Now It’s 2019, Akira Is More Valuable Rather Than Less
Although I don’t go into plot details or character arcs, I touch on some of the themes of Akira. Not many spoilers at all.
We’ve reached the year in which the events of Akira were set in. Where Tokyo is known as Neo-Tokyo. Where the city is corrupt and overrun with crime. And where kids with psychic powers are being experimented on by the government. There’s an aggravating narrative that’s been perpetrating conversations about the plot and setting for seemingly forever. It’s the idea that a piece of art, whether that be film, television, a novel or a video game, is lessened by the fact that the futuristic setting within it has not come to pass. I have a couple of points I would like to express while talking about Akira over the course of this piece. The first is one that should should be extremely logical and that many people have likely talked about before: These futuristic settings are part of a piece of fiction, they don’t actually exist. It’s a bizarre point, but one that needs to be stated. The arguments for films like Akira having less impact in 2019 are barely made when discussing fantasy or alternate history films like Harry Potter or Inglourious Basterds. These futuristic films are torn apart for simply applying a future setting to their art and then the world not fulfilling the sci-fi aspects they believe were ‘promised’ to them. The other point I’ll discuss is the majority of these films include things that are, or were at the time, not possible to actually occur. With Akira it’s the idea of those kids with psychic powers and how it should be criticised for those points when it contains these fantasy elements. I hope to apply these points to Akira and show that these types of films aren’t lessened at all, and should be appreciated as much as they were, if not even more.
To focus on the first point of these pieces of art being fiction. It is a strange statement to make but these films aren’t meant to be a prediction of the future. They’re meant to make the audience think about what the possibilities of the future are as well as what other themes the film is trying to interweave with the setting. Because a piece of fiction doesn’t correctly predict the technology level of that future year, doesn’t mean it becomes a inferior product. In fact, we can look at these ‘predictions’ and see how the people at the time of production thought of either the future, or the potential future of their time. We can look at Akira and talk about it’s themes of corruption, government manipulation, individual freedom and see how they shape the look of this film’s version of 2019. Since we’ve reached the year of the film’s setting, we can actually take a few different perspectives on it including how it relates to our modern lives and draw parallels to our society in its current climate. Whether the corruption of governments in our world are on the same level as those depicted in Akira, or if we can continue as a people after an event causes our lives to supposedly stop or be diminished. These messages and parallels to draw do not disappear the minute our calendars read the same year. In fact, it enhances these messages the artist was trying to convey. If anything, it gets us to think about the film in a more contextual way and gives it an extra dimension to its aspects.
The second point about fantasy elements within these films connects to the first point. Similar to how the films shouldn’t be diminished for their ‘wrong predictions’, they also shouldn’t be criticised for them because they involving fantasy elements like magic, or psychic abilities. To link it back to Akira, the kids with psychic powers that the government are manipulating give no reason to complain that this hasn’t happened yet in 2019. The point the 1988 film tries to get across is that if the government is given any way to weaponise people, often times technology, it will so immediately and without too much thought to the individual freedom of those people. The idea of Akira, as well as other films that have these attributes, is to use the setting of science-fiction to convey messages that they either would have a hard time of doing or simply unable to do. It’s about the questions and thoughts the film proposes, rather than the minutiae of the plot. Akira is one of the best examples of a film with a needless plot. It’s not there to give you an epic quest of glory, or a balls to the wall action mayhem film. It’s there to give a small journey to the characters, who each simply represent an idea or characteristic that the creators want to throw out there. It’s about the experience and how you take forward the ideas the film has given to you.
This was quite a short one but as it cemented in my head the fact that we’re in the same year that Akira is set in, I felt I had to explain why I think this fact actually helps us understand and appreciate this great piece of art even more. This also applies to many other films including classics like Back to the Future Part II and Blade Runner who each have their own messages and themes to compare now we’re past the year they were set in. My last point is to look at these films with a little less judgement and try to take in the messages they’re trying to represent.
What are you going to do now?
-Boad
