Akira Blu-ray Review

• 20th Jun 2011

Finally, the greatest animated feature known to mankind has arrived on Blu-ray.  We covered Akira in our retrospective area already so I won’t get plot heavy (suffice to say it’s very character, plot and event heavy from start to end).  What begins as a tale of teenage bikers roaming the streets of neo-Tokyo in the aftermath of WWIII, ends up a complex tale of friendships, governments and nuclear fallout tied together in a clever meshed net of science fiction and horror.

Those that have seen and loved this film can return to it to discover new delights; and Blu-ray lets you go further with the updated image quality.  I checked out the trailers that are also on the disc first which are of fairly poor visual quality compared to the film itself. Animated films do not tell lies – it’s fairly evident early on that you’re looking at a prime example right from the whiteout explosion of the beginning through the street racing scenes. The city is beautifully captured and is just so visually arresting.

That well known Akira score pumps along and makes it impossible to want to get up from your seat to even think about doing anything else. The audio offers several voice tracks, three of which are Japanese. The quality of these ranges from poor to high. The English track on offer is the second re-dub that was done for the last DVD release.  So anyone who hated the original English version (that featured what seemed to be a  lot of the voice cast from the Teenage Mutant Hero Turtles animated show) can rejoice in its non-existence.

Akira remains a masterful piece of anime work – and yet where are all the bloody extras?  A few stills and trailers aside this disc has very little else. Now remember the film and the quality it’s in is worth the price tag alone for sure; but someone please get out there and make a few documentaries on Manga, the making of Akira and the effects and impact it and Manga anime have had on us over here in the UK since the late early 90s.

Steven Hurst