When an anime breaks all the rules...

I recently watched Akira and I could not get over how this one anime influenced the entire world of animation. In this video, I wanna talk about Akira, and what happens when an anime breaks all the rules...
Chapters
0:00 The Akira Slide
0:32 Anime in the 80s
1:23 When Akira broke the rules
6:26 The influence of Akira
It is crazy to think what the landscape of anime would've been without Akira. It could well and truly be one of the most influential movies of our time. But when it came out, it was an anomaly, the animation style was different.
Akira was one of the first anime that used a fair amount of smooth animation, animation on 1s, which was only possible because of the insane budget of $10 million dollars it receieved as a result of the bubble economy that Japan was in at that time. So, the budget was there, for Katsuhiro Otomo, to fulfil his vision, and this was arguably the biggest project in Japanese animation at that time.
But when Akira broke all the rules of anime, it's biggest influence came in western pop culture, where people who had a certain perspective of japanese animation, completely had to change their perspective to accomadate the violent and mature theme of Akira. It had never happened before, this was arguably the first mature anime, that was philosophical, to make you think.
Today, the influence of Akira can be seen in the world of Cinema. Movies like The Matrix, Inception, shows like Stranger Things, anime like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the shell, they all borrowed elements from Akira. Akira has its place in history, and it goes to show what anime can be when you think differrently, when an anime breaks all the rules...

[@wonderescence]

Which anime was the most influential?

[@jimjimgl3]

I came to Akira as an adult years after its release. This film deserves the description of "epic". I remember sitting in the theater ( I think somewhere downtown in NYC) and feeling entranced by the abundance of detail. Even without a great story, or intense sound design or deep character portrayal just the renderings alone would make this animation masterful. Thanks for the analysis.

[@wonderescence]

It must've been a great experience I'd imagine! And thank you for the support!

[@behindtheanimatorsdesk]

This film is just jaw dropping, specially if you witnessed watching it in the era it came out. It truly amazed people, and truly broke the animation and anime medium. The main reasons for this was the fact that this movie consisted of 2,212 shots and 160,000 single pictures, 2-3 times more than usual, using 327 different colors (another record in animation film), 50 of which were exclusively created for the film. And you can tell, since this film visually has stood up alone today, looking even better then some films today, and that shows a lot for a film made decades ago. It’s not just that it was visually amazing, but specially when this film got to a western audience. It truly blew people’s minds away that they saw a animated film (that at the time were seen aimed for children) consisted in complex imagery and messages, violent and disturbing scenes, and discussing very heavy topics about politics, human power and mortality, war and crimes etc. This film is truly incredible, and in my opinion one of the greatest films to exist. This film is still being talked about, and is still influential today. By influencing even more films and as of course as well the animation medium. Which Akira will always been known as very up there within it.

[@petar4onachev]

Great video!
How doesn't it have 1 million views yet?

[@wonderescence]

Haha, thanks for the support! Appreciate it!!

[@brainbomb.]

The creators must have had experience pucid dreaming and then taking inspiration from those dreams.

[@leannerose6181]

Remember swapping this vhs tape in the 90s, borrowing anime w my friends

[@wonderescence]

Watching anime on vhs must've been such a unique experience...

[@Pan_Fryer]

[@Waferdicing]

🙃