Why is this so highly regarded?

You sound like you treat rotten tomatoes like the law.
You've also failed to give even a single example of how Akira has any substance beyond style.

>Go back and read the manga.
Why on earth would I do that?

The visuals of Akira are engrossing or emotionally provoking.

*or
and

>and it doesn't explore any themes past a superficial level.
Read a book if you want in depth analysis of any topic and make sure it's non-fiction.

Plot and character are secondary in animation. The whole point of even having those two things is to allow the animation to come about. They create a framework that the animators can work within to create interesting visuals. You clearly don't understand why plot and character are used

>Why is this so highly regarded?
>Incredible animation and style that clearly influenced what came after it
You answered your own question, you dense motherfucker.

kek'd, truth. OP will remain plebeian for eternity.

Anime has only been trivially easy to pirate for about a decade and a half, it got a lot of points for visuals and being way different than most of what people had seen at the time.

>doesn't explore any themes past a superficial level
how fucking dumb are you

>Incredible animation and style that clearly influenced what came after it
that's it. that's why it's highly regarded. it's a masterpiece in the field of animation. film is a visual experience, and animation especially more so. the story, plot, and characters are all in service of the animation. if you're looking for an engrossing narrative, read a book.

The absolute state of Yea Forums
Imagine thinking film can't explore themes, and visuals are only in service to itself.
Stick to capeshit and anime.

What’s a couple of better comparable movies, OP? In your opinion

post actually good anime
youtube.com/watch?v=Px9FvddtgpM

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You may be an old faggot but you’re just as guilty as a teenager in this age with revisionist fucking bullshit. I was there for it’s heyday and you’re absolutely talking fucking horseshit. YOU may not have liked it but garnered near universal praise and those that didn’t like it admitted it wasn’t their sort of thing. Unlike you, they weren’t a disingenuous fuckhead

Want to redraft that in a coherent sentence?

This. It's similar to characters from timeless stories where the plot exceeds their personalities. Think Shakespeare.

Spoken like a true capefag.

your life is a joke

Imagine thinking the exploration of themes is vital to a film and you can't enjoy something that's about style over substance every now and then.

But Akira used visuals to explores themes... ???????

Style is substance

t. plotfag

>characters
>themes
>plot
from what fucking website or youtuber did you receive your understanding that these have to be in a film for it to be 'good'? Are you going to bust out some terms you heard the youtuber use like "character development" next? fucking moron r_dd_t_r

What are the chances that live action Akira produced by Leo DiCaprio is gonna be related to climate change in some way?

Characters are really great though, they don't need long expository backstories or anything. They are who they are portrayed as. It's one of the few animated things where they convey actual facial expressions and the voice acting is top tier even in dubs. All in all every minor character that shows up is a full rich character, even if they aren't EXPLAINED which is completely different.

The focus of the movie is characters who get caught up in things orders of magnitude beyond their understanding and thus the audience should not under any circumstances have more understanding than that. There's nothing wasted, they use what little they expose to the audience more than could possibly be expected.

>Imagine thinking film can't explore themes
Learn to read for one. I said no film can truly go in depth on any complex topic, more often than not because filmmakers themselves are not experts at it. You can explore any topic you want and unless it's trite like racism in USA(even then it rarely ventures into good analysis).

Ultimately filmmakers are limited by their runtime and other factors. There are elements that film can capture uniquely but that involves visuals which are usually dismissed as style over substance.

That one motorcycle slide keeps being reused in other works:

youtu.be/pRPvSOwY3sY

Comparable in what sense?
Animation - Perfect Blue; Fantastic Mr Fox.
Visual extravagance - 2001; Persona; Mirror
Sci-fi - Gattaca; Forbidden Planet.

Ploy and characters are secondary in film. In fact if you watch a film for the plot you are a retard

Always confused me too. Movie looked nice but was an absolute drag.

Perhaps you're simple.

Dumb dumb

Explain it to me.

I like how everyone here is stroking it off to 'visuals', when they're not discussed in any other film thread.
Same idiots that make 'cinematography' threads posting stills.
Akira is in Reddit's top movies list.

>All in all every minor character that shows up is a full rich character, even if they aren't EXPLAINED which is completely different.
Yes, that girlfriend character had a lot of depth:
>worried about boyfriend
>relieved boyfriend is okay
>gets raped
>worried about boyfriend and somehow tracks him down + goes through a wrecked city to find him
>dies
Akira is a real marvel.

She's got quite a lot of depth. She's the runty gf of the littlest gang member. She puts up with him belittling her and shows that she's got very little self value or actual value. She follows his dumb ass even when it's a fucking retarded idea, what else has she got but clinging to him? He's also unconsciously clinging to her even as his body goes nuts and kills her dumb ass. She serves as a contrast to the Tetsuo/Kaneda relationship even as she dies.

It’s just one big spectacle for the manga, how many fucking times does it have to be posted? The movie is just a really nice animated spectacle, there’s no way they could fit 10 volumes into one movie.

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The manga is a masterpiece, and the film is iconic. It's all it needs to deserve being highly regarded, but it's also entertaining and rich in detail.

Character development = exposition explaining their feelings, hopes, beliefs to the audience.

literally one of the best shows of the decade, and i don't even really care for anime

Fuck the manga. Adding any of the boring "whys" or "hows" to Akira would ruin it. Do you really need to know anything more about the character of Akira except some scientist looking at a pretty visualization on the screen and panicking? No.

>what else has she got but clinging to him?
We don't know, because she's got absolutely no character. All we know is that she's in school, and probably poor - just like everyone else who didn't "follow Tetsuo".
There's no contrast to the Tetsuo/Kaneda relationship - she went to help Tetsuo, just as Kaneda did.
Difference being she's:
1. Not a main character
2. A girl
So the director thought he may as well needlessly make her get raped and killed because that'd add some 'entertainment' and 'danger'.
It's frankly embarassing you think a character with about 2 minutes of screen time is a very detailed character.

We know exactly 1 facet of her character (as intended) and it is not shallow. She is a main character, as a part of Tetsuo's character. She's a girl. She is NOT a serious love interest, which is a negative character trait. She's there because Tetsuo having her AND not caring about her is explaining their relationship. Tetsuo DOES care about Kaneda. Even when she dies he's screaming for Kaneda to help her (but mostly him). She gets a bit raped and that reflects badly upon Tetsuo, which furthers his character and their relationship and thus her character. Her reaction to it is basically the same as her reaction to anything in their relationship, which is mostly abuse. That says a lot about her, too. If she were removed from the film it would be worse because Tetsuo's dysfunctional life & relationships are the central focus of the film.

A - so she isn't a charcater? She's just a device for cheap exploitation and adding a tiny bit to another character (the only character with any semblance of 'depth' at that).
Thanks for clearing that up.

She's a characterization device? She has a character and her character being unimportant is important to the main story. It's certainly not cheap exploitation, she's not there for the sake of the audience.

To quote your original thought before I pointed out she's on screen for about 2 minutes
>She's got quite a lot of depth.
You seem to really be back-tracking on that.
Are you seriously saying she's not there for the audiences sake? What was added by her being needlessly raped (with her chest exposed at that) and then never having it mentioned again? It's seriously never brought up again, she just shrugs it off, and her friends go on to hang out in town.
The films throws a difficult issue into the mix and then just ignores it - because the film is an exemplar of superficiality. It does nothing but nod to where a film written with greater ambitions could've given insight.
Look at how the film handles 'war' - opening shows what appears to be an atomic bomb, and the film takes place after WW3. It turns out it wasn't an atomic bomb, but there was still clearly a war. The film fails to delve any further into even basic details (a quick Google search shows the manga does so), and instead just uses the barebones concept to fool people into thinking it has something to say, or even for them to chew on.

Exposition dumps make for boring cinema. It's better to show, not tell.

It's a shame the film didn't have anything to show.

She does have quite a bit of depth. If she wasn't visibly multiple levels of pathetic then her relationship to Tetsuo could be misconstrued as being romantic or something. It would have thrown his own pathetic characterization out of whack.

You seem obsessed about rape but she was basically being shown to be not even worth raping, this is important. It wasn't needless because Tetsuo being powerless and Kaneda showing up to save the day is THE running theme in the first two acts. The film isn't about a rape victim struggling to come to terms with etc. Her reacting to it differently would be opposed to the rest of her characterization. She's already living some post-traumatic shit from the very start and she's come to terms with it in a very unhealthy way.

"There was a war" is more than enough detail. It doesn't matter what kind of war it was, they SHOW that the military holds most of the power in the government. That's the important detail.

>the characters are paper-thin, the plot is filled with wasted potential and elements that are simply dropped, and it doesn't explore any themes past a superficial level
You are a complete pleb who needs everything spoonfed to you

>Yo user whats that one hit 20th century anime movie about transhumanism?

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Not to stray off topic but this is why i dont take post apocalyptic shows seriously, Women could never say Im gay and expect to be no touchy. WOMEN would be more precious and sought after than gold. Every incel would join up with whatever rape gangs current and get him some.

Seething weeb

Sure but they're not post-apoc. There's plenty of girls and Tetsuo got the worst of them, it's implied that the only reason Tetsuo even got her is because Kaneda runs his own gang. Clown gangers probly have their own higher quality clown whores back home.

you can either appreciate anime for the hyper stylized insane daydreaming of japanese salaryman

or you are a normalfag pleb and cant

Tetsuo is an ungrateful rat bastard.