HOMAGE TO THE BEGINNING OF THE FILM AKIRA AND WHY I LOVE THE SOUNDTRACK — CONTEMPORY ANIMES ARE DOING SOMETHING WRONG (text in progress)
I didn’t know how great Akira was. And I’m happy I haven’t seen any scene of it till I happened to sit in a lecture – held for Kids btw. 13–15 years – in the wonderful Filmmuseum in Vienna. The lecture was held by Stefan Stiletto, who is a very nice guy who does professional film-education and set (among other topics) a focus on Anime. He gave an overview about Codes in Anime, History of Anime, Fun-Facts about Anime and much more. He also showed some examples of course and a few of them on real film – I was in heaven.
On of the real-film-examples was the beginning scene of AKIRA. Sorry to repeat myself here but: I sat in Filmmuseum and saw Akira on real film. Not only that I’ve never seen an Anime on film before, which brought me a warm and welcoming shiver of amazement when I saw the sharp graininess of the film material saying ‚Hey there – I was produced for cinema and I have the best Quality of an Anime you have seen since … well never before obviously and I am not having that shitty but OK-enough quality of the streams (sorry!) you usually watch Anime from‘. Nah – it was not only that I had a ‚holy-guacamoly finally an Anime on real film‘-experience, no – the sound blew me away.
The film begins with a far distance tracking shot* from high above of a somehow familiar looking but still unknown city accompanied by a rough sound of strong wind — probably most logical for the hight of the perspective, however it immediately gave me a enormous feeling of tension and mystery. After a few seconds a text* hovers the still in tracking shot city-picture, telling us that we are in the year 1988 (the year the film was made) now and that what we see from above is Tokyo. The very moment the tracking stops and the picture of Tokyo turns still, we see the beginning of a huge white half-ball-shaped explosion in distance — starting on the ground behind what appears to be city’s center. The spreading of the explosion takes both — the picture of the city and the sound: the wind becomes quiet, the white light of the explosion covers the hole screen, followed by the credits of the story’s creator and the film’s director Katsuhiro Ōtomo.
Slowly the wind-sound comes back again and with it we also start to see a vague picture again; something red, something from above — it is not quite clear what it is till it’s revealed to us: a new shaped city from bird’s-eye view. The breath still held back, because something has to happen after this huge and more importantly ‚soundless‘ explosion. A brief moment – the moment we figured out what we see — and what comes next for me is the most amazing thing: The moment we see the city-shaped picture, that moment — seemingly out of nothing — there is this strong, loud, huge and echoed percussion’s BOOM.
Writing again: ‚31 Years after World War III – ad 2019 New Tokyo‘ followed by another BOOM, which also leads into a black screen. The camera starts to zoom out of which appears to be a crater – another BOOM soon followed by a CHAK and another BOOM … a rhythm is notable. The zoom-out stops, the crater is now a round shaped frame – in it’s center pitch black. The rhythm-wise awaited next CHAK follows — like a little sibling of the very first BOOM – later than aspected in company with the huge aggressiv-red letters: ‚AKIRA‘ … the next BOOM leads us into the next picture and therefore into the beginning of the story of AKIRA.
boom … … … … … text
boom … … … black screen
zoom out start (crater) … boom … chak … boom
zoom out stop … boom ….. chack .. AKIRA … boom
This one BOOM you start to wait – almost urge for with a whole lot of tension, which was raised from the beginning of the film … There it finally is and it comes with such an impact that – and I swear I’m not trying to overdo – … that I always got a little heart attack and wince when it comes. At this moment you start to believe that what you are going to see is something huge, something epic and that feeling will hold the entire movie.
Very soon your tension gets an orgasmlike relief when the first music-piece starts ...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Af5r8ONtacw
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