasive piece of art that has stuck with me throughout all these years that when I talk to people up until here recently, I would tell them, you know, I, don't know. I'm not really much into manga. don't really, I would call it manga. Back then I would call I don't really like manga. You know, I don't like anime I don't like my manga. All right. I like my supermans and my spider-man I like my American made comics. It was an American made.

I don't want nothing to do with it. Get it out of here. Akira was one of those sort of like. But I like Akira, but I like Pokemon kind of, you know, you know, rebuttal. So we sort of danced around enough. Let's get into this thing, Aaron. Let's do the summary and I'm going to let everyone know before we get in all this. Aaron, again, being the subject matter, weep. I'm to let him take a lot of this and then I will just sort of react to it. It's very different compared to our usual dynamic.

It's usually me like presenting things to Aaron and then him reacting to it. We're going to switch sides here for Minute Rewind as we often have. Yeah, so the year is 2019, 31 years after being destroyed during World War 3 on July 16th, 1988. Tokyo, now known as Neo Tokyo, has been rebuilt and is a thriving metropolis. Shotaro Kaneda is the leader of a biker gang.

His friend Tetsuo is injured in an accident and taken to a top secret government facility after developing uncontrollable telekinetic powers. Tetsuo turns against his friends and the city. I feel like a pretty good grasp on the story. mean, this thing's about a lot of this. This story is about a lot of things, right? It's about the effects of war. It's about class and our system, government control, jingoistic scientific experiments. Like there's so many things.

conspiracies, government corruption, again, human experimentation, know, the perversion of science. This is about so perversion of man, perversion of science. again, yeah, it's so, this movie truly is a layered approach to what it looks like when people at so many different levels of society just want more and more control, whether it's natural or unnatural, whether it's for the good of mankind or whether it's for the good of themselves, like in a selfish extent.

again, you have this, yeah, we'll get into it, but there's just, there's so many layers, know, Shrek would love this movie. It's like a parfait. It's got layers. I will say that like the number, you know, me again, as I often do, I'm looking, I'm like, what is the core? Where's the hook? What is the story really about? And what I sort of glommed from the story is it kind of feels like everyone is no longer worried about surviving extinction.

They're feeling, they're trying to figure out how to adapt to it. The very first shot of the movie and of the manga as well is the explosion from Akira. Well, you don't know that. at the beginning of the movie. Yeah, you don't really know. You just know that there's just this what looks to be like a nuclear, some kind of just explosion of in the, know, in this in this city. And there's nothing that really explains what sets it off.

You're just kind of take you're just honestly, you're just dropped in the middle of this story that's already started decades before. So, yeah. And I kind of like that, right? Like it kind of seems like this world's already so lived in by the time we get to it. And, you know, in terms of trying to adapt rather than trying to survive, these folks have already survived a cataclysmic event, or at least most of them have.

It's how they adapt and how you can sort of take control of the moment, take control of yourself and your environment and your situation in this very lucid sort of erratic environment. A lot of people thrive in those situations and unfortunately it feels like our world. Chris is getting political again. Kind of feels like our world is slowly trending this way where like empathy is it's like almost gone. There's like a there's like a wave of folks in our world that have a shred of empathy.

Aaron and I have like a an ounce of empathy compared to what used to be required to be a good person 50 years ago. Right. I think that's going to be kind of the going forward. That's going to be a lot of determining factors in how society is going to. At some point, we're going to hit a tipping point where it's like these bubbles that burst, whether it's like crypto, whether it's the housing market.

There's going to be this implosion of society to where the people that don't give a fuck and then the people that do give a fuck are going to kind of go head to head. or it'll flip completely. It'll stop being 40, 50 or 40, 60. It'll be 60, 40, you know? And then that's when the world really fucking changes. Yeah. You know?

And I will say that like, I find it really interesting that the people that we're most supposed to care for is a insane biker group that are being run by a bunch of degenerate crazy people. Like we're supposed to love Tetsuya and Kaneda in this movie. Again, we should talk about this really quickly. Is it Kaneda? Is it Kanata? That was that's actually in my notes. according to the 1988 dubbing, which is my favorite, it's Canada, like Canada, Canada, Canada or Canada. That's, who, Oh yeah.

Tetsuo is Tetsuo. Um, and then in the 2001 dubbing it's Canada. Okay. See, how I canada is how I been saying it. You're going to say canada. I'm going to say canada to really confuse the listener. potato, yeah. And we'll just go from there. But point being is that, and I'll end it here, we're supposed to care about these two people and the folks that sort of surround them. And they are both insane people, but it's the environment that made them that way. Bad people aren't born, they're created.

And these two people are part of a generation that know nothing but this. Exactly. This is one of the... And I'm not getting anywhere near as political as you are. The revolution about to be televised, you picked the right time but the wrong guy. The wrong guy.

The only thing I'm gonna say about these two characters who are the main, like who really are the main standout characters, because you have the general, you have several other people who stand out, but Kaneda and Tetsuo, I'm just gonna call him Kaneda, Kaneda and Tetsuo. Kaneda is a natural leader, people, like he's got that charm, he's got that bravado that people naturally follow. people want to be around because he feels confident and he feels like he empowers the people around him.

Where you have somebody who is like Tetsuo who is like he just comes off as like a weaker person. People pick on him. He's been picked on his entire life. He's been treated like shit. And that's the difference is you have one person who was probably treated like shit also who just decided that he was going to step into this direction of being a confident like I don't give a fuck. Like I'm going to beat your ass before you beat mine attitude.

versus somebody who was probably struggling with that good or bad righteousness versus evil in themselves and just kind of like couldn't make that decision but then is thrust into this position where he is given these powers and now it's I mean I would if you've ever seen the movie Chronicle, which is very much very much a mirror of this movie. It's three kids who are all given powers and one is the kind of the week the kind of picked on youth and has like a hard life.

Dad's like parents are abusive and then he gets these powers and he just doesn't know how to tolerate them or handle them as they continue to grow. And he just thinks that he that's this is the only way he's going to get power and therefore he takes advantage of them and it doesn't turn out in his favor. So again, very much mirror the same concept as as Akira. One thing I'm gonna say Akira is considered a forerunner.

We talked about this earlier of the second wave of anime fandom commonly referred to as Japan animation as as the Japan animation movement. It began in the early 1990s. Like I said, know, Chris, you were at the forefront of it earlier in your life. And I was kind of already kind of hit my stride a little bit. I think I was about five, six years old, you know, once I hit the 90s and then again, like eight or nine is really again, early 90s is when I started watching it on TV.

So it gained a massive cult following. Akira is credited with setting the scene for anime franchises such as Pokemon, Dragon Ball, and New Aruto to become globally cultural phenomenon. Yeah, absolutely. And that's again, I'm part of that generation. And what I found really interesting is that when Tokyo was chosen to host the 2020 Summer Olympics in the 2013 bidding process, several commentators claimed that Akira had predicted this future event. Yeah. Like so in February of 2020.

And again, the pandemic is sort of this weird time where I don't really know how to contextualize it even now. And we're five years past it still like we're still in 2025 dealing with some of the effects of that time. during the coronavirus pandemic, 147 days before the Olympics, a scene from Akira is called for the cancellation of the 2020 Olympics or a graffiti stating just cancel it 147 days before the event.

Again, we see that also in the film, let a social media trend calling for the cancellation of those Olympics. And of course it was postponed until 2021. So if you look carefully during the scene where Tetsuo first begins to hallucinate, you can see a series of events that happens in the movie like Tetsuo's rampage on the city, his fight with Kaneda. however you want to say it, Tetsuo's mutation, Kairi's death and his flashback when he first met Kaneda.

So Aaron, this is one of the more interesting things that I found while doing research for this episode. Akira roughly costs 700 million yen or 5.5 million USD to produce. There was however a 30 plus year rumor that the film actually cost 1.1 billion yen or $9 million at the time, which would have made it the most expensive anime of all time. However, that has been since debunked by Crunchyrolls reporter Darryl Harding in 2020.

Now Studio Ghibli's The Boy and the Heron is the most expensive anime of all time at $294 million or 43.525 trillion yen. Isn't that crazy? is so I mean to think that any movie would cost a trillion of anything of any kind of currency is mind boggling. But yeah, just just absolute madness. Now, Aaron. Again, as I mentioned in the intro, I've only read up to the third volume of the manga. You have read everything.

So you may be more of an expert in this, but I did want to point out some of the main differences between the movie and the manga. So while most of the character designs and the settings were adapted from the manga faithfully, the plot and some of the characters introduced later in the manga differ considerably, which continued publication two years after the film's release. Now there were some espers outside of 25, 26, 27, 28, 28 being a Kira who we don't see in the film and Tetsuo at 41.

that are shown in the manga. see a lot more of those, not only in the manga, but we get more time with each of those espers throughout the manga. You can also get much more of a back story from Lady Miyoko, who we see in the movie as sort of a protester religious type, but you find out in the manga that she's actually number 19.

She's one of the test subjects that survived the first Akira explosion, which is absolutely, it feels to me like a wild missed opportunity to include her in this movie somehow. This, I don't know how they would ever do it, but if they could ever turn the actual anime, or not anime, the actual like manga into that and go into depth and go into like the journey of it all, it would be amazing.

Especially with the amount of stuff that we have now that it's post-apocalyptic, because that's the thing is like, there is so much fucking destruction of Neo Tokyo in the manga that it really paves the way for like, an incredible story and the whole, the transformation, the, the actual, first off, there's like multiple time jumps. the power arc of Kadeida throughout his journey of, of aspiring to what Akira was is absolute bonkers.

The, the shit that he does and the shit that the world does to stop him is such an incredible story. Visually, it is amazing to read through. It is Amazing. Like the scenery, the full page spreads. Like I highly recommend anybody digitally or, you know, in person, like, like tangibly read through the rest of this, because there's like double page spreads of just scenery of just destruction that is so fucking detailed. Nothing like. manga is an insane master class in how to do comics.

What he is able to do in those 2000 pages or six volumes is insane. I'll again, I would just echo what you're saying in terms of like the double double page spreads. If you talk to an Aaron, we talked to a lot of comic creators here on the podcast. If you talk to any of them, I would say 99.5 % of them will shutter at the idea of drawing a cityscape and any commission or comic page. If you ask them, draw spider man James Heron likes it.

Yeah. There's, there's a couple of like Danny Earls loves doing a landscape, you know, but majority of them look at that and they go, holy crap. I'm going to be stuck with a ruler and a fine tip pencil for the next 17 hours trying to create the Manhattan, you know, skyscape. And you see it multiple times throughout this book. And also I think in a different, more incredible way. in the film as well. And we'll talk about how they were able to accomplish that.

But I will say that there are a couple of other things missing from the movie that we also don't get from the manga. We get Chiyoko, we have the captain, we have Birdman. We never meet any of those folks in the film and they're huge players in the manga. And I think more importantly, maybe most importantly is that we never get to meet Akira, the Esper in the actual movie, but we get a pretty good conversation between him and Tetsuo in I think it's in like volume three.

I want to say is when they first meet in that little frozen underground basement place So Atomo actually he said this back in 1991 He ultimately regretted how Akira the film ended because again the manga continued continued on two years after the film had been created He says as I worked on the film I came to like the idea of having two different but very similar sides of the same story But part of me still thinks that part of the original was sacrificed meaning the original ending of that film.

The film's ending where Kaneda is absorbed into this psychic explosion and sees Tetsuo's old memories was one Atoma wished he could have used for the manga. In the manga, Kaneda and co. fight off the United Nations. They threaten them by pretending that they have Akira still within the possession and are willing to use him. And then they establish the great Tokyo Empire. So, Aaron, there's some fun facts here. You want to go over some of those?

So Atomo originally created the Akira manga as an homage to manga artist Mitsuteru Yokoyama who created Tetsujin 28 in 1963. Both Akira and Tetsujin 28 have a main character named Shotaro Kaneda and Akira's number 28 designation compares with the robot's number 28 designation.

Also at around 38 minute mark of the film where Colonel Shikishima is listening to Dr. Onishi's assessment concerning Kyoko's most recent dream, a caution note on the doctor's equipment features the following English text beneath it. Which was described with Japanese characters. The text is actually a passive aggressive message from the animator, which roughly translates as follows. Why do I have to even draw this part? Give me a break.

Geez. Yeah, I can only imagine the madhouse that was the production house, the animators, you know, area. Again, we'll talk about how many cells it took to make this film here in just a bit. But to see what they had to go through in order to make this film look as good as it does, I had to imagine was an insane venture. Yeah, I just. want to state again, again, like where he talks about the difference in the endings and what really goes into both film and manga.

It's such a night and day story because that, you know, again, there's like time jumps where we see the, like the rebellion of people in the anime versus the manga. The manga is so much more of an actual overthrow rebellion. It's not just writing. It's not just, trouble in the streets. Like there's an actual overthrow of the Japanese Empire. And it's a whole cast of characters too.

Yes, because of corruption, because of, you know, the world and the state of the world, because of, you know, the power struggle between Akira and Tetsuo. There's so much more that goes into it. it's so, it's, it's, again, it's like, there's this difference between where the people support it and where the people are the protagonists or the antagonists of this overthrow. And it's just, it's so incredibly worthwhile to watch and to read both. Right. 100%. They offer very different experiences.

And I think the main sort of thought behind that is again, while they do offer different experiences, you can sort of love them in the same way. If you love one, I'm going to imagine that you're probably going to love the, you know, the other one as well. So we got to talk about Aaron.

We got to talk about maybe one of the most iconic scenes in film, probably the most iconic scene in anime history, which is the power slide, which we also see, we obviously see Kanae to do at the very beginning of the film. Now, This is like it's got to be one of the most homaged scenes ever to list them all would be silly. But I'm just curious. Do you have a favorite? Oh, we saw it recently with Sonic three. I think it was shadow. It did a power slide.

But I think if you want to think about it really quick, mine was Robin and Batman, the animated series in 1993. He does a power slide and it's really awesome. So also, nope, nope. Does one. That was, I was gonna say that's, that's one of my favorite also there's it's really hard to, to pick. mean, cause it's, it's been done in, in Pokemon. It's been done in teenage mutant ninja turtles, like nurse nurse, not nurse officer. Uh, Jenny did it.

Isaki O'jimbo does it in the 2003 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles book. Yes. The animated series. Excuse me. In one of my favorite animes, was Gurren Lagann. It's not on a motorcycle, but there's a scene where Yoko, a litner, she like, it's like the first, it's the first episode. She like slides in front of the two main characters and she like does like an uncurious slide, but it's just her legs kind of spread.

You know, you also see it in obviously in Ready Player One, which I know you were very excited about. They show that pretty prominently in the trailer initially, but also there's an entire race sequence where our main character is driving around in a Canada's bike, which I think one of the more interesting things about this is that Canada's bike, which is one of the most iconic vehicles in cinema history, doesn't actually have a name. It's just called Canada's bike.

I thought it would have some kind of like, I don't know, product name or something, but no, it's just a, it's a red bike. that he stole, that you find out in this movie that he stole. yeah. Aaron, let's talk about our director here. The director is Katsuhiro Otomo, which I love, I love so much of what he has done. And I don't know if I ever told you, like, I'm sure I've mentioned it in our friendship, but Robot Carnival was one of the other animes that I saw on Midnight Rewind.

And it's just, it's a anthology kind of movie, but it's all music-based. And it's so beautiful. And he apparently did two segments in... that theology. and then the, another one that he's done is steam boy, which was one of my favorites as well, because it's, it's such, it's, I love the technology that this guy can create. I love what he everybody, Aaron, if you want Aaron to buy a thing or like a thing, put either a very large muscular woman in that thing or some type of cyberpunk setting.

Yeah. Those two things. muscular women, and giant robots. Which he actually also directed a CG short for Gundam Mission to the Rise, which celebrated the 20th anniversary of the Gundam franchise. So just an incredible director. Yeah, he's in the Eisner Hall of Fame currently and not that the Isers are the end all be all award, but to list all of Thomas awards would be again, that would be as long of a list as the people that have paid homage to the Akira slide, you know, like there's no point.

It's just, just know that it's iconic. Yes, even we'll see it even recently with I mean, not just the slide, but the scene like the poster for this when he's walking up to his motorcycle and that like, like just recently we saw I think was a Jimenez Jimenez cover for absolute Batman number one that is still continuing to sell for in disgusting amount of Have your reviews. Yeah. But yeah, fucking disgusting. Like I hate it. the accurate.

So bad and they actually did to like to do a kind of a mirrored effect of it. They did a joker version as well yeah, they're going to milk it. They're going to milk. Both that thing. Otomo did not intend to adapt the series outside of the manga. Did you know that? I learned it today. You learned it today, However, he became very intrigued when the offer to develop his work for the screen was put before him.

He agreed to an anime film adaptation of the series on the grounds that he retained creative control of the project, which every creator should do. Yeah, not everyone has necessarily that kind of reach. And it's kind of surprising that he even had that sort of power to go, if you want to make my shit, I have to be the one in charge. But if you can, you should you should do that.

Yes. Otomo also claimed to filled over 2,000 pages of notebooks containing various ideas and character designs for the film, but the final storyboard consisted of a trimmed down 738 pages. Just a very short amount of seven hundred and thirty eight pages. Wow. So another director we talked about not too long ago with Paprika, Satoshi Khan, actually, who who worked as an assistant for Tomo for both the manga and the film has cited Akira and especially Domo as his influences. We did.

Yeah. And everybody who doesn't know Satoshi Khan, first of all, shame on you, but also Tokyo, Tokyo Godfathers, Paprika. Millennium actress, perfect blue. mean, come on, know, he is, should Toshi con sort of sitting on the shoulders of a Tomo seems wild to think about. However, a way that's sort of accurate. I love the fact that in Japan, anime and manga are just essentially like pillars of entertainment over there.

And therefore they're taking so much more serious than we take them over here in Western society. I think it's a phenomenal way. It's just another beautiful piece of art. It'd be like, you know, if you worked in comics and then you were like, okay, I've done enough in comics. Let me go work in television. And then you were successful in television. Then you went and worked in film, you know, like that's the progression that they sort of do over there. They work on manga.

They eventually work on anime when that work is being adapted. Cause a lot of times from what I understand, manga and anime, when they adapt them, they're closer. They're much closer actually, which is why they're so freaking long. So like, you know, that's why. Bleach has like 17 seasons because it's just the manga one piece.

Yeah, all of those That's why they're so incredibly long is because they have so much material to pull from so Atama also wrote and I found this really interesting drew He wrote and drew a Batman short story called the third mask in 1996 Batman black and white number four Which is really interesting and the story if you haven't read it and I won't spoil too much in case you want to read it It's only like I want to say eight pages, but it's basically

It has a strong connection to my favorite Batman story of all time, which is Batman ego, where you see almost a split of Bruce's personality from Batman and the Batman you meet at the beginning of this short story is not the same Batman that you meet at the end of the story, which I found really cool. So, Aaron, I'm to pass it off to you here again. You're going to know more about this than me. Let's talk about our production house. Let's see how we got Akira over here in the States.

Yeah, so TMS Entertainment, formerly Kiyo Koichi Corporation, is known, which is actually owned by Sega, originally released in the U.S. by Streamline Pictures in 1990. A decade later, Genion Entertainment attained the license to Akira and spent roughly $1 million in restoring the film's audio and video quality, as well as recording an all new, more accurate English dub. There's your dub you don't like right there. We even know who to blame for that one now.

streamlined pictures are reported to have become the film's distributor when both George Lucas and Steven Spielberg passed on it and labeled it unmarketable in the States. It's that feels really wrong on the surface, but I kind of empathize with Lucas and Spielberg there. Like when you look at Akira and you got to remember when this film came out, right? It was like the late eighties and animation was not considered. It didn't have that respect that it has now.

And again, we have we have anime to thank for a lot of that, right? Like at the time animation was so it was shown strictly to children. Like there was very, very little, if any, animation for adults. So when bringing it over to the States. That was the first thing a lot of times they would ask me like, how do we market this to kids? Not, how do we market this to adults? So to play devil's advocate a little bit again, it does seem silly that you would pass on the idea of, distributing Akira.

Like imagine if Spielberg and, or Lucas had done that, but yeah, I get it to a certain extent. The original Streamline dub was unavailable for 12 years until Funimation reinstated it for their 25th anniversary edition Blu-ray DVD combo pack in 2013. That's why I hated it for over a decade. Because you just couldn't get the other version? I fucking it's like, okay, first off, there's two things Akira. I would much rather watch with a 1988 dubbing if I'm going to watch it with dubbing. All right.

And star wars. would much rather watch it without the additions that George Lucas added in later on. The original theatrical release. I don't want to watch this new fangled fucking job of walking around this Millennium Falcon because he looks like utter garbage. Right. Now let me ask you this, cause we didn't talk about it yet. Did you watch the dub or the sub? Okay. Yeah, I did too. And I watched the 2000 and well, the newer one, the one, yeah. 2001 version. Leave me alone! Leave me alone!

Yeah, I actually switched it back and forth and I was watching because like there were like scenes where I was like, fuck, I don't remember because I couldn't remember if it was when I first started watching. It's been a while. So I was like, is this the 88 or is this the 2001? And I was like, oh, shit, no, it sounds like ass. And then I rewound it and I watch it.

And there are certain scenes that I love because like there's a scene where, you know, right after the first biker like gang fight, they're, you know, the police are coming and, you know, Canada's like, oh, my motorcourses are just getting warmed up. And I'm like, he sounds like such a douche there. So, but it's funny because like there's so many different, like the voice actors obviously are quite different because, know, just much different eras. But like, I like, I like Kaneda's voice.

I like the voices of the espers is so much more raspy. So, so, and this is one thing I was going to say as well. The first scene where, which espers, it's a little boy that's first being like, like escorted out and the cops. kill the guy, the human that's like, or the guy that's like escorting the Esper, you know, he's like, run, you know? And the kid's like, huh, huh. So the new one is like, it's his scream is like, ah, but like, if you watch the 88 version, it sounds like a, really scared kid.

And it that the 88 version gives me goosebumps every time I hear it. I want to say that was number 27. Was that Masuro? Yeah, I think that's who that was. It was the one right before Akira. Akira is number 28. but yeah, moving on here. And this sort of speaks on what we're talking about. The very beginning of the Midnight Rewind is that streamline dubbed the streamlined dubbed version first aired on the sci fi channel in the 1990s during a week long anime event called Saturday Anime Block.

Saturday mornings on the Sci-Fi Channel. It's Japanese animation in the raw. And this ain't no swim in the kiddie pool. Cutting-edge anime that's pure power and sheer genius. Be ready to receive this sacrifice. Saturday anime on the Sci-Fi Channel, next.

The Pioneer Dub, which is the one that I grew up with, twice on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block, once on December 7th, 2013 with a rating of a TVMA, of course, and again on December 20th, 2014, both times with the explicit language and nudity censored. And there's really only one scene I can think of that has nudity. And of course, it's the scene where Tetsuo and his gal, who I'm spacing her name right now, is a Ryu.

Ryu, they get attacked by the clown gang and That's like, yes, in a movie that's full of shocking body horror and violence and anger. That seemed to me is like the most shocking where you see Tetsuo get essentially get his ass beat and then his, you know, bystander of a girlfriend gets. mean, she was within moments of being assaulted if it wasn't for Kaneda and crew showing up to save them. And then, of course, Tetsuo being the dickhead that he is gets angry about it afterwards.

So. That right there, don't know about you, but for me, was like watching it or rewatching it this time. There was something visceral about that scene that was maybe more impactful than any other scene in the movie. Absolutely. it's funny that you say it's not funny, but it's interesting that you say that it's like shocking because it's not even the part where like they rip her shirt. Right. It's shocking.

It's when she's walking, like when they're talking to Tetsuo and she walks up and she's like holding her shirt, but she's got like this just beat up face and like, yeah. And it's just like, holy shit. Like that is actually more shocking. Right. Even on top of like, there's just a momentary scene. where Tetsuo starts hallucinating and literally his guts are like spilling out of his body.

that scene of actual closer to like realistic violence is more shocking than that, which is, again, I think it's a very interesting commentary on culture then and now. Right, 100%. So this movie was also notable for being one of the few animated films to be released in the Criterion collection, which we all know I am a collector of. However, I won't be collecting the Akira, Aaron, because in 1993 it was released as a laser disc edition.

Don't know how many laser discs you all have in your collection. I guess if there was one that I was going to collect, I guess it probably would be Akira's Criterion collection. However, Criterion has not put out a Blu-ray or 4K edition. Akira or I would have already bought that. You can buy it on eBay right now for $75. not a bad investment. However, I do not have a laser disc player. I don't know why I would need one. If I bought one, it would be only to watch this movie. So anyway.

laser disc? Think of a vinyl record, but it has a movie in Think of a giant CD that. That is in 720p. Maybe. Yeah, it's a 480 more than likely. But Aaron, let's get into the animation here. If you don't mind, I'd love to take this one because I think this might have been one of the crazier parts of my research for this film. And I think it also validates the greatest anime of all time title that this movie often gets right. So Akira was created with the use of celluloid transparent sheets.

otherwise known as cells. This was often the form back in the day for animation during the, I would say forties until the early 2000s, before we get the sort of popularization of 3d animation, right? The subject of the scene is drawn directly onto the cell and the cell is then overlaid onto a static background image. So they would generally paint like a static background and then they would create multiple cells for that background.

Think of like Studio Ghibli and in this film they're often painted. Then the characters redrawn in a slightly different position for each cell. And they do that over and over and over and over and over and over. And when photographed in a sequence and played back, it gives the illusion of movement. Now, Aaron, I don't know about you. I've been pretty vocal and I understand that the process is extremely grueling and that you probably couldn't pay animators enough to do this today.

At least not like as a normal method of animation. This is so far and away the best way for animation. Like it always looks better, doesn't it? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And I get it, it's grueling. And a lot of the folks that were working on this probably were like near exhaustion, if not completely exhausted by the end of it. But the proof is on the paper, on the screen, right? Like it's incredible.

And to sort of contextualize this, Akira averages 12 cells per second or even 24 during the more action packed detailed scenes. Now, again, I'm gonna contextualize it even more for you guys, okay? Akira has over 160,000 cells plus throughout the entire film. Now to compare that to other fan favorite films, you have Little Mermaid at 95,000 cells. You have the jungle book at 98,000 cells. You have the lion king at 119,000 cells.

And then you're saying Chris, yeah, it's Disney, it's American, you know, all that bull crap. What about the Easter animation? My Neighbor Totoro has a heart and 44,000 cells. Akira has 20,000 more cells. than my neighbor Totoro. It's just crazy, right?

Yeah. what made me think of the, I mean, what really made this crazy to me was that like, Aaron, do remember a couple of months ago when I went to go see Anastella 5555, the Daft Punk animation, and it was re-released for 4K and they used AI to upscale it, right? And it looked horrific, everybody. It was really, really bad. It was actually kind of soul crushing in a lot of ways. So I have the 4k Aaron.

I'd love to talk to you, talk about your sort of recent investment in 4k for Akira watching the behind the scenes and all the things and sort of the restoration of this film before they put it out. There was a, there was a 2019 4k restoration version that I bought back in 2019 and they showed a lot of the behind the scenes on how they did that.

And basically what they did is they took all the cells and they sort of expanded it and fine comb went through it with a fine comb to, you know, put it in high def both in terms of sound in terms of color. in terms of detail, all of the things. And you couldn't do that. You can't do that unless it's like Akira, you know, cause you need that many cells.

The thing about AI upscale, and sorry, I'm going on a tire at everybody, but the thing about AI upscale is that it can only guess on how high def a scene is unless you have something for it to build off of. And this is not my endorsement AI.

think it's stupid, but I will say that like, and I don't think AI was used at all in the creation or the recreation of the 4k for Akira, but I think if they were going to try to remaster it with 4K, it would be much easier and we would probably be able to tell less with Akira because there are so many fine details in this movie comparative to again, End of Stella 555, which looks like if you watch the original version, looks like it has a haze sort of cloudy filter over it, even the

original version. So for AI to try to go in there and fix it, there's no possible way. It'll just look like gobbledygoop and it does, it looks bad. Aaron, do have anything you want to say there before I move on? So I'll tell you like one of the the first notes that I had when I was watching this because I like to take notes whenever we're doing these.

Yeah. Rewinds versus reviews, because again, it's more of a celebration and it's kind of a good time to not critique, but to like really just think about that movie. Sure. And I got to say, as as a 4K, as somebody who buys a lot of Blu-rays, I don't buy a lot of 4K. I will buy if it's something very special. I did buy the 4K release, the one they just released a couple days ago, during March. I think it was an anniversary, I believe so. And I was wowed by it.

It did feel more crisp, which normally I'm like, it doesn't fucking matter for animated movies. How much more crisp can you get in animation, especially if it's hand drawn. But it does matter. It matters with the sound, it matters with. the colors, it matters with how it's conveyed like on that platform and on that in that format. However, I will tell you this, I did decide to A, when I got the the the steel book, there was a dent in it because of how Amazon shipped it.

So I went to return it and then I thought to myself, wait a second. And so I was like, I did the return, but I was like, I got it. Might as well watch it. So I started watching it. And then I realized upon putting this brand new Blu-ray 4K into the DVD or into my PS5. There's no extra features. Yeah. And I'm like, I really was. And normally again, I wouldn't really look for extra or additional features because there was done. That was the second thing. I was like, fuck this. I'm sending it back.

I will wait for another one to come out. That is like excellent looking that has features that cause like, that's the thing. This is a movie that they have additional features, places that you can find in older DVDs. Why not on this one? It makes no sense. So was like, fuck this.

Yeah, if there's an entry to have just a cornucopia of bonus features and commentaries and behind the scenes and retrospectives and all the things like concept art, trailers, all the things Akira has to be like among some of the best. This movie is so studied, you know, among again, not only just manga fans, anime fans, but again, just movie fans in general. and they should be celebrating the production team. Correct. Because again, they were worked to death.

Yeah. Let's get the composer because again, as I've really quick, if I can't say just to build off the, you know, working them to death, the film's color palette has three hundred twenty seven colors in total. Akira's animators actually invented 50 new completely unique colors for this movie. So they could create a whole crayon palette of colors for this movie. That's an extra large crayon box. You know, the one that came with the array like the not the eraser, but like the back of it.

Like, that's how big this fucking box of new colors would be. Right. But one thing I want to talk about, let's talk about the composer. Yeah. And I guess I don't know if you feel the same way I do, but the music for this film, the sound, the music, whether it's whether it's just ambient music in the background or if it's like the again, it's like Canadian theme. Right. You know, is just it's unique, is iconic, and it is gorgeous.

If you ever get a chance to listen to it on vinyl, I highly recommend it. But the score draws heavily from traditional Indonesian gamelan and Japanese note music, which is from, I'm going click on this link and I'm pretty sure, A game alone is a lot of percussion. It's a lot of. it's Yeah, it's drums. You've got like a lot of flutes. You get like a lot of bowed instruments in this as well. And a lot of that, again, is seen sort of in the cityscape scenes. You see you hear a lot of that.

It was also composed by Shoji Yamashiro and performed by Gaino Yamashirogumi. My findings and everyone listening right now, if you can email us, reach out to us on social media. I could not find out lot about either one of these folks. It seems like this is the only work that they've done or at least the only like seriously notable. And I mean that respectfully. It seems like the Akira is like the only thing that they've really put out. So again, it's iconic. It's incredible.

And they were part of this restoration that I got for my 4k. You see a lot of behind the scenes stuff where that shows them coming in and converting their soundtrack over into the 4k Dolby edition. went from, I want to say it was like 3.3 to 5.4 Dolby for this movie. and you can, can, again, you can tell. It looks like they have a lot of albums. The Gaino, Yama, Shiragumi.

Like they're a musical collective and they seem to have done a lot of albums, but this is really the only soundtrack that they've done. Sure. Okay. Like, like Daft Punk in a way, like they've done one score. You showed me earlier a Blu-ray that you watched it. Can I see that one more time? And is this the anniversary one that you watched it on? So this is just the first edition 4K. I'm holding it for Aaron, everybody in the camera. And basically this was released in 2019.

It comes with a really cool sort of info book that has a bunch of interviews with the entire creative team. And then you have the 4K here with a bonus cover. And then on the inside, it comes with the 4K, which is just the movie, like you said. It comes with a Blu-ray edition and it comes with a Blu-ray bonus feature. It came with a... trailers, came with some commentary, it came with some behind the scenes for the music and the animators.

And then it came with something else that I wasn't able to watch, but, and it comes with all three editions of dub and sub. So one sub and then two dubs. See, I thought that you actually had the same one that I did because that's the same exact artwork that is on the steel book. Okay, interesting. I would recommend getting this version. I loved it. Yeah. I see. And that's, would recommend it also because I would rather have, instead of the steel book, I would rather have something like this.

Again, something that's worth celebrating all of that background, all of that behind the scenes and features and things like that. Real quick, slight tangent, if I can say, I don't really care about steel books. I know you like steel books a little bit, but like in terms of my collection, I have very few steel books because they don't really offer that much different from your normal 4K or Blu-ray, but they're always more expensive. And I just don't understand it. It's like variants in comics.

I sort of the appeal of. them used if they're good quality. I'll go to like again. used to tell you about my adventures at McKay's, you know where I'd go and buy a bunch of and that's all mostly what the first thing I would do would go to their new arrival section and see what steel books they got in because the steel books were roughly the same price, right as the normal ones.

But I'm glad to see that, you know, again, there are certain times where yes, you get more for your money, more bang for your buck when you don't get the steel book like I made the mistake of doing. But like I said, I sent it back. But the music for the film was completed. before any of the composers actually saw a single frame of the film or even read the script. Can you believe that? It's interesting.

Again, on the surface that feels extremely odd, but I think with having, you know, the director also being the creator of the manga as well, he was like, Hey folks, just read the manga. All right. This is, it's going to be that in some form, right? So just do that. gosh. Yeah. Here we go. Aaron, I'm going leave this completely in your hands. You know, this is generally your section anyway. I'll read the Japanese voice actor and you can read it.

Everybody. I'll do, yeah, I'll do the, 2001 Pioneer Dub. How about that? Okay. Sounds good. We'll go down the cast. I'll read again. I'm just going to go down the Japanese voice actors and who they played. So Kaneda was Mitsuo Iwata. Tetsuo Ushima was Nozomu Sasaki. Kei was Mami Koyama. Colonel Shikishima was Taro Ishida. Ryu, it was Ryu Saku, but Ryu was Tetsuo Genda. Dr. Onishi. was Mizuho Suzuki Takashi, which was number 26, Tatsuhiko Nakamura, Kiyoko was number 25.

She's the one that could see the future, was Fuku Ito and Masaru, who's kind of like the little guy and like, he looks like a little blue Trump in a floating wheelchair. So was wrong earlier. I think it actually was 26 was the boy. Yeah. Kazuhiro Shindo, Kaori who is, you know, works with Ryu, Yuriko Fujisaki, Yamagata was Masaki Okura, Kai Takeshi Kusou, and Nezu was Hiroshi Otake. I love two minds here because sometimes I prefer the sub and sometimes I prefer the dub.

Maybe I'm a dirty dubber here and people don't like that as like true anime fans. But I think for this one, I've always just really liked the 2001 dub. That's the one I've always known. And I'm not saying that you shouldn't try the other versions. Like Aaron loves the 2000, I'm sorry, the 1989 dub. But and I might even, I should watch it honestly, just to see if. was gonna ask if you don't mind doing that and letting me know what you think.

No rush now, but I would love to hear your, especially as a filthy casual from 2001, I'd love to hear your opinion on that. Now that's the other thing that was kind of disappointing though was the 2001 dubbing is a, was it 5.1 Dolby sound? They were able to convert it. Yes, I apologize. So yes, they were able to convert it. But the 88 or 89 version is only like the 2.8. So you don't get the high definition sound like you do with a newer one.

So that's the only unfortunate is you sacrifice something into having a preference or not having a preference. Now I'm just going to go down in order to like save my own embarrassment. I'm just going to go down the line for the 1989 and the 2001 dubbings here. So Cam Clark, Jan Rabson, Laura Cody, Tony Pope, Steve Kramer, Lewis Arquette, Barbara Goodson, Melora Hart, Bob Bergen, Barbara Goodson, Tony Pope, Bob Berger and Mike Reynolds were all part of that 1989 dub.

And then going into the 2001 again, this is my version, Johnny Young Bosch, Josh. Yeah, Joshua Seth, Wendy Lee, Jameson Price, Bob Burchals, Simon Prescott, Cody McKenzie, Sandy Fox, Travis Weaver, Michelle Rove, Michael Lindsay and Tony Pope. Tony Pope only wanted to premiere in both the 1989 and the 2001. So in 89, he was Colonel Shikishima in the 1989 version and in the 2001 version, is Nezuku or Nezu. Yeah, yeah, something like that. All right.

So anyway, the name of Tetsuo literally means Iron Man in Japanese, a foreshadowing for the indestructible powers and metallic body parts he eventually acquires. Which is funny because if you think back to the monkey review that we did with good friend of the show, Erica Fett, I brought up a movie because I like, you I wasn't kind of testing her on her her imported horror films. And I brought up a movie called Tetsuo the Iron Man.

that's that's kind of interesting where that that lies also the name. Aaron, I want you to read this next bit because I think you would appreciate it more than anybody. Yeah, the computer sounds, which you you heard when they're doing that really cool body scan in like three dimensions for Tetsuo. Those sounds were actually taken from the mother computer in Alien from 1979. Yeah, that's pretty incredible.

So in the riot scene, Kai pushes past a man wearing a sweater bearing the word young as the reference to Young magazine. It was a bimonthly comic anthology series that the original Akira manga was serialized in. Akira first appeared in issue 236 from November 21st, 1988. OK, and then the last thing we'll cover here is the multiple failed attempts at doing this thing in live action, which I will be on record of saying, hey, don't do that. Jesus. So let's get into that.

we have our live action adaptation of Akira has been stuck in development hell for years, the first being Sony Pictures in the 1990s. And now it's in development hell with Warner Brothers. More fan made versions of Tetsuo's or excuse me, Kaneda's motorcycle. Yeah. Yup. Come to completion and fruition over the many failures of just trying to get this fucking movie made. Real quick, before I get into who's been attached to these, do you want that?

Would you like, would you be excited for a live action Akira? God. okay. Yeah. Maybe, it's, it's, that's a very big, quite any, I say anybody that's an anime fan knows that like, that's a very hard, hard ask. Like at one point, Leonardo Leonardo DiCaprio was actually like a part of a project to develop it.

And, and I want to say that that like, He's one of those guys who is like kind of like off the fucking wall with the stuff that he makes like and he's a part of but like I can imagine like somebody like Christopher Nolan and like Leonardo DiCaprio like doing something really good with this together because he they give a shit right now I am just so strongly against that. I think that this is This kind of story can only be told in the way that it's told in either manga or anime, right?

It's it's like trying to do a live-action dragon ball movie Like I just I don't think we're there yet if ever and and I think the same thing about like watchmen part of the reason why I don't like the live-action walk watchmen movie For obvious reasons, but the main reason being is that it's a comic about comics, you know, like when you read watchmen as a comic it is a It's having a conversation with the reader about sort of the idea of being a comic reader

and where it started in the golden age and where it is currently in the mid 1980s. And to adapt that into movie, you just lose so much of that. And that's part of the reason why it's such an iconic story. And I think again, with Akira, the budget would have to be $600 million to do it correctly. very much in the same vein as why Ready Player One didn't do so well. Sure. Yeah. Cause you're in, you're in the head of what's his name? Who's the main character? Watts, right? Wade Watts.

Yeah. You have to be in your Wade's head throughout the book and he understands all these references in his head. He doesn't say them out loud where in the movie you have to either see them on camera or you have to, or he has to say them out loud. And it's just, it's a little much when you have to do that. So anyway, would say like, I don't know if you've seen it, but there's a show that was on Netflix. was like carbon something.

He was in the second season and the guy who played in the original like Suicide Squad movie, the guy who played Rick Flagg. He was the first season. Altered Carbon is the name of the show, Altered Carbon. And that one is set in such an interesting, futuristic kind of universe. I could see whomever did that one. somewhat being successful with the scenery to a degree. If you're going to do this, you almost have to do it as a television series. Yeah. Right.

You just need more time, especially if you're doing the manga. I think the same thing of like, they keep talking about doing a live action game of Thrones. Don't stop. Like it's good as a TV series and you need more time to understand the dynamics of these characters. Yeah. They want to, sorry. When I say live action, guess I mean movie, like a movie. Yeah. In terms of live action. Yeah. You can do it on television and you can do it pretty well apparently, but in terms of a movie.

That's tough unless it's like a conclusion or like a some kind of build off of the television series, then it could possibly work. Well, back to this, said the ones that have been attached to the live action Akira film are Steve, Steven Norrington, who directed Blade, Gary Witta, Rogue One writer. I love the sequel to that movie, the way. Jordan Peele, who did Get Out and Nope. Like Jordan Peele. I don't know if I get that guy.

I don't know if I get, I love his- just likes things and he wants to make those things. That's the way I see him. George Miller of the Mad Max franchise. I don't see that one working out very well. And then Taika Watiti who fucked up a couple of Thor movies, but Thor Ragnarok. One movie one is good.

One is bad and thunder love and thunder is bad And that one is like the most recent that's the one that Warner Brothers has been touting since like 2019 and it's been on definite hold since then so I would imagine that Tyke is probably not interested in doing anymore and I don't blame him and Of all of these people. I love Jordan Peele. George Miller is a legend, right? I like the blade movie.

Take a what td is good outside of love and thunder I just there's no one that you could attach this to and I go wow. I'm I'm excited now like I think Akira is so important. And I think in order to do it correctly, you almost have to do it as a television series. And I still think that's a bad idea. Right. So anyway, that sounds like a bad note to end on, but that's kind of the conclusion of our conversation with Akira. Aaron, final thoughts on Akira.

Again, I feel like we didn't talk a ton about the plot because people that are listening to this, I hope have already checked it out. For some reason you haven't again, shame on you, but hopefully this excited you. I think the main takeaway that I should give is go read the manga as well, you know. But again, I'm gonna pass it off to you. Final thoughts on Akira the film.

So I'm going to go on a little bit of a tangent here because I want to go through my notes, which I'll go through quickly because we hit a lot of it during the the the re. Are these notes that you made while watching the film? Yes. Okay, gotcha. Love doing that. So again, I think I said earlier, this is the first time that an animated film has really like wowed me for being in 4k, the colors, the animation, the music, it all just seemed a little bit crisper.

And it was all just again, 160 cells, Aaron. Yeah. Maybe it's just the fact of like every time I watch it, I'm instantly just taken back to the first time I see it. And it's such a journey. And like my next note actually says, I've seen this movie countless times. I've read the manga all the way through multiple times. And every time it catches me off guard and grabs my attention for the first from the first moment.

Yeah. So like that's that's that would be if any if I had a final that I'll leave that at it. But I talked about the Akira slide. I asked myself, what you call this cyberpunk? I talked about which dubbing I prefer. When the kid screams in the 88 version, it still gives me goosebumps. I don't know why I wrote disappointing that this is 4K. I don't know why I wrote that for some reason. That would have to come to you. I don't know why. Maybe that was a typo or something.

But yeah, and then again, the pronunciation of Canada versus Canada. And then again, like I told you at the beginning of the show, reached out, I don't know if I said this on the show, but I reached out to a couple of people that were important to me. first was, was Constantine who again, it's been like, you know, my best friend since, not more than bikes. Huh? no, not here. Like you, you guys are our best friends in different aspects and I love the guy forever. He will forever be a best friend.

And so will you like Beth, you know, Not better than me. Let's just clarify that for the listener because I know they're worried. Like they care a lot and I just think everyone should know that Aaron does not. Might have to fight it out like Joker style. But he said he's always had a deep appreciation for Akira as it continues to feel ahead of its time, both in its groundbreaking musical score and lasting influence. The gritty Deus Ex Machina like atmosphere is something he absolutely loves.

It's another anime masterpiece in the same league as if you've ever seen a Rogen Z, which is a really popular one as well. To this day, just mentioning, and you might get to now. Twin ceramic rotor drives is enough to bring a knowing smile to anyone who sees it. And if you know, you know. And then the other person was a, you know, was one of our, Patreon, our programs, ham six, who, he's a good dude.

Like he and I talk quite often, you know, if I, he's asked me for things, like if I go to a convention, like I'll, you know, I'll look for something and vice versa. Like he's just a good dude. Ham six is just a good dude. And so he sent me his thoughts over and he talked about how, you know, he was impressed with it, like the 3d animation effects. you know, striking contrast between bright colors and intense violence, kind of comparing it to Tarantino and Kubrick style.

He believes the iconic bike scene may have influenced even the Road Rash video game series, which would make total sense. He praised the background art for its intricate detail, layering the violence against students in the early scenes reflects, you know, the era storytelling rather than modern sensibility. So it's kind of very true to its era. then he's called them the creepy three blue children representing different perspectives on knowing the future.

some hesitant, some blindly following it. And then overall, you know, he's inspired yet kind of confused, eager to rewatch it multiple times to fully grasp it. And he just like wanted to emphasize the groundbreaking visuals, particularly the bikes and the light trails. And, you know, he's always like, he's always excited to hear more, more like discussion, like from us on like how it impacts like the anime scene. And, you know, I just want to say thanks to Constantine, thanks to Hamsticks for.

you know, letting me read that for getting, giving me your, your perspective on it. Appreciate that. Love hearing from people that, that actually give a shit about what we're talking about and want to have a piece of the conversation. So I invite people, like if you have something that we're about to talk about, feel free to send it to us over on our Patreon or on our social media accounts, wherever. It's awesome to hear from you about it. Yeah, absolutely.

Did you mention that this was Ian's first time watching Akira as well? sorry. Yeah, didn't say that. was, yeah, it was, it was, actually asked him if he had watched it before and he's like, no, but I'll go home and give it a shot. And I was like, fuck yeah, man. That's awesome. So he was willing to it. Like, dude. All right. So my final thoughts on Akira are it's just one of the best of all time.

Everybody that seems so boilerplate and Chris, like, of course we all know that, but I don't think it makes it any less impactful even though it's obvious. Right. Like Akira there's again, I said earlier, it's there's only one and to watch this movie, like this is the best that we can do. I honestly believe that like there are some times you watch a movie, you listen to a song.

You know, you watch a television series, you read a comic, all these things, and you think it just cannot be better than this. And that's a Kira for anime. In my opinion, again, and you can you roast me or you can tell me that I'm wrong, but I just I firmly believe that this is the top of the mountain in terms of anime. And you can make a strong argument for manga as well, even though, again, I'm not as versed in that.

I'm not I'm not as versed in either one of these things, but I just when you see something like this, it's incredible. So. There are some incredibly badass scenes in the manga versus the film.

Like at one point, again, I would say you don't see this in the movie, but there's like this part in the manga where the world is trying to, before Tetsuo, who is just exponentially more powerful in the anime than he, or in the manga than he's in anime, before he can attack the rest of the world, like the rest of the world kind of converges on what's left of Japan. to take him out. And at one point he literally like morphs with like an F16 or F14 and just starts like fucking shit up.

It is so insane. the shit that it ends. Like again, you know, we talk about how much we love or how much I love Daniel Warren Johnson's artwork because it's so kinetic and it's so in that same vein as Tomo's art. And again, like this, reading through these more, again, visceral kinetic and just violent scenes in this this manga, you can see where his love and where his inspiration come from for for DWJ.

So again, there's just if you've never seen it and you have no desire to watch an anime, but you love comics simply pop this in just so you can see where people's interests and inspirations have come from because it's such an experience. Yeah, I would honestly alter that even slightly more. I would say if you have no interest in anime or if you have no interest in manga, I would say give Akira the first shot.

If this is your very first time experiencing either one of those mediums Akira on film Akira and manga form. I honestly think that'll make you a believer just in those two iterations and that's like, yeah, I mean, you know, your mileage may vary. I'm not a big believer in censoring kids. Like I don't have kids. So maybe it's easy for me to sit atop. my single mountain and say, stop telling those kids not to say fuck.

But like, I think eventually if and when I have kids, I'm going to show them things like this, but with me there to contextualize it. Yeah. As the baby is coming out of the womb, it'll be Tetsuo combining with a machine. Yeah. All right. Aaron, just for shits and giggles, if you were to give this thing out of five David Winers, what would you give it? I'd probably give it a 4.5. Yeah, it's a five. mean, I think it's like one of the easiest fives of all time for me.

This is the top 15 movie for me of all time. I'd say it's like it's somewhere in that 10 to 12 range. All right. Typical Chris giving out fives like they're nothing, even though we've been on the show for five years and I've given out to everybody that'll do it for a midnight rewind. Next week on the show, we are being joined by two absolute giants in the medium. This is like still mind blowing to me that we were able to get them not only get one of them on, but both of them.

Matt Fraction and Michael Allred joined us on the show to talk about their brand new issue number one of Welcome to Twilight over at Dark Horse Comics. Again, good friends of the show, Patton Oswalt and Jordan Blum.

They have continued to bring in some of the best talent in the comic world over into the Minor Threats universe and the conversation that we have with both Matt Fraction who recently not only worked on the Legacy of Monsters Apple TV Plus show that Aaron absolutely loves, But he also is going to be the upcoming writer on Batman. Number one coming up in September with the sexiest man in comics, Jorge Jimenez. And then of course, know, no introduction needed for Michael already.

The guy is just one of the singular voices in comics. Like, and I think if I'm going to promote him in any major way, it's the fact that he drew one of my favorite runs of all time, which is his and Dan Slott's 2013 Silver Surfer run. So coming up next week. Check it out. Aaron, do have anything you want to say to everyone before we head out of here? I'm going to say it in a second, go buy some fucking buy some fucking merch. I'm showing like right now. You can't see it very well.

Maybe, maybe we can take a screenshot or something, but I bought a new oblivion bar. It's not pink. It's like a, it's like a Heather red meal. It's like Heather red. It's like, it's so soft. And then I've been, I've been talking, uh, like saying this on the show so much, but I was like, I'm going to get me one of those. tie-dye Oblivion bar shirts. And look how fucking good the colors look on this thing. That's awesome.

Yeah. That's all in our, that's in our show notes and we'll talk about it here in a moment. It looks so good. I thought it was going to look like ass, but it looks so I've never owned a tie dye shirt before, but this thing is fucking like the tits, man. All right. Well, it's no cap. No cap for Schizel. Riz on fleek. Aaron, all right, take us out of here before we make up more.

playing where this dad he's like making fucking pancakes for his kids and he's like No, he's like my wrist on point my trip like he's this and he's like, it's so fucking funny, man Anyways, scribe to our podcast apple podcast Spotify YouTube audible. I heart radio wherever you listen to your favorite podcast That's where we are.

Thank you to our patrons Alex Alice Erin bodder Chris s Chris white Christy David Elliot Erica George Johnny Greg Haley ham six Jake Jeremy Kyle Losey Mac miles Mike Olivia Ryan I Robert Sean Saunter, Travis, Zach and Brad and Lisa. Whew, it's getting longer. That's what she said. If you want to support the show without spending any money, follow your preferred podcasting platform in a five star rating and or review on Apple podcast and Spotify helps a ton.

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Thank you, KXD Studios for all of our oblivion bar art. He's at KXD Graphics on the gram. Thank you, Dream Kid for all of our musical themes. Thank you, DJ Skyvac for our grid theme. And last but not least, do not forget to tip your bartenders 20 % or more. I almost did it the other day and I changed my mind and I still gave the 20%. I'm just like, you know what? I'm going to be a good person. You got to live that create, Aaron. You know what? No matter what. 20 percent.

I second guessed it because I did not have a great time at the place where I was, but it was not the waiter's fault. So I was like, this is not your fault. Let me just still do this. you know, it is what it is. That's the way to do it. Honestly, again, you could literally piss in my food and I'm going to give you 20 % of you like you son of a bitch. You could have gotten 40 if you would have just not pissed in my food, you know. All right, I'm not sure. I don't know if I'm I don't know.

I'm quite there yet, but OK, all right, we'll get there. All right, thank you so much for listening to the Oblivion Bar podcast. We will see you next week for episode 186.