AKIRA Re-Release!
This Anime (Japanese Animation) is my favorite even today. I first heard of this movie from a friend when I was in high school who was really
big into "Japanimation". Living in America I thought Japanese animation was Robotech and G-Force, but this was something else. The cell animation was by far way ahead
of it's time, well before Disney started doing amazing full featured animations like Aladdin and Beauty and the Beast. (Note: Yes I saw Macross and other films so don't
give me a hard time if you are a hardcore Anime Otaku, you know who you are.)
The movie was incredible with great colors, characters and a kick-ass (yet very weird/creative) storyline. Unfortunately for most of us we saw this movie on
our 27" televisions rather than in the theatres. I always thought it would been great to see this in the theatres but that was impossible...
Until now, the day had come, Akira is being re-released to commemorate the U.S. DVD release! And to make things better Pioneer, who re-mastered the film, was
re-releasing the film with their new digital projection technology (they also did this for Episode I: the Phantom Menace). It's pretty much like the future of
movie theatres, offering digital quality like DVD's to the big screen.
Too Good to be True?For most YES. There is one downside to re-release they are only playing it in 2 theatres which happen to be both
in California, San Francisco and Burbank (near Los Angeles). Too good for most but not for me. Fortunately I was able to attend the showing twice and both
times I was amazed. Just to see a high caliber Japanimation in the big screen was a treat and this was not an "ratty-old" theatre but in a very nice
AMC Theatre with Stadium Seating.
The digital projection was provided by Texas Instruments' LRP Digital Projector and I was most impressed, and the sound quality which was re-mixed to a
Dolby Digital AC3 Surround Sound track was approved by THX. All in all, this was a treat! Great quality picture with no static, crisp colors and high quality
sound it doesn't get much better than this. Check out some photos I took of the theatre and projector below.
Re-dubbed Entire Film
The entire film was re-dubbed with new voice talent and sounds because they wanted to accurately translate the script and also re-record the tapes digitally. This
however brought on several changes to the film. As most of you know Akira's original English dub (voices, no subtitles) was very well done, but this was even better
in my opinion because the translation was very accurate. The pronunciation was corrected with many of the characters names like Akira (Ak-ira) and Kaneda (pronounced almost
like Canada). Also a lot of the script made a lot more sense after the re-dub and many portions of the movie that I didn't understand, now made sense including
a lot of "smart remarks" that cracked me up.
The one thing I did miss was the lines "Let's Ride!" and "just when my coil was reaching the green line" were both not in the film. But again I really didn't mind,
the experience was great.
Remastering
This info below is stripped from the Akira website but I will provide it for additional information in case you are curious. Check out the restoration comparison, the image on
top is the old version, compared to that of the new below.
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