Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/10/23/a-deep-dive-into-the-incredible-animation-of-akira.html
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The words “Yet another…” are missing in the title.
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Akira is a monumental piece of animation. Same for Ghost in the Shell
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Thanks. I feel old. 
I still have the raw vhs tape sent from Japan. Holy hell the shipping was like 60 usd or something insane. Had to figure out some technical stuff like encoding the subtitles at 9yrs of age with a shaky, self-taught grasp of English and Japanese to make copies for fellow anime, non-Japanese speaking fans. My older bro figured out how to be fair, charging only for the blank tapes and shipping.
Did that for the more niche stuff like anything by Go Nagai, coughscuteyhoney coughs, Project A-ko, Devilman, Dangaioh, Zeorymer, RG Veda, Izcer 1, “winds of amnesia”, older Ghibli stuff, until around Y2K. A lot of mecha titles because my grandpa was a massive fan of Gundam and it was his hobby. (Edit: got too excited, can’t English) Realized really really late that a lot of these titles weren’t child appropriate.
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The manga is excellent. And I’m not much of a manga guy.
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Weird that Akira wasn’t released in the US, we had it in cinemas over here.
If you haven’t read it, the manga of Akira is also really good – I love the movie, but it’s better than the movie in a number of ways. The art is incredible, the story and characters much more nuanced (as you’d imagine), and it is epic in scope. I should buy it on Amazon today, come to think of it!
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We had it in non-mainstream cinemas in Canada. (Maybe a year or two after release)
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I saw it at a showing in San Diego during comicon, then again in West L.A. a few months later.
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Got to add Redline to that list.
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Redline is one of my favorite anime movies 
lowkey me and my younger brother are obsessed with it
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It certainly was, in limited release. I saw it in a non-mainstream cinema in late 1989.
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In 1990 a co-worker at Kinko’s brought in a VHS of Akira and we watched it in the stock room in short bits while on break or whatnot. It blew all of us away and later I got a dup of it. I watched it many, many times for a few years without knowing exactly what was going on. Eventually, I got a copy with subtitles. This happened again with Aachi and Ssipak. That film was both amazing and surreal without subtitles.
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It was. I 1st saw it on December 25, 1989 at midnight, at the Biograph Theater in Washington, DC. It was literally the 1st anime movie, with any kind of US theatrical release.
From
Fledgling North American distribution company Streamline Pictures soon acquired an existing English-language rendition created by Electric Media Inc.[14] for Kodansha,[28] which saw limited release in North American theaters on December 25, 1989.[29] Streamline became the film’s distributor,[30] with Carl Macek leading the distribution.[31] Upon its initial limited US release, Akira grossed about $1 million in the United States.[31]
Anime looks amazing on film, btw. Vampire Hunter D was another title that looks MUCH better on film than a TV/monitor.
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My favorite part of Redline was when early in the film they showed the big monster I turned to my friend (who had seen it) and said “you know when Chekov’s kaiju shows up in act 1, it must be used in act 3”
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Tetsuo!
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I saw it at the Dobie Theater in Austin (which, I just learned, closed over 10 years ago…)
Oh yeah! Same with that one.
(Also completely unrelated, but that I also saw there around the same time, Dr. Caligari)
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Kaneda!!!
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Tetsuo and Akira were my introduction to alt Japanese cinema, a body hammer to the psych!
The Japanese filmmaker Nagisa Oshima is well worth searching out as someone who traverses the mainstream and an alternative to convention.
