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NEWS: Live-Action Akira Film Opens on May 21, 2021




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ChrissyC



Joined: 17 Jun 2015
Posts: 545
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 1:29 pm Reply with quote
This will be the best manga/anime to Hollywood adaption to date.
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myfairx



Joined: 29 Sep 2016
Posts: 87
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 1:40 pm Reply with quote
I like that they split it in 2 part instead l trying to cram all material in one go.

TBH even Otomo own adaptation struggle to cover effectively in one film.
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tintor2



Joined: 11 Aug 2010
Posts: 1820
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 2:08 pm Reply with quote
If Sonic got Jim Carrey, then Akira can have Stiller
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Gemnist



Joined: 10 Feb 2016
Posts: 1757
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 2:26 pm Reply with quote
I’m still not sure about this. Waititi is an amazing director, but his improvisational comedy style is the polar opposite of Akira’s bleak, violent story, and when Akira does do humor, it’s punkish and juvenile, not self-deprecating and witty like Waititi’s. I’d be willing to see him compromise to fit Otomo’s tonal vision, but people are going to react harshly if he treats this like his other, more auteur projects.
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kow626



Joined: 12 Dec 2007
Posts: 51
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 3:26 pm Reply with quote
Gemnist wrote:
I’m still not sure about this. Waititi is an amazing director, but his improvisational comedy style is the polar opposite of Akira’s bleak, violent story, and when Akira does do humor, it’s punkish and juvenile, not self-deprecating and witty like Waititi’s. I’d be willing to see him compromise to fit Otomo’s tonal vision, but people are going to react harshly if he treats this like his other, more auteur projects.


When they made the announcement of him being the director, what you said is also how I feel. With Ragnarok, he proved he can handle a big budget blockbuster (many directors can't) but I'm still not sure if his style will be appropriate for Akira. It will be interesting to see if he can step outside of his comfort zone and give us something different than what he's known for but at the same time deliver on the quality he's known for too.

I'd love to know which script they're gonna use. That's more important to me than the director at this point.
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Silver Kirin



Joined: 09 Aug 2018
Posts: 1119
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 4:58 pm Reply with quote
Thor: Ragnarok was the only movie directed by Waititi that I saw and I really enjoyed it, but I don't know what to expect from a live-action Akira directed by him. Ragnarok was an action-comedy and, although I only watched it once a long time ago, Akira was a gritty cyberpunk action anime, so I don't know which type of direction he will take.
I hope they'll cast Japanese actors for the main roles to avoid the mistakes that Ghost in the Shell did (although GitS casting was not the only problem for me), even if the story now takes place in New York, just to be a bit respectful to the source material.
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Themaster20000



Joined: 05 Aug 2014
Posts: 863
PostPosted: Fri May 24, 2019 7:11 pm Reply with quote
Going off the interviews where he talked about Akira,it seems like he has a real love for the material,so at the very least it will be an interesting adaptation. If they just got some shitty 'yes man' director, I wouldn't care less about it.
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Jose Cruz



Joined: 20 Nov 2012
Posts: 1773
Location: South America
PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2019 12:51 am Reply with quote
The (relative to past adaptations) sucess of Alita is the beginning of a growing wave of major Western films based on Japanese properties. I hope that these movies will get better and better.
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Benisara



Joined: 14 Feb 2019
Posts: 21
PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2019 6:37 am Reply with quote
Yeah I enjoyed What We Do In The Shadows, but I really hope he doesn't just throw in a bunch of cheap jokes. This is dark material and should be treated with a certain amount of reverence. Not sure how I feel about this either, but I guess we shall see.
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BadNewsBlues



Joined: 21 Sep 2014
Posts: 5920
PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2019 5:39 pm Reply with quote
Silver Kirin wrote:

I hope they'll cast Japanese actors for the main roles to avoid the mistakes that Ghost in the Shell did (although GitS casting was not the only problem for me), even if the story now takes place in New York, just to be a bit respectful to the source material.


....You don't need to have the main cast be exclusively Asian to be respectful to the source material hell the original anime movie depending on how you interpret it wasn't too respectful to the source material given how much of the story had to be pared down for the movie.


Last edited by BadNewsBlues on Tue May 28, 2019 8:47 am; edited 1 time in total
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Rai The Noblesse



Joined: 22 Aug 2013
Posts: 77
PostPosted: Sat May 25, 2019 8:23 pm Reply with quote
omg, so looking forward to his movie

he might push open the gates fully and finally start a real wave of good anine / manga adaptations in Hollywood..
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jdnation



Joined: 15 May 2007
Posts: 1998
PostPosted: Mon May 27, 2019 5:15 pm Reply with quote
I'm normally okay with certain adaptations changing the setting and characters to the local audience...

But Akira definitely isn't one of them in my book. Should've been Japan with a primarily Asian cast, though I wouldn't mind a few Americans cast in military roles, which could've been worked into the setting, and been a call-back to the US occupation of WWII.

But if they're going to set it in America, then an Asian cast wouldn't even be a necessity other than as a diversity token; though 'll concede that it depends on how they make it work. Even if it's some re-imagined Neo-Tokyo in Manhattan with Asian construction contractors rebuilding a war torn city (or post Akira-incident). And they could use immigration as an aspect of that in the future, even with Chinese buy-outs and funding.

But in that case, it'd be more realistic to have a more primarily dominant Asian cast and extras, with a few Americans as they settle there. But... then I return to my original point - why not just set it in Japan???

Sure, shoot it in Hollywood, and have a mix of US/Japanese architecture, and just say the Americans helped with reconstruction in Japan, and it'd still work in the post WWII themes that Akira has.

It feels to me that this is occurring for the same reason as Alita, rushing to get the film done before the rights expire.

I'm sure Waititi is capable of changing his usual style to adapt Akira, but it's the scope of the project that I'm worried about. For all Marvel's heavy FX work in their films, the backgrounds are still largely dull and uninspired outside of Guardians and a few glimpses of Wakanda until they decided to take us everywhere else but Wakanda, the majority of it set in boring labs. Ragnarok was okay in its department, which was primarily focused on camp. That's not really Waititi's fault as much as this is just the homogeneous issue with Marvel, though this consistency also works for their universe.

Anyway... I have mixed feelings.
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