Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney and with special guests Graham Day and Marianne Cassidy, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.
This year, we are proud to continue the tradition of Anime April, a fortnight looking at two of the animated Japanese films on the list. This year, we watched a double feature of Hayao Miyazaki’s Kaze no tani no Naushika and Katsuhiro Ôtomo’s Akira.
This week, the first part of the double bill, Akira, set in the then-distant future of 2019.
In the streets of Neo-Tokyo, an entire generation is left to fend for itself. Against a backdrop of reckless violence and urban chaos, as the city seems ready to burn to the ground around them, teenagers Tetsuo and Kaneda have forged a friendship rooted in desperation and necessity. However, everything changes when Tetsuo has a fleeting encounter with a strange child, and opens doors to possibilities that were previously unimaginable.
At time of recording, it was ranked the 216th best movie of all time on the Internet Movie Database.
Show notes:
- Recorded 7th April 2019.
- Anime April is an annual tradition on The 250, with our anime experts Graham and Marianne. This was Graham’s idea, and prompted in large part by our satisfaction with the episode that we recorded on Your Name. Last year’s installments were Isao Takahata’s Hotaru no haka and Hayao Miyazaki’s Tonari no Totoro.
- Akira at The Internet Movie Database.
- The IMDB 250 as it appeared at time of recording.
- Read Marianne’s blog at Massive Hassle.
- Follow Marianne on Twitter.
- Read Graham’s reviews at Scannain.
- Hear Graham on Speaking Geek.
- Read Graham’s guide to Irish Gaming at Gameir.
- Follow Graham on Twitter.
- Matt Schlet at The Japan Times looks at the history of Akira, July 2018.
- Andrew Carroll at Headstuff reflects on the legacy of Akira, July 2018.
- Andrew Osmond at Empire Online looks at the inspiration and context of Akira, October 2015.
- Madeline Ashby at Tor.com on the challenges of adapting Akira for America, December 2011.
- Ollie Barder at Forbes reports on the latest updates around Taika Waititi’s adaptation of Akira, April 2018.
- Jordan Peele talks to 13th Floor about turning down the opportunity to direct the Akira adaptation, May 2017.
- Ryan Lamble at Den of Geek on 1988 as a watershed year for Japanese animation, including Akira, September 2016.
- Amy Chavez at The Japan Times on the year of the dragon, December 2011.
- Isabella Steger at Quartz on the Chinese (not Japanese) phenomenon of “dragon children”, August 2017.
- William Wasteman at Vice on how Akira brought anime to the west, September 2016.
- Phil Hoad at The Guardian on how Akira influenced mainstream American (and western) filmmaking, July 2013.
- Micah Witt at Medium on the sheer level of success and impact of Akira, March 2017.
- Steve Oliff talks to Anime News Network about bringing the manga Akira to American comic book stores with Marvel comics, March 2016.
- Dart Adams at Medium contextualises Akira with other movements in eighties cult culture, including comic books, December 2014.
- Dan Sarto at Animation World Network on the remastered Akira touring the United States, May 2001.
- Jen Monroe at Listen to This on the soundtrack to Akira, February 2017.
- Rian Johnson talks to Collider about Akira as an influence on Looper, September 2012.
- Kanye West acknowledges Akira as his “biggest creative inspiration” at The Fader, August 2018.
- Meredith Woerner at io9 on Chronicle as an American adaptation of Akira, October 2012.
- Max Covill at Film School Rejects on the influence of Akira on contemporary American pop culture, April 2017.
- Gretchen Felker-Martin at VRV on Akira as a portrait of masculine pain and isolation, August 2018.
- Matt Schley at The Japan Times on how Akira changed animation as a whole, July 2018.
- Dave Kehr at The New York Times on anime as Japanese cinema’s “second golden age”, January 2002.
- Matt Reynolds at Wired on the voting demographics on the IMDb, October 2017.
- Darren on the weaponisation of IMDb voting by certain demographics, February 2018.
- Bert Ehrmann at Dangerous Universe on the connections between Akira and contemporary superhero cinema, June 2018.
- Andrew Griffin at The Independent on how LSD affects the brain, April 2016.
- Scott Thill at Wired includes Akira in his list of psychedelic animation, June 2012.
- Sean Illing at Vox on the latest popular hallucinogen, ayahuasca, February 2018.
- Scott Jeffery at Academia.edu on the silver age superhero as psychedelic shaman, November 2011.
- Emily Dunkin at Some Spilt Ink on violence and masculinity in Akira, August 2018.
- Kim Ann Zimmermann at Live Science on the Kelvin scale, September 2013.
- Katsuhiro Otomo talks to Forbes about designing Kaneda’s iconic bike, May 2017.
- Carolyn Burke at Crunchy Roll on the iconic “Akira slide”, December 2018.
- Abraham Riesman at Vulture maps all of the references in Ready Player One, March 2018.
- Joe Reid at Decider on the irony of the use of the Iron Giant in Ready Player One, December 2018.
- Kevin Kelly recommends Ready Player One on The Tim Ferriss Show, August 2014.
- Jillian D’Onfro at Business Insider on Facebook providing a copy of Ready Player One to every member of the Occulus team, July 2016.
- Abi Wilkinson at The Guardian on the radicalisation of young men online, November 2016.
- Benjamin Woo at The Walrus on the simmering anger within nerd culture, April 2018.
- Jed Mayer at IndieWire on the use of children in horror films, October 2014.
- Duncan Hubber at Slam Dunk Studios on the generational crisis at the heart of Akira, May 2011.
- Anime from Akira to Howl’s Moving Castle: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation by Susan J. Napier at Amazon, November 2005.
- Hannah Lee at The Monsoon Project on Akira as a reflection of Japan’s future past, April 2019.
- Alexander Martin at The Wall Street Journal on what the 1964 Olympics meant for Tokyo, September 2013.
- Julia Joffe at The Atlantic on the tendency to use the Olympics to signal everything is okay in countries where everything is not okay, February 2018.
- Jeff Kingston at The Japan Times on the failed military coup of 1936, February 2016.
- Joe Marczynski at Little White Lies on the atomic spectre looming over Akira, August 2016.
- Mark Player at Midnight Eye on body horror in Japanese cinema of the eighties, May 2011.
- Joseph Walsh at the BFI on the portrayal of Japan’s biker gangs in Akira, July 2018.
- Ricky Schupp at Tokyo Weekender offers a brief introduction to the Tokyo biker gangs that influenced Akira, December 2018.
- Kat Callahan at Jalopnik reflects on the disappearing Japanese biker gangs like the bosozoku, October 2014.
- Keiji Hirano at The Japan Times on the Tokyo protest movement of the sixties, June 2010.
- Jennifer Thompson at The New Statesman on the cynical revolutionary politics of The Who’s Won’t Get Fooled Again, March 2010.
- Meryl Gottlieb at Business Insider on urban devastation in the modern superhero film, August 2016.
- Michael Calia at The Wall Street Journal on “the guilty pleasure” of mass destruction in contemporary superhero films, May 2015.
- Brand ‘n’ Brand demonstrates Garnier Fructis’ Manga Head in action, September 2014.
- Joe Banks at The Quietus looks at the influence of Alan Moore’s Miracleman, June 2014.
- Julian Darius at Sequart on the shadow that Miracleman casts over modern superhero films like Man of Steel, June 2013.
- Katsuhiro Otomo talks to Akira 2019 about the way in which Akira revolutionised lip synching, December 2009.
- The Nerdwriter on the use of lighting in Akira, November 2016.
- Anthony Nield at The Quietus on the body horror of Tetsuo: The Iron Man, October 2012.
- Peter Wynn Kirby at The New York Times on Japanese culture grappling with the nuclear horror, March 2011.
- The Artiface looks at what Akira says about Japan’s culture after the Second World War, October 2018.
- Paul Kreisberg at The Los Angeles Times on the paradox of Japan as a non-military global power in the eighties, December 1988.
- Laura D’Andrea Tyson at The Los Angeles Times on Japan’s reluctance to embrace the global power that it held, March 1991.
- Joseph M. Juran at The Washington Post on how Japanese manufacturers took America by surprise, August 1993.
- Daniel Fandino at Journey to the Wired West on the fear of an ascendant Japan in contemporary American popular culture like Die Hard, March 2018.
- Yasuo Kagawa at Preventive Medicine on the impact of westernisation on Japanese nutrition, June 1978.
- Dave Gutteridge at DaveGutteridge.com on lactose intolerance in Japan, August 2013.
- The Grace of Kings by Len Liu at Amazon.com, August 2016.
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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: akira, Anger, anime april, atomic bomb, body horror, graham day, hallucinations, japan, Katsuhiro Ôtomo, marianne cassidy, masculinity, psychedelia, rage, superheroes, time travel |
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