I almost feel bad that, upon re-assessment, I found the classic "Akira" to be so flawed. The source material for the first anime I ever saw, I remembered pouring through these volumes the first time Dark Horse re-released them in their giant phone books. While my maturation of taste has definitely not rendered "Akira" unreadable by any means, I can't help but feel that there is just so much potential for this to be something that it ultimately failed to be.

Let's get started with the good:

The art for this entire series is impeccable. The character designs are spot-on, but what most impresses me are the background renderings. Painstaking detail is put into every last crack, stain, dent, shattered window, decimated tenement, obliterated office tower, speck of rubble of this world which starts as a mere dystopia before turning full on post-apocalyptic. I cannot imagine this scale of desolation or destruction rendered in live action. The framing of every shot is well-done and concise, and the action is always understandable and fluid. From a visual perspective, this is still a landmark of manga.

Now the not-so-good:

The story is a sci-fi story, extremely graphic in content, which also touches on common adolescent fiction or adult themes. At times, it's not too unlike a Japanese sci-fi S.E. Hinton. It straddles cyber-punk by virtue of its cast of drug-addled biker malcontents, but where it fails that level of "hard" sci-fi is also a major downfall of the narrative. Make no mistake, it's definitely about psychic powers. But the way these powers are explained and how they manifest honestly just seems more like "magic." Otomo was clearly not a science buff. "Energy" is supposed to explain away a lot of things, like why a human with psychic powers can fly into space and start carving up the moon.

The extent of Akira and Tetsuo's powers is absurd and never explained well at all. This would be fine if there was some metaphysical subtext that made this seem like a surreal exposition or magical realism, but there isn't. It becomes page after page after page of psychic blasts and things falling around people and that's all it feels like. Re-reading the books, I gave up about halfway through 5. I'd just had enough. It stops telling any sort of meaningful story and almost becomes a Shonen. The point of the story stops being about government intrigue or youth rebellion and shifts to "Tetsuo is really powerful, look at this powerful display of power, man, the good guys better get him."

Further, while the character designs themselves were good, their story arcs and character development left a lot to be desired.

Let's start with main character Kaneda. He is a bad ass biker boy who tries to feel your tits and steals your gun and doesn't get killed because he's a bad ass, end of story, and oh yeah, he can't stop finding reasons why "this time Tetsuo's gone too far," hilariously even well after Tetsuo has obliterated the entire city.

Kei, his sidepiece; She's a nonentity. Like, literally, at one point. She lacks so much characterization that the little psychic kids possess her body in a last ditch effort to do battle with Tetsuo. Unlike Kaneda, she is presumably intelligent and cunning enough to be a pivotal member of some underground terrorist cell (whose aims are never really explained, by the way). Despite this, she ends up helpless and useless in just about every key moment of the story. Brash biker badass powers mean more than all the womanly cunning you can muster in Neo Tokyo.

Tetsuo: Your basic school shooter type. He's actually the only character anyone would bother remembering from this book, because there are moments early on when his instability and anger are actually kinda scary. His psychic powers are grotesque and so follows his own mind. In the real origin story of Kaori, who in the film is a meaningless plot device, she is the lone survivor of a drug orgy he conducts, a scene that is honestly really chilling. At the same time, you find him somewhat sympathetic, so obviously unable to control his power. Once again, the Shonenesque final chapters of the saga squander this on psychic blasts and whatnot.

The rest of the cast are the typical ensemble of people who exist to help these main characters get through the story. They have flashes of being interesting; Ryu and the Biker Clown alone have more dynamic story lines, downfalls and revelations than any of the aforementioned. But the story isn't about them. The story is using them for things. Not much more.

So I just trashed the all-immortal "Akira." Why a rating of 7? Because of the ambition, no matter how misguided, and the detail of the artwork. With proper writing (which is actually hinted at early on in the series, like say, the first couple books), "Akira" could have had a story up to par with its amazing visuals. As it stands, it's just a kinetic jumble of great imagery that doesn't withstand much scrutiny as a whole.