Akira - Movie - Steelbook 4K UHD

The 2-disc DVD set of AKIRA surpasses in many ways even the excellent Criterion's laserdisc edition from 1992. The brand-new video transfer is noticeably better: colors, especially the primary reds and greens, look more brilliant, flesh tones are more realistic, and there is a bit MORE picture at the bottom (in particular, the shot at time 1:16:23 reveals part of Kaneda's crouching body that was not seen on old transfers). The 5.1 English track, though not state of the art, is highly active and satisfying. The new English dub and subtitles are better written and spoken, making the characterizations more real and the story more comprehensible. In the scene where the colonel meets the senator (Chapter 8), the old English dub had the senator sounding concerned and supportive. On the new dub, he sounds cold and indifferent, in keeping with his subsequent body gesture of fiddling with his plants. The new dub also has characters speaking in correct pitches -- Kei's voice is now lower, and Masaru no longer sounds like an old man, but like a child, just like on the Japanese track. Also welcomed are the correct pronunciations of Japanese names: AH-kee-ra, KAH-nee-dah, KAH-oh-ri. Last but not least, the new dub makes more frequent uses of strong language to enhance reality. The DVD supplements include interviews of the voice actors for the new dub, who certainly deserve to be mentioned.Here is one thing that this DVD pales in comparison to the Criterion LD. The LD included still-frames of the entire first issue of the original Akira comic novel. It is a shame that this DVD does not include even one screen shot of the actual comic strips that inspired this movie (it does include shots of the COVERS of the comic novels) just to benefit those who have never seen them or do not own the LD.Other DVD supplements include an excellent 48-minute making-of documentary (the Criterion LD had excerpts of it). It has plenty of behind-the-scenes footage: artists drawing pencil tests, actors recording their lines, musicians composing a score with wood xylophones, photographers taking shots of finished "cels". We are told that it was not the norm in Japanese animation films to record the dialogs before drawing the pictures, as it was done for AKIRA. The youthful director Katsuhiro Otomo appears in his own 30-minute interview segment (not on the LD), where he recalls various processes of making the Akira comics and the Akira movie, and speculates on what he will do next. Yet another half-hour segment, "Akira Sound Clips", explains how the movie's score was conceptualized and recorded. The most prized supplement on the DVD is perhaps the mammoth collection of the film's storyboards, character designs, and background designs. The storyboards, done by Otomo himself, are the most meticulously designed ones I've ever seen; each of them is denoted with Scene/Cut number (under "S" and "C" on the left), notes, dialogs, and time of duration of the shot. To help locating a storyboard among the 4500 of them, the printed chapter index is cross-referenced with Scene/Cut numbers of its corresponding storyboards. Rather disappointing is a short featurette that tersely describes the new video transfer of the DVD with only interviews of 3 technicians and no demonstration of the restoration by way of before-and-after comparisons.There is also an interesting feature called "capsule option". When it is enabled, a capsule icon pops up on the screen from time to time while the movie is playing, and when you activate the icon, the screen pauses and shows you English text translation of the Japanese words on the screen -- traffic signs, graffitis, postings, etc.

Nice red shiny case. The visuals are still amazing after all these years. AKIRA is a true masterpiece of anime cinema.

Great movie!

4k looks great. Very filmik, sounded great.

I just watched this via Amazon Prime for the first time. I've heard sop much about how "legendary", "inspiring", and "epic" this anime is. Constantly hearing "If you like anime you MUST WATCH THIS". I usually avoid those types of things. Let the hype die down and what not. but this specific film doesn't have hype, it has accolades. It has awards, and to this day is STILL part of pop culture. It's like an Atari, a classic beatles album, NWA's Straight Out of Compton, no mater how old it gets it gets the same response and respect. Since I now have no reason to NOT see this film I decided to give it a shot. First, this is full on anime. This is what anime is. Only hting it doesn['t have is giant robots. So if you are a casual anime watcher who only watches simple things like pokemon or something, the early parts can probably get confusing and you'll loose intrest. I'll admit, I almost did, but the story has a good way of throwing stuff at you like you're supposed to know what's going on but keeping you interested enough to keep watching to figure it out. It doesn't hold your hand through the story, you're just as lost and out of the loop as the citizens witnessing the event unfold but it does get explained, somewhat. At no point was I bombarded with loads of dialog explaining what was happening and why, I got the basics and was left to come up with my own why. The climax is huge even though the build up is swift it last quite a while. I found myself texting people for the first 10 minutes while trying to grasp what was happening to being fully ingaged and ignoring all other things. The art is amazing, one of the highlights of the entire movie. Characters are enjoyable and though many aren't seen often you do get invested in wanting to know more. The sound is amazing, just as good as any big blockbuster action film. I normally don't go around saying "you must see [insert movie]" but this is now one of the five movies I feel everyone, especially anime fans,. must see. I will admit I'm no die hard anime fan, I only watched dubbed anime and am pretty picky about it but this film proved to me why it earned it reputation, and I have a greater respect for anime that follow in it's footsteps.

The discs are in great condition, play in crisp 4K quality and the bonus features are really awesome. Minus one star because the steel book came with a dent.