While we wait for Hollywood’s on again/off again live-action Akira to get off the ground, the team from The Akira Project would like for you to see something.
This crowdfunded trailer from fans of the seminal manga and the anime it inspired went all-out on this production, which hits a lot of the visually iconic beats from Katsuhiro Otomo’s masterpiece: the night-time bike ride, Tetsuo’s (Xavier Yuvens) unfortunate first encounter with one of the esper kids, and the final hilltop confrontation between Tetsuo and Kaneda (Osric Chau), which doesn’t go so well for the city.
So what do you think? The production value is mostly there (the seams show a little during the docks fight, but any scene set on the docks will, by its very nature, look kind of cheap). The props and costumes are quite cool and I’m sure someone out there is wondering if they can crowdfund a line of Kaneda’s jackets. And yes, I would like to order one in a medium.
Overall, it’s impressive for a production that shot for three days back in 2012. The Canadian team that makes up The Akira Project and Cineground Productions got all of their footage at the start of November of that year, after reaching half of their Indiegogo campaign’s $7,500 goal.
Some of you might recognize Osric Chau, the actor playing Kaneda: he played Kevin on the most recent couple of seasons of Supernatural and served as the executive producer for The Akira Project. Perhaps the other big “get” here is veteran voice actor George Manley (Full Metal Alchemist, Bodacious Space Pirates) who supplied the voice of the Colonel.
Is this a version of Akira you’d like to see? Let us know in the comments below.
This is not something i want to see. I already saw Akira 20 years ago, it was amazing. A live version will not add anything. The animation was what was beautiful about it
Why not get Osric on the podcast?
It’s not BAD for a fan trailer. Visually it’s pretty damn great. That there are credits for it that take up 25% of its length is pretty annoying.@Charles – Kadoya released a fully licensed ‘A Project’ jacket a few years back in 2 styles/colors, for like 70,000¥.
Love this! They did an awesome job.
If you’ll excuse me I just need to step into the bathroom to clean myself up after watching that :O 😀 😀
Sweeeeeet. The bike looked a little “off,” CGI-wise, but I don’t care. That was awesome.
Dear Hollywood.. someone made this in their house. Time to pick up your game.
That was awesome. I like how many fans are getting better at their editing techniques so that the movies they make dont look like simple photoshop. I’ve loved this movie and I still want that bike.