Something Cult, Foreign-Language or Indie #45: Akira (1988).

Neo-Tokyo rises from the ashes of a nuclear explosion on 16 July 1988. Swarming with malaise and corruption, by 2019 it has become a sordid, hazardous maze. The Japanese government has now enacted the Akira Project to discipline out-of-control delinquent youths, namely those in motorcycle gangs. One such gang includes childhood friends Shotaro Kaneda and Tetsuo Shima, who encounter a military operation to recover a fugitive experimentation subject. Tetsuo, already more sullen than Kaneda, is captured and now becomes their guinea pig. Their mental experiments awaken his dormant psychic powers but when these get out of hand, he rampages against the world that has tormented him, and now only Kaneda can stop him - and save us.

Nothing can prepare you for the awesome action, visuals and (most significantly) thematic resonance of Akira. Adapting his own seminal manga, Katsuhiro Otomo here helped to define anime and 29 years later it hasn't aged a day. The level of detail and futuristic insight in the animation shows painstaking dedication, the action sequences are very fluidly framed and edited, Otomo's direction also studies each character very observantly, and Shoji Yamashiro's score is pulsating.

But where Akira most of all stands out, even breaking new ground, is in its indictment of dominance and mind control. These boys are no angels, they are still children nonetheless, and in adolescence any emotion can be hazardous. Their treatment at the hands of the authorities, much like real-life "discipline" for teenagers, is misguided and hypocritical abuse, potentially leaving them institutionalised at best.

Obviously, Akira is not an animated film for the whole family. And anime, as I've said here before, is an acquired taste. But if you can handle strong violence, and want plenty of food for thought, Akira should be right up your alley. And if I can close on a personal note, I'm proud to say it was released on my date of birth (16/07/1988)!