Akira (Manga)

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Akira
Original title ア キ ラ
transcription Akira
Manga
country JapanJapan Japan
author Katsuhiro Otomo
publishing company Kodansha
magazine Young Magazine
First publication December 1982 - June 1990
expenditure 6th
Anime movie
► Akira (1988)

Akira ( Jap. アキラ ) is a 1,982 underway or completed in 1990 manga by Katsuhiro Otomo , the 1988 from this as Anime -Kinofilm Akira was implemented. It is an important, style and genre-defining Japanese comic and played a key role in the spread of manga and anime in the West , including the first fully published manga series in Germany .

The story is about young people in a post-apocalyptic, rebuilt Tokyo of the near future. These live in motorcycle gangs until one of them acquires supernatural skills, which, together with a military research project on these skills and political intrigue, leads to ever greater destruction and catastrophes. Finally, the one who caused the first destruction of Tokyo appears again - Akira - and participates in further events.

action

In 1982 Tokyo was destroyed by a nuclear explosion that started World War III. In 2019, the city was rebuilt as Neo-Tokyo on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay , but terrorism and gang crime are rampant in the city. Tetsuo Shima ( 島 鉄 雄 ) is a member of a Bōsōzoku gang led by Shōtarō Kaneda ( 金田 正 太郎 ). While driving through the ruins of old Tokyo, his motorcycle explodes when he drives towards the childlike-looking Takashi - a person with supernatural abilities. This incident awakens supernatural powers in Tetsuo as well, drawing the attention of a military research project under Colonel Shikishima ( 敷 島 大佐 ) to him. With increasing skills, Tetsuo's inferiority complex towards Kaneda, who had to protect him so far, takes over, until Tetsuo finally becomes the leader of the opposing clown gang.

Meanwhile, Kaneda starts a relationship with the terrorist Kei. She is a member of an organization led by the resistance activist Ryu and Nezu, the opposition leader in parliament. They learn of the Colonel's research project and a connection to a mysterious person named "Akira". They want to use this information politically. They try to keep Kaneda out of the activities of their organization. When Tetsuo and the clowns begin brutal turf wars across the city, the other gangs under Kaneda join forces against them. Although the clowns are easily defeated, Tetsuo is invincible because of his powers. But these forces also cause him great pain. Eventually the fighting gangs are taken into custody by the military and the Colonel offers Tetsuo medicine if he joins the research project.

In captivity, Kei is possessed by one of the other supernaturally empowered, Kiyoko. So she can free herself and Kaneda. Tetsuo questions one of the researchers about Akira and then forces him to be taken to the other people with supernatural abilities. Those three are Takashi, Kiyoko, and Masaru. Kaneda and Kei join in and a fight breaks out. Tetsuo learns that Akira - another test person who set off the explosion in Tokyo - is being frozen near the new Olympic Stadium. He makes his way there and enters the military base there the next day. The colonel follows him and tries to dissuade Tetsuo from his plan to wake Akira. Kaneda and Kei also invade the base and witness Tetsuo break the seal on Akira. At first he appears like a normal boy. But the military triggers the alarm in Neo-Tokyo and uses all its strength against the two. So the colonel finally has the SOL laser satellite aimed at Tetsuo and Akira, but can only injure Tetsuo's arm with it. Tetsuo disappears in the explosion. Akira meets Kaneda and Kei.

The three go back to Neo-Tokyo. The colonel lets search for Akira, among others through Lady Miyako, who also has supernatural abilities. Kaneda, Kei, Akira and the terrorist Chiyoko find accommodation on Nezu's yacht. But Akira betrays her and kidnaps Akira to use him for his own purposes. In Nezu's estate, the three can free Akira again. Meanwhile, the colonel has had enough of the government's hesitant response to the alarm - he is staging a coup and putting the city under martial law. Together with Lady Miyako's supporters and Nezu's private army, the colonel's men search the city for Kaneda, Kei, Chiyoko and Akira. They are surrounded in a sewer and the colonel arrests them. Nezu wants to shoot Akira so he doesn't fall into the hands of the government. But the colonel's soldiers kill him, Nezu's bullet misses Akira and hits Takashi. The shock of Takashi's death causes Akira to trigger a second atomic explosion that destroys Neo-Tokyo. Kei, Ryu, Chiyoko, the colonel and the supernaturally gifted survive, Kaneda has disappeared. Akira meets Tetsuo, who has disappeared by then.

Some time after the explosion, an American military expedition under Lieutenant Yamada reached the ruins of Neo-Tokyo. You find the city's surviving population split into two camps: the followers of Lady Miyako, who organize and distribute food and medicines; and the Great Empire of Tokyo led by Akira and Tetsuo. They are worshiped by their followers as gods who work miracles. The empire attacks the other inhabitants again and again and all who attack them are destroyed by the forces of Tetsuos. Kiyoko and Masaru are also targeted by the empire's attacks. She and Kei, Chiyoko and the Colonel join Lady Miyako. Lieutenant Yamada contacts Ryu and exchanges information with him. An American fleet has taken up position near the city, unnoticed by its residents.

Tetsuo increasingly needs government medication to control his pain. He visits Lady Miyako and learns about Akira's story there. She advises him to stop the medication in order to become even stronger. The withdrawal torments Tetsuo while one of his subordinates leads the empire's supporters to attack Miyako's temple. When the Colonel used SOL against the attackers, a crack opened in the sky. From this fall masses of debris from the explosion that destroyed the city, as well as Kaneda. This joins Kei and the others to fight against the Great Empire of Tokyo. At the same time, scientists arrive on the American fleet to analyze the events of Neo-Tokyo. They plan to kill Akira and Tetsuo with biological weapons. This leads to a falling out between Ryu and Lieutenant Yamada, who then returns to the fleet.

To demonstrate their power, Tetsuo and Akira hold a competition in the Olympic Stadium. At the climax of the competition, Tetsuo tears a crater in the moon with his powers, the debris of which form a ring around the moon. But this massive use of his forces leads to them getting out of control. They get stronger, step out of his body and devour objects around him. Any material is turned into flesh and becomes a part of its body. Tetsuo attacks the fleet to stop the scientists. A battle ensues between him and the US Navy. Soon the Kei, possessed by Lady Miyako, joins them to fight Tetsuo. Meanwhile, Kaneda and his motorcycle gang attack the Tokyo Empire in the stadium.

When the fight continues at the stadium, Tetsuo returns there. But his powers get completely out of control and his body mutates into a fetus shape. He can still absorb the following attack by the soldiers of Yamada with biological weapons and then regain control of his forces. Yamada and his troops are killed by him and Tetsuo can escape another attack with SOL. Kaneda and Kei fight against Tetsuo. This is interrupted by an intervention by the US Army, which bombs the whole city and uses its own laser satellite to somehow kill Tetsuo. This, however, knocks the satellite down onto the aircraft carrier of the fleet. When the attack ends, Tetsuo tries to revive the girl Kaori. Kaori was killed during the fight, but he was unable to resuscitate despite his strength. He brings her body to the cryogenic chamber in which Akira was sealed.

Kaneda and his friends go back to the fight against Tetsuo, who again loses control of his powers and mutates. Now for him this is becoming fatal. Tetsuo hurls the huge cryogenic chamber at the temple of Miyako, which dies as a result. But before that she can enable Kei to direct SOL on Tetsuo. The attack triggers another boost in Tetsuo's abilities, culminating in an explosion similar to Akira's. But the other people with supernatural abilities, Kiyoko, Masaru, Akira and the resurrected Takashi, can reverse the explosion and end the fight. The United Nations sends relief troops to Neo-Tokyo, but they are turned back there. Kaneda and friends declare the independence of the Great Empire from Tokyo and warn United Nations forces that Akira is still alive. Kaneda and Kei make peace with their former opponent, the Colonel, and from then on they live together in Neo-Tokyo, which is rising from the ruins.

Emergence

Before Akira , Katsuhiro Otomo created two other series with similar content. The Fireball , which appeared in 1979, is about young freedom fighters who try to save someone who is being abused by the government for experiments with their psychological abilities. The story ends with the person to be rescued causing a destructive “ball of fire”. The story may have been inspired by Alfred Bester's The Demolished Man from 1953. Otomo used this motif again in The Suicide Paradise from 1980 and 1981 and was awarded the Science Fiction Grand Prix for the work.

Otomo cited novels by Seishi Yokomizo as models for his series . These deal with "new races" of people who have adapted to a hostile environment. The Neuromancer trilogy by William Gibson, which founded cyberpunk , was unknown to Otomo, the first band Neuromancer only appeared a year after Akira began in Japan. Other models named by Otomo are the film Star Wars , the comics by Jean Giraud , and the manga series Tetsujin 28-gō .

The manga artist and director Satoshi Kon , who later became famous, was involved in the creation of Akira as an unnamed assistant .

style

Ōtomo's style is heavily influenced by French and American artists, such as Mœbius . He was one of the first to use a more realistic style with a smaller representation of the eyes. A "pathetic exaggeration and caricature-like reduction" that had prevailed in the manga up to that point was replaced by hyperrealism , according to Andreas C. Knigge. The dynamics of his drawings are reinforced by “cleverly used hatching” . Jason Thompson calls the manga the bleakly depicted urban future, detailed depictions of the city and machines, constantly escalating violence and a realistic representation of the characters as characteristic of the manga.

Publications

Akira appeared in Japan from December 20, 1982 to June 25, 1990 in 120 individual chapters of about 20 pages in length in the Manga magazine Young Magazine of the Kodansha publishing house. 1987 and 1988 paused the series because Katsushiro Otomo was busy working on the film. When it was completed, the series comprised almost 2200 pages, which were combined in six anthologies between 1984 and 1993. In June 1995, Akira Club ( ISBN 4-06-330003-X ) was published, a book with all 120 Akira covers and sketches that had not been published until then.

The manga first came from Japan to the USA, where it was mirrored for the western reading direction. This made numerous changes necessary, some of which Otomo and his studio carried out themselves. In Japan, for example, speech bubbles and labels were removed, the drawings underneath were completed and then the pages were mirrored. Individual pages were left in their original orientation if this was possible and promoted the flow of reading. Some of the texts in the images have also been completely removed, otherwise they would have to be read in a mirrored manner - others were retained despite the mirroring. After that, the originally black and white series was colored continuously by Steve Oliff and Olyoptics in the USA, according to color templates from Otomo and with a new kind of computer-aided technology that allowed color gradients. It was also Otomo who chose Steve Oliff for the job. The color palette was based on the film: the series should be adapted as much as possible to the American comic taste and perceived as a local production. The text was already translated into English by Kōdansha, then adapted to the American colloquial language in the USA and proofread again in Japan. In 1988, Epic Comics , an imprint of Marvel Comics , began releasing this version in the US, which was completed in 1995. A true-to-original version was published by Dark Horse from 2000 to 2002 . In France and Belgium, the first form of publication in 1990, which was based on the American version, was based on the albums customary there, so that the series appeared in eleven hard cover associations of 200 pages each. An edited version of Akira , based on the US version, was also released in Italy and Spain in the same year . The colored US version was also published in Japan as All Color Kokusaiban Akira ( オ ー ル カ ラ ー 国際 版 AKIRA , German “international color version Akira”) in 12 volumes between 1998 and 1996, and in six volumes Sōtennenshoku Akira ( 総 天然 色 AKIRA , German. "Completely natural Akira colors") in 2003 and 2004.

The edited US version was taken over by Carlsen Verlag and published in Germany from April 1991 to January 1996, the number of volumes being increased to 19 through a new division. Volume 20, which was also published, does not belong to the actual series, but contains a sketchbook with drafts. Akira is the first manga series to be published entirely in German. The large-format, lavishly designed implementation with a price of DM 30 per volume was aimed more at collectors and enthusiasts. From July 2000 to August 2001, Carlsen brought Akira onto the market again, this time in a "true to the work" edition in six black and white volumes, but still with a western reading direction. At the end of December 2016, a complete box, limited to 1991 pieces, was published by Carlsen Manga with the six softcover volumes in the fully colored version with western reading direction.

Anime

In 1988, an anime version of the series was released in cinemas in Japan . Katsuhiro Otomo directed and wrote the script himself. The plot is tightened in the film and brings many characters into a new context through a different course than in the manga.

The film also hit theaters in the United States, Germany, and other countries, and was the first anime to attract great interest from adult audiences in Western countries. The film was particularly successful in the USA, where it led to a steadily growing interest in manga and anime. He is considered one of the main triggers of the first anime and manga boom of the 1990s.

Actual filming

As announced on February 20, 2008, Warner Brothers and Appian Way Productions , the production company of actor Leonardo DiCaprio , acquired the film rights to Akira and planned to convert the manga into two real-life films. Each film should deal with the content of three manga volumes, but the plot should be moved to "New Manhattan". Ruairí Robinson was initially announced as director , along with Gary Whitta as screenwriter. But after Ruairi Robinson jumped in the spring of 2010, the brothers Allen Hughes and Albert Hughes were signed in his place a short time later . Gary Whitta's script was revised by Mark Fergus and Hawk Ostby during this time . In the end, this script version had to be revised by Albert Torres, so that the preproduction was started with this script. Two contiguous films were planned, which should cover the entire plot of the manga. In the anime , only half of the manga was implemented at the time.

In January 2012, the Hollywood Reporter announced that work on the real-life version of the film by Warner Brothers had been suspended for the time being. A financial reorientation in production costs is primarily responsible for this. In addition, there were inconsistencies due to the current version of the script.

Analysis and interpretation

Mio Bryce and Jason Davis name Akira a characteristic example of the science fiction mangas of the 1980s and 1990s, which mostly deal with the merging of people and technology. The series shows the lives and actions of actors in competing social groups such as the military, religions, gangs and revolutionaries. The plot is built around the basic idea of ​​people with supernatural powers, especially psychokinesis . However, the focus is on the development of characters, social conflicts and political machinations, according to Brad Brooks and Tim Pilcher. Andreas C. Knigge names the questioning of the performance principle that prevailed in Japan at the time and the desire for more individual freedom by many young people as one of the main themes of the series.

Susan J. Napier calls mutation and metamorphosis a motive that the work can be assigned to postmodernism , in which identity is constant change. She also sees it as an attack on the Japanese establishment, since Otomo treats Japanese culture - especially schools and the urge for progress - satirically. The motorcycle gangs driving around aimlessly on the streets of Akira are a symbol of the futility of the search for self-knowledge. Another topic is loss, as many characters are orphans or have no sense of the past. The nihilism , which is expressed in the basic mood of the work, identified Napier as a common theme in Japanese culture at the time. She calls Tetsuo's role as ruler in the course of history a successful reversal of the situation, since he was still an insignificant person at the beginning.

Jenny Kwok Wah Lau writes in Multiple Modernities that Akira is “a direct outgrowth of war and post-war life” . The atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the economic problems of overpopulation provided the background and motives for the plot. The theme of the work is the nature of the rebellion of youth against authority, control, the building of a society and the transformation as they grow up. The latter is mainly represented by the mutations and transformations of the characters. Jaqueline Berndt compares Akira with Coppelion , which appeared 30 years later in the same magazine. Both series are about young people who are exploited by authoritarian adults against a post-apocalyptic background. The apocalyptic threat in Akira is a destructive power of nuclear weapons symbolized by mutated people - in Coppelion atoms themselves are depicted anthropomorphically. In contrast to Akira , the younger series also contains cute depictions and is aimed at a younger audience. The plot conveys "the attitude towards life of the Japanese youth who began to rebel against the rigid performance society in the eighties," says Andreas C. Knigge . The interpretation of the "orgy of destruction" as an allegory on Hiroshima, however, was rejected by Otomo himself.

Success, reception and importance

The manga won the 1984 Kodansha Manga Prize in the General category. The art book, published later, sold within a month with a circulation of 500,000 copies. In 1993 the American edition won the Harvey Award and became a sales success in the USA. The American version was also the first comic to use the possibilities of computer-aided coloring on a large scale.

Akira was the first manga series to be successful in the USA. The theme and the mood of Akira hit the taste buds of America back then, says Frederik L. Schodt . The release of the film in the US also helped sell the comic. Nevertheless, the publication was temporarily not successful enough that there were long pauses in the USA in the 1990s before the publication of the next volume. Miriam Brunner also attributes the success to the marketing along with the anime film adaptation. Due to the colored US version, the manga is aesthetically closer to the anime. For the viewers of the anime, the manga was the prehistory, sequel, explanation and adaptation of the film in one. They looked for the manga after they had visited the film, and after Akira they often read other manga series, which was the starting point for manga marketing in the USA. Jason Thompson calls Akira one of the most important mangas of the 1980s, which influenced many subsequent works. Helen McCarthy calls the manga with its “combination of science fiction, political thriller, action, adventure and reflections on the state of the world” a “truly remarkable work” that has received worldwide attention. According to Paul Gravett, "the intensity and accuracy of Katsushiro Otomo's graphic narrative [...] raised the bar for the expressiveness of the manga." In the West, the manga was also well received because it was perceived as part of the cyberpunk trend. The publications were also successful outside the USA and Germany and led to further licensing of manga series, for example in France by the Glénat publishing house in 1991.

In Germany, too, the publication of the manga tied in with that of the anime, presumably for reasons of marketing strategy. The series became a success as the first manga in Germany. However, unlike later publications such as Dragonball or Sailor Moon , a broad readership could not yet be reached. According to Miriam Brunner, however, the series was "the first key to commercial success [of manga] in the West." In 1001 comics that you should read before life is over , Andreas C. Knigge calls the series a "monumental science fiction epic “ And trigger of the manga boom in Europe and America. Even the first chapter, according to Knigge, is like “a breathless ghost” and the work as such is an aesthetic renewal of the genre. This approach of the style to western aesthetics has made the series a success in the western world. Kai Mueller calls the series in his criticism in the Tagesspiegel 2011 "an oppressive tale of children with supernatural energy resources, a modern drama of the Sorcerer's Apprentice." The story that thematizing the danger uncontrolled progress and criticism of Japanese society is, particularly against the background the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster . Contemporary criticism in comic magazines was more divided. This is what happened in the Rraah! 1991 reported the international success, but at the same time criticized the violence.

For Otomo personally, the success of the series and especially the film adaptation meant that from then on he devoted himself more to working on animes than on manga series. Otomo's use of hatching was soon taken up by other draftsmen in Japan. Akira had a great influence on the next generation of mangaka. She influenced Masamune Shirow in his series Appleseed and Ghost in the Shell . For Masashi Kishimoto , author of the very successful series Naruto , both manga and anime Akira were an important influence.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ A b Roger Sabin: Comics, Comix and Graphic Novels: a History of Comic Art . Phaidon, 1996, ISBN 0-7148-3993-0 , pp. 230-231.
  2. ^ A b Jonathan Clements: Schoolgirl Milky Crisis: Adventures in the Anime and Manga Trade . A-Net Digital LLC, 2010, ISBN 978-0-9845937-4-3 , p.  36 .
  3. ↑ a b c d Paul Gravett: Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics . Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004. pp. 145 f.
  4. ^ Mark Schilling: The Encyclopedia of Japanese Pop Culture . Weatherhill, 1997, ISBN 0-8348-0380-1 , p.  174 .
  5. ^ Andrew Lee: Otomo's genga will make you remember. The Japan Times , May 17, 2012, accessed February 23, 2014 .
  6. ↑ Akira's Katsuhiro Otomo Remembers French Artist Moebius. Anime News Network , April 9, 2012, accessed February 23, 2014 .
  7. ↑ Andrew Osmond: Satoshi Kon: The Illusionist . Stonebridge Press, 2009. p. 15. ISBN 978-1-933330-74-7
  8. ↑ a b c Frederik L. Schodt: Dreamland Japan. Writings On Modern Manga . Stone Bridge Press, Berkeley 2002. pp. 314, 317.
  9. ↑ a b c Paul Gravett (eds.) And Andreas C. Knigge (transl.): 1001 comics that you should read before life is over . Zurich 2012, Edition Olms. P. 436.
  10. ↑ a b c d e Andreas C. Knigge: Comics - From mass paper to multimedia adventure . Rowohlt, 1996. pp. 248, 250-252.
  11. ↑ a b c Jason Thompson : Manga. The Complete Guide . Del Rey, New York 2007. p. 8.
  12. ↑ a b c d Martin de la Iglesia: The Task of Manga Translation: Akira in the West . In: The Comics Grid: Journal of Comics Scholarship . tape 6 , no. 1 , January 14, 2016, ISSN  2048-0792 , doi : 10.16995 / cg.59 .
  13. ↑ Katsuhiro Otomo, Akira Club . Carlsen Comics, ISBN 978-3-551-77105-6
  14. ↑ Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, 2010. p. 319.
  15. ↑ a b c d Miriam Brunner: Manga . Wilhelm Fink Verlag, 2010. p. 70.
  16. ↑ Akira - colored complete edition in a limited box - Katsuhiro Otomo - softcover. In: carlsen.de, accessed on December 12, 2017.
  17. ↑ Anime News Network on the Hollywood Reporter and Variety reports on the live action
  18. ↑ Report of the Hollywood Reporter about the production stop of the real version
  19. ↑ Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, 2010. p. 45.
  20. ↑ a b Brad Brooks, Tim Pilcher: The Essential Guide to World Comics . Collins & Brown, London 2005, ISBN 1-84340-300-5 , p. 103.
  21. ^ Susan Jolliffe Napier: The Fantastic in Modern Japanese Literature . Routledge, 1996, ISBN 0-415-12458-1 , pp. 214-8.
  22. ^ Susan J. Napier: Anime from Akira to Princess Mononoke: Experiencing Contemporary Japanese Animation . Palgrave 2001. p. 206.
  23. ^ Jenny Kwok Wah Lau: Multiple Modernities . Temple University Press, 2003, ISBN 1-56639-986-6 , pp. 189-190.
  24. ↑ Jaqueline Berndt, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (ed.): Manga's Cultural Crossroads . Routledge, 2013. pp. 73, 77.
  25. ↑ 1993 Harvey Awards. Harvey Award , archived from the original on March 15, 2016 ; accessed on November 8, 2019 .
  26. ↑ Toni Johnson-Woods (Ed.): Manga - An Anthology of Global and Cultural Perspectives . Continuum Publishing, 2010. p. 236.
  27. ↑ Helen McCarthy: A Brief History of Manga . ILEX, 2014. p. 45.
  28. ^ Paul Gravett: Manga - Sixty Years of Japanese Comics . Egmont Manga and Anime, 2004. p. 109.
  29. ↑ Brad Brooks, Tim Pilcher: The Essential Guide to World Comics . Collins & Brown, London 2005, ISBN 1-84340-300-5 , p. 172.
  30. ↑ Kai Müller: Brighter than a thousand suns. Tagesspiegel , March 30, 2011, accessed February 25, 2015 .
  31. ↑ Jaqueline Berndt, Bettina Kümmerling-Meibauer (ed.): Manga's Cultural Crossroads . Routledge, 2013. p. 234.

Web links

Commons : Akira (Manga)  - collection of images, videos and audio files