Wiseass.
(Well done.)
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Ghost in the Shell has some of my favorite movie music:
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Kaneda!
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Ghost in the Shell is my favorite anime of all time. Even though the art in Akira is unsurpassed, I find the story of Ghost in the Shell more interesting.
Somehow I’ve only ever seen Akira with subtitles. Is the English dub well done?
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The English dub is passable but my preference is always the original language with subs. And I agree that the story in Akira isn’t as solid as Ghost in the Shell, though that’s because at that point the manga hadn’t wrapped up so they took some liberties with the story. I haven’t read the manga though, I need to borrow it from my brother some day
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The English subs are okay, the second redo (in 2002) is a little closer to the original (but still has some significant gaps). Oh well.
The soundtrack by Geinoh Yamashirogumi is fantastic.
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Agreed; the soundtrack to GitS has many songs that pass right into the territory of “eldritch”, in my opinion. Inner Universe is a longtime fave of mine. The OST perfectly fit the overall themes of the movie.
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I remember seeing it at the Varsity… or the Capri Theater in Des Moines in 1989 when I was 11.
Mind.
Was.
Blown.
Purchased almost all of the Manga over time - would’ve been incredible to have seen the continuation of the story through the remaining 30-odd books in the series. Gave the set to a nephew a few years back in hopes he’ll enjoy them as much as I did.
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And for those who want to catch up on the manga, I give you this -
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Thank you!
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Animation generally does. Nothing like visible scan lines and interlacing breaking up the animations clean and sharp style, HD and UHD help.
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It’s not just that, although yes, that’s a lot of it. Colors pop better and “3D” effects are much stronger, for example. I’ve seen articles in the past, that asserted various reasons for this, but the overall effect is hard to deny.
Back when I was an anime fan, we watched blurry 6-hour-speed, tenth-gen VHS tapes from Japan with Japanese-English dictionaries on our laps, and we liked it! Uphill! In the snow! Both ways! 
But seriously, I can imagine how overwhelming that was translating that movie vs. say, Devilman.
My roommates and I were living in Japan when Akira premiered, so we saw it in the theater. I still remember the looks we got at the box office since it wasn’t subbed. There had been extensive Japanese TV coverage on Akira’s revolutionary animation around that time, so I knew what I was in for. Still, wow.
Otomo always delivers. I love his shorts in Manie-Manie (Neo-Tokyo), Memories and Robot Carnival.
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I love how this dude constantly denigrates as “simple” shots that have a whole ton of lighting effects, which required multiple passes through the camera and a whole bunch of fucking around with positive and negative mattes. And the whining about “omg no backgrounds in the part where they play chicken”, geez dude you just bitched about weird multiplane motions and went on about how painted bgs are fundamentally fixed, now think about how much more you’d whine about the tricks that would have to be done to avoid drawing cycles of buildings passing by in the bg of those shots without improving them in the least by distracting you from the awesome high-speed motorcycle fight.
Also who the hell calls a hook-up a “settle”, what the hell, has the terminology really changed that much since I was in the animation industry in the early noughts, or is this guy just full of it?
Oh man… The Order to stop Construction is one of rhe best robot themed scifi pieces ever.
Edit: I’ve loved that piece so much I even once made a fan edit of Robot Carnival taking out the creepy German doll one and inserting TOTSC.
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I both salute your fo-rizzle authentic old-school anime geek creds, and worshipfully fantasize about seeing Akira in the theater in Japan during its initial release. WHOA! 
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Well that’s messed up, the creepy German doll one is great! 
I’ve loved Robot Carnival (and the others) since I was a kid (I can’t believe it’s been over a quarter-century of anime geekdom), and that one is actually a short that stands out to me, in a collection of incredible shorts. The pacing, music, and art/animation are wonderful. So, yeah, it’s about a weird fantasy of making a clockwork underage “girlfriend,” but so is half* of anime…
*considerably more than half
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I would have left in “Presence” (creepy German doll story) and replaced “Cloud,” which was too slow and cerebral for the general mood of the movie. “The Order to Stop Construction” would have been perfect for Robot Carnival.
Cloud has really grown on me over the years. I think I may have found it a bit slow as a 15yo, but I’ve loved it for decades now as well.
