I never get tired of this one. No matter how many times I've seen it, it's still a ridiculously fun and exciting film with an absurd amount of nuances to pick up on with repeated viewings, undoubtedly not only my favorite anime, but my favorite animated film overall. This time around, simply by bumping my HDTV's volume up to 60, I heard all the sound effects I never noticed before. Kaneda's bike comes alive like never before, the elevator when the Colonel and the doctor have that conversation, in which the former resolutely states, "It's a soldier's duty; you wouldn't understand," emits a brand new hum, voices resonate in an all-new manner, footsteps sound with a brand new thump, and the drums in the Geinoh Yamashirogumi score bang with a brand new resonance... And this is the Streamline dub, though it actually sounds, to these ears anyway, considerably better than the hypersonic track, in which the chants sound considerably weak, faded and lifeless... Which is somewhat baffling considering that Dr. Shoji Yamashiro himself is the one who put that track together. Another thing I've noticed is that Tetsuo is different from other film villains in that... Well, you actually feel bad for the kid and it's one of the things that makes
Akira so fascinating. Even as he murders more and more people, even when he kills Yama at the bar, with his newfound power, you can see that he's clearly screwed up in the head and not in his right mind; hell, he acts like my sister when she's having a behavior about cigarettes, especially during the scene where Kaneda says, "That's enough, Tetsuo! Are you tryin' to kill him?" when he repeatedly beats a clown with the intention of murder. He's not the most likeable character (that's easily Kaneda, for my money), but he is a damned
fascinating character. The film is also exceptionally well-written, yes, even the Streamline dub some like to crap on, despite what some say about it; I really like how Clarke's Kaneda's "Now you're king of the mountain, aren't ya, but it's all garbage!" links directly back to an earlier scene where Rabson's Tetsuo says, "I'm king now! All right, Kaneda! Do you hear me?" in turning Tetsuo's own words against him. The well-placed humor (most involving Kaneda's interest in Kei) still works to keep the film from devolving into simply being depressing and horrifying. And, of course, the action is
still that much fun. Yes, indeed, still a state of the art adventure with a thought-provoking subtext on the abuse of power and I highly recommend it to any lover of not just animation but film in general.
While it might seem odd to pair with
Akira, the two are closely intertwined as being the two that got me into anime. Of course, I had to turn it back down to 40. This one is
loud. I mean, it's an assault on the eardrums if your set is loud enough. Honestly, watching them so close together, I
did notice that they share some thematic DNA. Let me explain: there's a scene where Nausicaä says, "Stop it! All this killing must stop!" Both films deal with this, though Otomo's film deals with it on an R-rated level, depicting Tetsuo's self-destruction as he murders more people and destroys more of Neo-Tokyo in the process, while Miyazaki's is at least a little more optimistic, while still showing that the Tolmekians and those like them are on that road if they don't change their ways. Both also deal with the abuse of (and greed for) power (
Castle in the Sky also deals with this), Otomo's film with Tetsuo's abuse of telekinesis leading to the infamous mutation scene where in Miyazaki's film, Kushana's attempt at using the Giant Warrior to wipe out the Ohm culminates in its destruction. And after having seen all of his works, it's
still my favorite Miyazaki film and second only to
Akira when it comes to my favorite anime and animation overall and, again, one I highly recommend to any lover of film. Later, guys.
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