Akira, Vol. 1

Akira, Vol. 1 by Katsuhiro Otomo
Format: Hardcover manga
Series: Akira #1
Publisher: Kodansha Comics
Originally Published: 1984
Length: 359 pages

I haven’t read this series before, and I haven’t watched the popular 80’s movie adaptation of this, yet I somehow found myself ordering the 35th Anniversary Box Set after seeing it on sale. I don’t have much experience at all with manga, but this is a classic of the genre and something that influenced science fiction as a whole, regardless of medium, so I’ve been wanting to read it for a quite a long time now. It’s a beautiful collection of all six hardcover volumes and an additional art book, held in a giant box with swinging doors. It takes up quite a lot of space actually, so my fingers are crossed that I love these.

I’m happy to say, so far I’m enjoying these much more than I thought I would. The reviews for this first volume are a bit mixed, and you never know what you’re getting into with early comics. Most, though not all, western comics I’ve experienced from this era and before are full of exposition and rushed art, but this is extremely cinematic in how it’s written and drawn. The art is beautifully detailed and the perspective changes and page layouts feel modern, despite being nearly as old as I am.

A nuclear explosion decimated Tokyo in 1982, which started the third World War, and this comic begins in 2019 Neo-Tokyo. The main characters run a teenaged biker gang, and after an accident involving a withered child-man with psychic powers, they become entwined in the dealings of a secret government project connected to these psychics. One character starts to develop his own powers, and the other, the leader of the gang, falls in with a terrorist organization opposing the government.

This volume does a good job of setting up the story and the setting while giving a hint of things to come. The writing is serviceable, not particularly elegant but fast-paced and fun. Right now the characters aren’t very well-developed, so I’m hoping they flesh out as the series progresses, but this reads like a great action movie. I can already see how the film adaptation was a hit if they stuck to these panels in any way.

In these anniversary editions, they tried to stay as close to the source material as possible, so it reads from right to left, which I found wasn’t actually a problem, and they left all of the sound effects in Japanese. I understand why hardcover fans would want this, as the effects are drawn into the panels, so changing those is changing the original art, but I find that a bit annoying. There’s an index of the sound effects that you can look up at the end of the book, but no one is going to go through that trouble. Occasionally if there’s a sign or graffiti in the art, they will offer the translation just under the panel, so I wish they had just done that with the sound effects too. I don’t think this ruins anything, though, and it lets you replace any noise in the story with a fart or sad trombone.

Great start to the series. I’m looking forward to continuing on.