Why Akira Creator Had Little Faith in the Movie That Should be a Warning Sign for Taika Waititi (If it Happens)

The current generation of anime and manga fans won’t know this, but Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira was one of the first series to establish the image of the industry all over the world. When Akira first came out, it marked a revolution in the manga industry and became one of the biggest names ever.

The impact of Akira remained for so long that even today it is considered to be a gem, and there have been talks about recreating the Akira story into a live-action version. Famous director Taika Waititi, known for Thor: Ragnarok and Thor: Love and Thunder, has been wanting to create a live-action movie based on Akira for a long time.

While the influence of Akira is great, Otomo initially did not have any belief in the anime movie adaptation that came out in 1988. He once revealed that he had no faith in the movie and was sure that the Akira movie was going to fail miserably because of the initial response it got from the audience.

Katsuhiro Otomo Had No Faith in Akira

In 2017, Otomo was interviewed by Forbes regarding his biggest creation and the struggles that he went through. The mangaka and director of Akira, while talking about the movie, revealed that although it was a big project for him, he had no faith in it after it was created. Otomo pointed out that the first rush for the movie was underwhelming, hinting that it might be a big failure.

Otomo explained:

Actually, when I saw the first rush of the movie version of Akira I thought it would be a failure. I left the theater very quickly and came back home to tell my wife that the movie was a failure. This was because I thought the first half was good but because the time and budget was limited, with so many cuts, the quality dropped as the story developed. In general, I thought the picture quality and cut quality went down when the movie went into the latter half.

While talking about the cyberpunk action film, Otomo stated that he was doubtful about Akira from the start and there were multiple reasons behind it.

This doubt originated from the fact that the production time and budget were limited, which led to the drop in the quality. Thus, Akira did not attract much audience at the time, and he was led to believe that it might be his biggest defeat.

The Main Reason Behind Katsuhiro Otomo’s Lack of Faith in Akira

While talking about Akira’s initial failure, Katsuhiro Otomo revealed that the biggest reason behind his lack of faith in the movie was the amount of cuts it had to go through.

According to the creator, Akira had more than 2000 cuts, which affected the storyline greatly. The cuts were primarily the result of poor animation quality because of a limited budget.

Otomo stated:

To give some examples of what I mean, there were just too many cuts. I think there were more than two thousand cuts in the end. That meant we didn’t have enough animators to do all the work. So each animator had way more work than they could do, so that meant they did a lot of overtime and had to make compromises in terms of animation quality.

However, contrary to Otomo’s belief, Akira picked up pace slowly and eventually earned world recognition. The movie not only became a giant in Japan but also made a huge impact in Hollywood.

Thus, if the plans of creating a live-action adaptation of Akira are still in the works, the creators have to make sure that they focus specifically on the animation quality. Also, the main narrative of the original Akira plot needs to be followed to the core, as it was a major factor in the franchise’s success.

Akira is available to watch on Netflix.