Anime Akira Re-Release

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AKIRA 2001 rerelease and digital projection look!
Hey folks, Harry here with a viewer's perception of the New AKIRA print
that is screening up in New York at the AMC Grand in Full Digital
Projection Glory. I have very few memories of the night I saw the film, as
the 10 winners and I got so messed up that night that I remember staring
at the ceiling of my hotel room and counting the squares... Ahhhh...
joy.... The print is immaculate... so pristine and perfect that it nearly
seems 3-D... Second the soundtrack... especially the score was so friggin
beyond words good sounding that you could feel every sound using your body
as a tuning fork... Man, this was great sound. As for the Dub and
comparing it to the OLD dub... Well, Dub is dub, I still prefer original
language and subtitles... but that's me. I second our spy's insistence on
having 3 language tracks... Original English Dub, New Remastered Dolby 5.1
sound and then the original language version! That disc would RULE!!!!
here ya go.... Akira

2001 English Dub in digital Projection

Well Harry a few months ago I gave a review on vampire hunter D 2000. In
that review I said that I had snuck away to see Akira at the MOMA. That
screening presented an old print witch was the original 88’ English dub.
That was then this is now.

Akira for the new millennium sports new transfer and new English dub.
Being as I live in New York it was very simple to go see this digital
print at the AMC Empire 25 in Time Square. I was truly enthused to see,
not only my favorite animated film but my favorite film period. But I'm
not going to talk about how good the film is, or how important this piece
of work is. This is only about the new technical aspects of this
presentation.

Going in on Friday I was very nervous about how the new 01’ English dub
would be. You see even though the original dub wasn’t the greatest and
could be down right confusing at times (not to mention corny), It is now a
classic. You can move around to a hundred different web sites and pull
down sounds and themes, based on those voices. Who in the anime watching
community would not recognize the classic Kaneda scream "TETSUOOOOOO"!

I sat down with 2 of my friends with hopes that this would be an
interesting experience. I brought them along because there varying
experiences with this film. One had never seen it and the other had scene
it only once. I figured this way I could gage a newbies reaction to see if
he found it confusing as well as some one who was confused the first time,
could now make sense of what he had seen.

The first thing you will notice is a very loud THX logo. This logo was
greeted with cheers from the audience. The logo is nice and all but it’s
plain. Its not like they designed a new one, like they did for toy story 1
& 2. It might have been nice to see Kaneda rev his bike and it stall out
then plug it into the THX logo and it sound like a beast of a bike.

At this point the film began. The first few shots of the city are very
light colors. This began to show of the digital transfer. Buildings looked
sharp colors looked vibrant. It was almost as if you were looking at a
painting. Then tragedy struck. When the explosion and the resulting
creator are shown you begin to see the age of the film. As it was digital
you could see every speck and scratch of the source material. This all
because you were looking into black (not to mention a 40+ foot screen).
This all worried me because I would say a good 70% of the film is dark.

As the film proceeded the specs disappeared in to the background (probably
dew to the fact that Otomo’s backgrounds are filled with detail of what
ever environment your in). The opening bike sequence looked incredible and
I began to thank pioneer for doing the restoration. In comparison with the
poor quality videos out there, the high quality criterion laser disc, this
is obviously the best. There were a few moments where colors seemed noisy
but we are talking about a 13 year old film. To sum it up, this may not
win awards for the best transfer, but it is the best we will get and now
that it is digital it will not get worse.

The real reason people are curious about this version is the new English
dub. You begin to notice the differences immediately in the bar sequence.
The few lines traded by Yama and the bartender, make you raise an eye.
It’s not that there bad just real different. When you meet Tetsuo outside
even his mumblings about the bike are different (witch anyone that knows
about bikes, will know, this is more correct then that of the original.)

The music kicks in and the 5.1 transfers spreads its legs. Very nice.
Again the bike sequence was incredible. You truly felt enveloped. Bikes
whizzing buy, explosions screams, and grunts. It was great. Beyond the
obvious differences in the dialoged you begin to get hints of differences
in the sound design. For example when Takashi sees a guy get utterly
decimated by bullets his scream is very different from the 88’ English
dub. Granted it is only a scream but the 88’ dub had some kind of echo
with it. 01’ dub did not. I wasn’t thrilled at this as I liked the way
that scream was done originally. But I began to realize why this was. 01’
dub is more closely related with the Japanese dub. The clincher was when
you first hear Kenada introduce himself to Kay. Instead of pronouncing it
KA-NEA-DA he goes with the more Japanese CA-NA-DA. To be perfectly honest
I was a little jarred by this. I’m sure purist are going to lynch me for
that. But in any case you get used to it. The 01’ dub shows that it is
superior in many ways a lot of scenes make a lot more sense, and a new
sense of humor is injected into the film. For those that will see it the
weekend you will laugh. In the end the only problem I had with it was some
of the voice actor’s performances seemed a little dry and uninspired. The
colonel does not seem nearly as menacing as in the 88’ dub.

My final view of the new 01’ version of Akira is completely positive. My
friends both seemed to have understood everything without need of
explanation. As for the 01’ dub becoming a classic only time will tell.
But this should definitely more accessible to a new generation of anime
fans. I hope this weekend a lot of people attend as it can help a landmark
film get the widespread theatrical release it deserves and intern show
studios that there is a big market for adult orientated animation.

Ansylum

PS. I still think people should watch the Japanese version it is the only
true way to see Otomo’s vision.

PPS. If any one knows were I can get the new 2001 posters please say so in
the talk back.

PPPs. It would be nice if pioneer would include all 3 dubs onto the new
dvd. For historical purposes