On Violence and Revolution: A Reading of Akira (1988)

Neo-Tokyo in 'Akira'

Considered as one of the best animated movies of all time by Time magazine's resident film critic, Richard Corliss, Akira--a 1988 Japanese animated film--depicts a dystopic future of Tokyo, referred to as neo-Tokyo in the film, three decades after World War III and after surviving another nuclear holocaust. The film is populated with a host of violent characters: Tetsuo, member of The Capsules, a gang of juvenile bikers led by his friend Kaneda, Ryu and Kei, members of Anti-Government Resistance Fighters, the Colonel who declared Martial Law in neo-Tokyo after the Executive Council cut his budget for scientific research on three children with immense mental powers. A boy named Akira was also included in the experiment who also had powers thought to have caused the third World War. The State hides Akira's fragmented remains (that have also been experimented after his death) because these still hold massive energies that can destroy the whole neo-Tokyo. Tetsuo, who was the latest addition in the military-scientific experiment, sought to find Akira, unleashing his uncontrollable power along the way. Thus, he became a monster, wreaking havoc in neo-Tokyo and killing even his own friends in The Capsules. Not Kaneda, however, although he was envious of him (primarily because of his red motorcycle) and feels inferior to him because the former always rescues him from danger.

Tetsuo as a Monster

The revolutionaries in the film, led by Ryu and Kei, eventually helped Kaneda to rescue Tetsuo from the military-scientific experiment after Kaneda helped Kei escape police interrogation and torture for protesting and causing violence. All of them later learned of the power of Akira, redefined as the sum of all the people's energies that can destroy not only neo-Tokyo but the entire universe. So the State hides it from the public; the revolutionaries and cult followers seek for it. 

'Akira' in this context becomes a powerful revolutionary ideal. Its characteristic of originating from every one, being shared and could be harnessed together can be used to achieve the goal of toppling the oppressive State and install a new one. But such immense energies could inevitably lead to cataclysmic and violent ends. In the film, Akira's energy was unleashed and the whole of neo-Tokyo was blanketed by a blinding white light--the cataclysmic end. It seems to say that in order to build a new society, first it must destroy the existing one. It seems logical--for one cannot build an entirely corrupt-free, people-led State without annihilating the corrupt technocrats in the government. 

Such a notion implies violence as requisite to revolution; but violence is to be expected in any revolution. In Christopher Finlay's article, "Violence and Revolutionary Subjectivity: Marx to Zizek," he said that although Marx and Engels viewed it as incidental--"like a midwife whose interventions may (or may not) be required during the birth of a new society out of the womb of the old" (p.373)--the scholars influenced by their works and describing revolution in the context of their own time viewed it as essential to the process of forming a 'revolutionary subjectivity,' which in turn is crucial to revolution itself. 

Kei, The Revolutionary

While revolution is at the core of this manga-adapted animated film, in its periphery lies a story of friendship between Tetsuo and Kaneda that ended tragically with the former's destruction by his own doing, the disgruntled Japanese youth, and the empowerment of women through the character of Kei, who, together with Kaneda, was left the task of building a new Tokyo. 

For each scene leaps into the screen, arresting the viewer's senses, Akira is indeed one of the best in its league--and reportedly the most expensive, too, with billions of yen invested on it. Nonetheless, each yen is worth it to see the 2000-page manga with the same title turn into a two-hour visual feast by its writer and director, Katsuhiro Otomo. 

Reference: 

Finlay, Christopher. (2006). "Violence and Revolutionary Subjectivity: Marx to Zizek" in European Journal of Political Theory, 5(4), 373-397. 

Photo Credits:

http://robpattisons.blogspot.com/2011/05/warner-going-back-to-rob-for-akira.html

http://www.animevice.com/kei/18-16796/all-images/84-61256/akira_03_73/83-433008/

http://www.cyberpunkreview.com/images/akira0122.jpg