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A review by joshperna
Akira 35th Anniversary Box Set by Katsuhiro Otomo
4.0
Immediately after finishing the film adaptation of Akira I knew I wanted to dive into the source material and glean what I could glean to learn more about such an incredible film.
What I found out, ironically enough, is that the film adaptation and the source books are vastly different stories. The manga series is rather large, so one would obviously think that many subplots and miniature story arcs would need to be condensed or altogether scrapped, like many films need to do. But no, this is an entirely different story. Same beginning, similar climax, but virtually every plot beat that happens in the book is completely different than the film. Where the film "ends" is approximately 40% of the way through the story, but it uses the same climax that the series has. Odd.
All in all it was a very fun ride, and is understandably the Godfather of all modern Japanese storytelling. My personal predilections lead me to preferring the film for its tighter storytelling and ambiguity (one could say the series overplays its hands, revealing how undercooked some of the philosophy is.) But I had a fantastic ride getting to the end of the series, I definitely ate it up very quickly.
What I found out, ironically enough, is that the film adaptation and the source books are vastly different stories. The manga series is rather large, so one would obviously think that many subplots and miniature story arcs would need to be condensed or altogether scrapped, like many films need to do. But no, this is an entirely different story. Same beginning, similar climax, but virtually every plot beat that happens in the book is completely different than the film. Where the film "ends" is approximately 40% of the way through the story, but it uses the same climax that the series has. Odd.
All in all it was a very fun ride, and is understandably the Godfather of all modern Japanese storytelling. My personal predilections lead me to preferring the film for its tighter storytelling and ambiguity (one could say the series overplays its hands, revealing how undercooked some of the philosophy is.) But I had a fantastic ride getting to the end of the series, I definitely ate it up very quickly.