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Reviewed by Michael Aronson “In the 21st century, the once-glittering Neo-Tokyo lies in ruin, leveled in minutes by the infinite power of the child psychic, Akira. From the flooded wasteland of rubble and anarchy, the Great Tokyo Empire rises, populated by a ragtag army of zealots and crazies who worship and fear Akira and his mad prime minister, Tetsuo, an angry teen with immense powers of his own – and equally immense, twisted ambitions. The world at large is not taking the threat lying down, and the military strength of the planet is massing to take on the Empire, but will technology’s most advanced weaponry be enough to destroy Akira? And are the rapidly growing paranormal abilities of Tetsuo a potentially greater threat?” The greatest sci-fi epic of the comic book medium spirals to its conclusion, and it’s a doozy of a spiral. Characters return, mysteries are uncovered, powers max out and everyone gets pushed to the breaking point. Even the moon gets its assed kicked – no really. When the moon takes a beating, you know that the stakes of the story have reached extremes and it’s up to the narrative either to grab hold of the extremes like a mad swordfish on a hook, or get pulled into the muddled mess along with it. But this is Akira we’re talking about, and Otomo arranges his players precisely where he wants them to be for the conclusion in the next volume. And readers may want to spend entire minutes ogling at the insane details of when Tetsuo’s powers start to . . . ah, well if you’ve seen the movie, then you have only the faintest inkling of what happens in the comic. Very beautiful and clever stuff. The development I was pining for in the last two volumes pours out throughout volume five, and while much of it is just setup for the final climax, it generally moves things farther along than they’re so far progressed. Kaneda is acting like our hero again, and though he may be the dimmest of the bunch, he’s also the most gung-ho in a setting of technological paranoia, and given the rapid technological advancements in reality, there’s something very admirable about that mindset. He may be one of the first literary cowboys of the information age and, despite his naive ignorance, that makes him a particularly memorable protagonist. Now let’s see this electric setup explode into a roaring showdown with Tetsuo. Comment on this review of Akira v5 on the Manga Life Forums. |
22 July 2008
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