Anime

Akira

Paprika

After last week’s exploration of silent film and the spectacular things that were achieved with early filmmaking technology, I wanted to fast forward, several many decades into the future and examine a genre that’s just as ambitious, emotive, and impactful: anime. *Cue the classic film nerds rolling their eyes, and the regular nerds screeching with excitement.* For those of you who do not fit into either of those categories, anime is a term used to refer to Japanese animation. Like noir, there is much debate over whether anime can be considered a genre or a style, especially when there is so much distinct material to classify. After all, in Japan anime is the norm, and therefore it very simply is not just a subcategory. But here in the states, anime has risen to such popularity that the same is essentially true here as well. Regardless of its classification, anime is quite the polarizing medium. People seem to either be head-over-heels obsessed with it, or scathingly indifferent to it. If you’re a child of the 90s like myself, you grew up with an abundance of animation, whether intended for children or otherwise, a good deal of which that came from Japan. Pokémon, Sailor Moon, and the films of Studio Ghibli were my introduction to anime, and while I loved every cartoon that I grew up with, these animated adventures always seemed to sparkle and excite just a little bit more. The majority of the anime, that I’ve seen at least, turns the intensity and the stakes up to the highest degree. If something is dangerous, it becomes deadly. If something is cute, it becomes achingly adorable. The nature of most anime is extreme, regardless of the tone, attitude, or subject matter within it. It’s hard to put into words, but if you’ve ever watched anime then you know what I’m talking about. The first commercial forms of anime date back to 1917, then evolved into manga (the comic book/novelized format), television shows from the 1960s like Astro Boy, video games, and eventually full-length features. While animated films had already been an established medium, anime separated itself with its bold, distinctive approach to cartoon storytelling. I find that most animation that isn’t anime is pretty much split between adult animation and animation for children. With anime, it’s a little bit more nuanced and blended. No other kind of animation is more misleading, in the best way, than anime. One of the very first pieces of Japanese animation to break through to other markets was the genre-defining, thematically-enticing film from 1988: Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira. Based off of the character designs from the manga of the same name, but allegedly differing from the plot considerably, Akira was a pioneering film for the cyberpunk genre, and essentially put anime on the map. It was such a hit in Japan, and eventually such a big hit in the states, that Akira established the Western world’s appreciation for anime as a whole. Before Pokémon, Naruto, and Dragon Ball Z, before Miyazaki, there was Akira. Akira begins in 1988 Tokyo, where a third world war is prompted by a random attack that decimates the city. We cut to 2019 Neo Tokyo, thirty years after WWIII, and several years deep into an ultra-violent metropolis where governmental corruption, terrorism, and biker gang fights are the norm. As the city goes into martial law, our protagonist Kaneda and his gang become entangled with their biker rivals, then the military, when Tetsuo, Kaneda’s bestie, crashes into a mysterious child with powers. Tetsuo is then taken by the government while Kaneda and the rest of the gang are arrested. The gang makes it out of jail and Kaneda makes it out with a girl who he pretends is his girlfriend (at first it was kinda funny, then it was like okay stop.) Tetsuo, on the other hand, is not okay. After coming into contact with the strange, supernova of a child, Tetsuo begins to have some odd dreams, and some powers of his own. The movie just goes off the rails from here and I couldn’t explain everything that happened even if I tried. But it was exceptionally compelling, and unique in its style and its approach to sci-fi. The fact that I explained the first third of the film without ever mentioning who Akira is, proves how much more there is to be seen. This movie has everything: ESP, inter-dimensional travel, children with wrinkles, crazy military dudes, crazy science dudes, cool motorbike fights that happen at 90mph on neon-speckled highways. Akira is fast-paced and unpredictable from the moment it begins to the second it ends, with only the potential for mild confusion along the way. You can understand how this film set the standard for modern-day anime and how much it’s influenced other work—from the supernatural kids in Stranger Things to the impact of the “Akira slide” which has been imitated in several films and tv shows since. Michael and Janet Jackson’s “Scream” music video features clips from Akira. And, eerily enough, the fictional version of Tokyo depicted in Akira features signs for the 2020 Olympics in the un-restored parts of the city, and in real life the Olympics were supposed to be held in Tokyo but because of COVID had to be postponed. Minus the pandemic, Akira literally predicted it. The only issues I had with Akira were the issues that I typically have with adult-centered anime, and that’s the exploitation of the female body and the jarring use of sexual situations. There are rape-y aspects to nearly every anime I’ve ever watched, from Perfect Blue, to tonight’s next film. And I know that I am definitely not the best person to comment on the interesting cultural relationship that sex has in Japan, but it is fascinating and endlessly troubling to this critic how much sexual assault is depicted in anime. Akira did, however, succeed in its salient criticism of nuclear warfare, and in its dramatization of realistic horrors: ie, the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Overall, Akira must be seen, by any lover of anime and any enthusiast of action and science fiction. It’s an iconic piece of media, within anime and beyond, and plays with the format of science fiction in a way that feels both familiar and entirely distinct. One piece of anime that was not concerned with its format or the stories that came before it was Satoshi Kon’s 2006 psychological thriller Paprika. When choosing the anime I wanted to watch tonight, I’d already known that Akira was a must-watch, but it wasn’t until I asked my nerdy friends and coworkers what to watch that I learned of the phenomenon that is Paprika. Based on Yasutaka Tsutsui’s novel of the same name, Paprika is a dream-weaving, mind-bending, multi-layered story that can best be described as a better form of Inception—because Christopher Nolan literally got the idea for Inception from Paprika. I now interrupt this blog post to briefly shit on Christopher Nolan, as I do:

Hey Chris. Do ya ever have any of your own ideas? Have you ever had an original thought in your life? No? Okay cool :)

Anyway. If Inception blew your mind, I highly HIGHLY recommend you watch the source material that it is stolen from, not just because it’s the right thing to do, but because Paprika is better. In fact, were it not for the blatant plagiarism, I’d avoid comparing these two entirely because the ideas that Christopher Nolan merely dipped a toe into, are fully-realized in Paprika. And those philosophical monologues about dreams and the self and the perception of the world, are actually compelling here. Paprika was immediately creepy, and immediately entrancing. I was completely hypnotized by its animation, and the levels of detail that it went to when telling its story. The concept of dreams, whether it be lucid dreaming or sleep paralysis or sleepwalking, has the potential for endless possibilities and immense terror. Like Akira, Paprika’s animation was too stunning to believe. The scenes that take place in the real world looked insanely realistic, as if they were motion-captured. And every journey into dreamland was too visually-overwhelming to describe. Paprika feels like an animated acid trip where dreams and nightmares are one and the same. One moment you’re in a pastel-tinted, candy-coated dreamland, and the next, a horrific nightmare. It was more disturbing than Akira, and yet just as whimsical as a Miyazaki movie. I loved the constant filmmaking references, the constant twists and turns, and the way that reality unfolds and rebuilds itself in this movie. It was simultaneously dense, and very easy to follow, both frenetically fun and quietly unnerving. Paprika deals with the dichotomy of science and philosophy, dreams and reality, being in control and being utterly out of it. There is so much to love about anime, and all of the references that come from it. So whether you’re a newb or a weeaboo, an animation appreciator or avoider, give these two iconic films a chance, and indulge in the magic and madness they hold within them. Sayōnara, readers.