Akira: Part 2 THEMES OF AKIRA/NEO-TOKYO IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE/GETTING READY FOR VOL 1.

Themes of Akira

Kaneda and Tetsuo

Akira covers many different themes over its long story. What I find the most fascinating is that the themes get more serious as you go along; much like adolescence and adulthood. Kaneda and his biker buddies just want to race around Neo-Tokyo, pop some pills, and occasionally get laid. Nothing too out of the ordinary there. But the moment Tetsuo's bike crashes into a strange boy with 26 tattooed on his hand, their lives become increasingly more complicated, and their problems only get worse from there. One thing that you have to pay attention to when reading Akira is growth. What does each character grow into, and how is it different from what they were when the novel started?

While trying not to spoil too much, each main character in the book goes through some event where they must confront something that is bigger than them. In order to accomplish this task, they are asked to go above and beyond their physical limitations in order to succeed. Kaneda, Tetsuo, Kei, Lady Miyako, and even Akira himself all face something that is more powerful than they ever imagined, and how they react to these situations frame the story and what happens inside of it.

Imagery is incredible in the comic. People who have a love for artwork should definitely read it just for the eye candy.

The second main theme you would have to consider is power, and what it does to people who wield it. One main quote you can get from the motion picture is the one where the Espers are using Kei to talk to Kaneda, where they mention what would happen if an insect was able to gain the intelligence of a human, and what that would mean. Akira, Takashi, Kiyoko, Masaru, and Tetsuo are all given these amazing powers, and they all treat them differently. Each person seems to accept their place in what their powers truly mean, and while Tetsuo uses his abilities for fear and control, the others seem to try their best to distance themselves from what they have. We'll get into why that is later on down the road.

Speaking of control, this is the third and final main theme that you should consider when reading Akira. This is often an overlooked theme in the novel, but make no mistake, the entire book deals with control and what people will do to obtain it and what they will do to hang onto it. Control can be seen in almost every panel of the comic. Kaneda controls his gang of friends at the beginning, but Tetsuo wants to branch out and carve his own piece of history. The Colonel wants to control the Espers and the power they possess, but they just want to be able to control their own lives. The terrorists want control of their government, and the government is trying to control the terrorists in order to do their bidding behind closed doors. See what I mean? The later chapters deal with control even more thoroughly, but again, I don't want to spoil too much of what is going to happen down the road. 

The power of Akira

Neo-Tokyo is About to EXPLODE

Neo-Tokyo is the setting of this piece, and like I said in the previous post, it's one of the most vivid cities you will ever see in a comic book. Japan in the 80s was seen as the technological leaders in the world market, and their gadgets and cars soon poured into the States at an alarming rate. Nintendo, Sony, and Honda all made a huge chunk of their money off North American sales, and with so much Japanese hardware laying around, it was easy to picture this country as a place where the future met the present. Akira is built off this premise, but with one catch, this Japan is built from the ashes of an attack that decimated Tokyo. Without warning, and explosion rocks the entire city, leveling most of it, and causing WWIII in the process. Foreign countries see this as an attack and use the tension of the Cold War to finally engage in the battle that never was. 30 some years after the bomb went off, Neo-Tokyo now stands, still thriving even after the attack, much like Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

Street gangs seem to have overtaken the city, and lawlessness is everywhere. The schools are run down, and most of the kids grow up in homes for neglected children. All the while, there is still a slick sheen to the entire city, and it's neon still fills the skyline at night. While the kids race around on their state of the art bikes, they still don't seem to be able to get ahead in life all that much. While the ceiling is incredibly high, the road to get there seems almost impossible for our protagonists, at least at the beginning of the novel. 

While Neo-Tokyo does get leveled and changed around in the film, it's nowhere near the level that it went through in the manga. Neo-Tokyo turns from the post-WWIII beacon of hope to something out of Mad Max about halfway through the book, and it's important to notice that the entire city is always the focus of the conversation in the latter part of the piece. 

Neo-Tokyo is as essential to the novel as Akira himself. Without it, the story wouldn't be as impactful, because you have to consider the entire history of Japan when looking at Neo-Tokyo. Considering that Japan had already gone through a horrible nuclear attack, something like the damage done at the beginning of the book makes you think back to those pictures and videos they show you in high school of the dropping of the bomb. It's crazy to think that a power like that would be unleashed onto people and they would be able to survive, but Japan did, and flourished. Much like that, the residents of Neo-Tokyo witness an ungodly power rain down on them, and they have to learn how to survive afterward.

Power does strange things to people.

GETTING READY FOR VOL 1.

If you are interested in reading Akira yourself, a copy can be easily attained. Local libraries are great for reading manga these days, and if they don't have it, you can always try an interlibrary loan. That's of course if you want to read the book for free. If you would like to own a copy of it yourself, you can find it on Amazon. It's not badly priced, and if you space out buying the volumes, you can actually save some money when buying. There are places you can easily read it digitally online, but I wouldn't suggest it on your first reading. The artwork is bar none, and some of that will be lost if you are trying to read it on your phone screen or a computer.

There aren't many books I would suggest before reading Akira, but if you are looking at the novel as a whole, it's always a good idea to look towards the things that help inspire the manga, as well as pieces that it may have impacted after it's publication. Star Wars, Ghost in the Shell, and Strange Things are movies and TV shows that seem to have a similar tone and atmosphere to a lot of what you see in Akira, particularly people being able to do extraordinary feats. Another movie that people point to is Chronicle, although this would be more along the lines of the film, and not so much the book.

When looking for comics that have the same feel as Akira, you may have some difficulty. The book far exceeded what expectations people had of it when it came out in the early 80s, and with it encompassing so many genres, it can be hard to pin it down to one style to look for. One manga that always comes to mind when I think of Akira is Fist of the North Star. The story is vaguely similar to the latter part of Akira, and it was written and published around the same time, so I think those are some reasons why.

Sometimes, dialogue isn't needed, especially if you can convey what you want with ingenuity. 

Nothing is really going to prepare you for Akira the manga. Even the film, as massive and complicated as it is, is nowhere near as immersive as the novel alone. But one shouldn't feel intimidated when getting ready to undertake Akira. It's honestly a fast read, even with the size, mostly because it's an engaging story, and you can probably polish off a couple of volumes a day if you are in the zone. 

NEXT: AKIRA PART 3: AKIRA VOL 1. TETSUO/CONTROL, AND WHO IS REALLY CONTROLLING WHO/COME WITH ME NOW, AND ACCEPT WHAT YOU ARE/KANEDA AND TETSUO

Akira: Introduction to a Masterpiece

One of the most popular movie scenes of all time.

Akira was first published on December 6, 1982, in Japan's popular Young Magazine. Written by Katsuhiro Otomo, it took over 8 years to complete, spanned over 2,000 pages, and was collected in six huge volumes. Akira is a monster of a manga, in size and in depth. It was translated and brought to the States by Epic Comics, an imprint of Marvel from the 80s-90s that produced independent work. Akira wasn't like anything anybody had seen before. When it was first published in Japan, the term "cyberpunk" wasn't even widely being used yet. William Gibson wouldn't publish Neuromancer for another couple of years. Looking back at the 80s, there were jumps with computer technology almost daily, and it must have seemed scary for a lot of people back then; seeing this horizon where technology would be the end all be all. We forget that not long ago, the idea of a computer being able to sit on a desk was unthinkable, and now we carry tiny computers around in our pockets. This feeling of dread is what a lot of writers were able to encompass when working with the "cyberpunk" genre. Even with society moving towards more advanced machines and computers, there was no guarantee that it would make our lives better or easier.

Otomo was able to explore themes like this in his seminal work. He took ideas and inspirations from Star Wars, and an old manga by the name of Tetsujin 28-go to create Neo-Tokyo, the setting of our story in question. According to the manga, on December 6, 1982, an explosion rocks Tokyo, completely destroying it and starting World War III in the process. By 2019, Neo-Tokyo has been built to replace the old city. Gangs and misfits run amuck, seemingly uninhibited, while the Government conducts experiments in secret labs underground. The city looks massive, almost breathing from the page, and it shows not only in the writing but in Otomo's choices of wide shots of the entire city. Akira feels like a huge world.

Neo-Tokyo goes through vast changes throughout the novel. Far more than it goes through in the movie.

But Otomo didn't feel the comic alone could do justice to the world he was trying to create. After working on a film titled Harmagedon: The Great Battle With Genma, Otomo decided that he could make a film based on Akira. Animation was the only way people would be able to see Akira for what it truly was. So while the comic was still being produced, Otomo took a break and made the movie. Most of you have probably seen it. It's definitely one of most famous anime movies of all time, if not THE most famous.

Even with Akira being such a seminal piece of manga and anime history, I have not been able to find any analysis of the book online. Sure, you can see a bunch of articles and blogs written about the film (which it is a good film) but finding any sort of literature on the book itself doesn't seem to have been undertaken, which really is a shame because the book itself is vastly superior to the film. Don't get me wrong, the movie is amazing, but in order to get the entire scope of what Otomo is trying to say, you have to read the books.

Cover of Vol. 1. This is the most widely circulated copy of Akira, but Epic Comics did release a color version with different covers not found in this copy. It does still contain many of the colored pages of the Epic Comics printing, but only the first couple of pages of each new chapter.

Why? I'm sure that's a lot of people's minds. Why should I read 2,000 pages if there is a two-hour movie that covers pretty much the same broad strokes? To this person, I say they are missing out on a completely different journey than what the two hours has to offer. Sure, I will admit that the movie supplies an adequate summary of what the book means. But there is still this great book that you can dive into that has what the movie does, and so much more.

Too often, I feel that we use the excuse that if the movie is good enough, the book can be skipped. I've heard that excuse for books like Fight Club, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, and Breakfast at Tiffany's. For the original works to just be remembered as the source material isn't what the authors intended us to do with their work, but if the movie proves good enough, that is exactly what most of us do. I argue that this is the reason that Otomo's novel doesn't get the love and admiration that it so deserves. The movie surpasses all preconceived notions of what it is supposed to be by the end, and with that feeling, most people don't care to really find out what happened with the novel at all.

Did you know that there are entire story arcs left out of the movie Akira that took place in the manga? It's hard to cram 2000 plus pages into a two-hour movie. Otomo did a fantastic job, but some of the stories are really too good to be overlooked so easily.

I have decided to explore the manga and write a proper analysis on the story and themes. I do this in hopes that more people may want to go out and read the comic rather than just watch the movie again. I personally find it sometimes sad that we do take the easiest route to obtain information, while the best way is to do it is to study, and take in information with time and thought. A comic can achieve that a lot easier than a movie can. A movie is flashing, and constantly moving, while a comic is still, and can be stopped and pondered upon at any time, just like a regular novel. Akira is like an expensive steak dinner. You should savor every bite while anticipating the next. While the movie does a great job of that, one should never overlook how great this book really is.

NEXT TIME: THEMES OF AKIRA/NEO-TOKYO IS ABOUT TO EXPLODE/GETTING READY FOR VOL 1.

Hubert Selby Jr.

Most people have never heard of Hubert Selby Jr., and the fact that I have had to tell so many people about one author has always made me incredibly sad. Selby, known by his close friends as Cubby, is one writer who completely changed the landscape of fiction over 50 years ago, but his work is seldom taught in any curriculum; college, high school, or otherwise. When I do come across someone who also likes his work, it seems the same trends will hold true of what we both appreciate, and that is Cubby's honesty. The books always feel like real people, and they seem to take chunks out of your life while reading it.

I mentioned earlier how I had ditched school to read all of the Last Exit to Brooklyn. I'm not the only one who was transfixed by this story. In the introduction to Requiem for a Dream, Darren Aronofsky stated he read the book the week he was supposed to be studying for finals, and he ended up failing them because he wanted to finish the book. That's the passion that Selby fans have towards his work. His writing speaks to you in a rare fashion that can't be ignored, whether you enjoy it or not.

Hubert Selby Jr. was born and raised in Brooklyn, New York during the great depression, and his hard upbringing shone through in his writing. He wrote about survivors, and how hard it is exactly for one to survive when you aren't supposed to. I think this was because the deck was always stacked against Cubby. At 15, he faked his age to enlist in the Merchant Marines, and while at sea he contracted tuberculosis. He ended up losing a half of a lung, and was sent home and told to die. Determined not to have a wasted life, Selby started writing to pursue a career. He spent the rest of his life dedicated to that craft, and in the end, he published seven novels and three spoken word albums.

Selby's life story by itself is amazing. What the man produced on paper sticks out even more. While he only had a limited education due to leaving for service at such a young age, Selby still was able to piece together enough knowledge to get his prose written out. If he didn't know the word, it was spelled out phonetically. Due to not wanting to waste time while typing, he would use / marks to indicate apostrophes rather than spend the time to hit the shift key. Although it turns off most readers who write off Selby, it also shows people through a different lens. Cubby let the action carry the book and did not concern himself with the technicalities.

Selby, like many authors, unfortunately, lived the majority of his life in poverty. While in the hospital for his TB, he also developed a morphine dependency that followed him for years. Selby was able to kick the habit, even going so far as to refuse it on his deathbed, but he was able to revisit the theme of addiction with Requiem, which goes to show how much guts one would have to face a topic that hits so close to home, and not fall back into addiction.

I'm not sure why a heroin addict from New York was able to grab my attention with such force at a young age. I stopped questioning my tastes a long time ago, and Selby is one of those that I have come to accept as a deep love and appreciation for what he has done in my life. But there have been many people who I have given his books that hated it. I can see that side of the coin as well. It's hard to look at life when it seems so raw and meaningless. The majority of people who I know that read does so to escape, not think about more depressing shit, and Selby is the anti-feel good author. I don't suggest reading his work unless you like books like Irvine Welsh's Trainspotting, or American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis.

Hubert Selby Jr. isn't remembered by the masses. He has never written a New York Times Bestseller, and he isn't brought up too often when discussing American writers. But his writing is still amazing, and so emotional that it should be at the very least peaked at. He is such a polarizing figure in American literature, and his work has shaped the way I have looked at literature for the rest of my life.