Akira is one of the films that got me into films. It's such an iconic piece of art in so many ways, making it hard to speak about it for only a short paragraph. The crown jewel of this movie is the animation, which is some of the best that has ever been done. Even almost 40 years later, the hand drawn vistas are more beautiful than most visuals a film can put together today. The art direction in general is basically perfection; flashy style mixed with tons of detail. The audio that accompanies this visual feast is not as good, especially the shoddy English voice acting. Still, this is often a quiet film that leaves the viewer alone to enjoy it's grand storytelling. Speaking of storytelling, this aspect of the film is easily the worst. This is expected from a story that is adapting not even half of the content from it's comic book counterpart. Even so, there's several key ideas and parts of the film that are left completely unexplained, and if you really want to know the story you'll have to find a wiki or just read the original books. However, what remains of the tale contains lots of interesting themes and narratives, along with some fun action scenes. While many people today may not be able to appreciate this old gem, Akira is without a doubt one of the most iconic films ever made, and is a damn good watch.