@socketwench - Akira really comes across as ground breaking animation and hugely influential in the US, but like you said, had a so-so reaction in Japan.
Japan had had cinematic animation for a while by the time Akira came out. The Macross and Dirty Pair movies are lovely to watch (And a few of the Urusei Yatsura movies, while not as detailed, had been out a half decade before all these). So when Akira released, for them "it was Tuesday."
For us, though...Streamline took a chance releasing Akira theatrically, and while it was critically panned, it at least showed the US audience that "animation for adults is a thing, and it can be great looking if you you put money into it."
I know those of us in the C/FO were celebrating Streamline's release in the US. Sadly, I think it was the failure of Akira in the US Box Office that kept Troma's (absolutely straight) dubs of the Studio Ghibli movies from being released outside of a few test runs in Austin. We had an almost ten year way before Disney would pick up that thread.
It's hard to put into words the impact this film had on USian viewers. Like Ghost in the Shell -- which came *after* this one -- it helped create the demand for animation directed to an adult audience.
It's overt violence, style, and gore made it clear from the start that "This is not for kids". No doubt USian conservatives latched onto those same qualities for their own moralizing and proselytizing. It was often included as a bullet point in the Satanic Panic.
Even so, Akira helped to establish animation as a *medium*, not just a target audience. And who could deny it? The animation is a technical achievement.
uspol
@pandora_parrot - I had a moment like this with Monopoly of all things. My mother and I were massive monopoly players. She still plays a video game version every night. But at one point, there's came a lightbulb realization of "Oh, wait, the cutthorat rent collection and bankruptcies...THAT'S ACTUALLY HAPPENING." And it really hit home after it started happening to me.
Can't play the game anymore - it's too dark for a family home fun game.
uspol, ableism
@pandora_parrot - THIS. People forget this.
@spottyfox - Being Erica. A neat premise about therapy sessions that allow you to go back in time and change your life.
But it has two characters that are just annoying as hell. The head of a publishing company who is a massive entitled demanding bitch, and an editor who is a stereotypical "mean girl" gay man.
And they're supposed to be the good guys (well, the gay man at first, but the publishing head turns at the end of Season 1). And they're just absolutely awful people.
@Tekk - Finally, it's not me!
@Tekk - Apparently someone in the Duvall area bought one. I've been seeing it more and more on the roads out here recently.
uspol
@pandora_parrot - I'm much the same way. I want to see anyone else but Biden in office, but I'm voting for him regardless. On top of that, I DON'T want him to drop out, despite me wanting someone else in office.
This is a conversation we should have been having a year ago. Not four months from an election.
Shelly Duvall
1949-2024
Artist for Closetspace and A Wish for Wings
Creative Text Writer for MTG: Universes Beyond
Writer for Sea of Legends
One enchilada short of a Mexican Platter