Akira
You ever watch a movie and hit it with 4 stars and then revisit it a few years later and just go oh so I slept on the greatest movie ever made huh?
Holy fuck. A bit messy, yes, and I’m not surprised to read the story is compressed from the manga. But those feel like “too many notes” complaints against the combination of dystopian/cyberpunk sci-fi, eerie body/psychological horror, and youth gangland epic here. The last part in particular shouldn’t work (especially given that I had to watch the dub, in which all the actors playing the gang lean into it so hard they all sound like they’re from West Side Story lol), but it all does, and I can’t explain why other than by sheer aura. Feel like a ten year old writing this but god it’s just cool as hell. Anyone who follows me here should know I’m an absolute sucker, just a total rube, for a good cityscape in film - Neo-Tokyo, in its sleazy textures and eye-melting pop-art colors, is one of the best. All the color design in this is just so beautiful. An absolutely insane movie to look at and experience, all animated by the desire to violently slip the surly bonds of this shitty existence and ascend to a new one via surreally disgusting bodily transfiguration.