Akira (the anime), Otomo Katsuhiro

    The biggest classic in all of anime. Not my all-time favourite. It's quite a quiet film considering it's content (I suspect Oshii Mamoru might have got a few ideas from watching this.) Pundits have repeatedly cited how they like the 'violence.' There isn't actually that much. I wouldn't pay much attention to such people, they watch Legend of the Overfiend. Apparently there's a lot of subtext that I haven't been initiated into to appreciate, but the film quickly takes a turn for the more bizzare. The presence of biker gangs is hardly the focus of the film. Instead it takes place in a future, post-world war society and is much more to do with social turmoil (mirroring that of the sixties), local hosting of the Olympic Games and fanatical religious groups combined with a secret government project (concerning Akira) and an underground 'terrorist' organisation determined to get to the bottom of it that the hapless members of Kaneda's biker gang literally run into.