△ "Akira" poster
"In 1988, an explosion engulfed Tokyo in an instant. Thirty-one years later, the rebuilt city has been washed away the traces of war, and teenagers on motorcycles are weaving through the strange night..."
This is the opening scene of "Akira" and the anchor of memory in the movie. Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo and released in 1988, this anime not only successfully predicted the 32nd Olympic Games to be held in Tokyo, but also made an epoch-making effort to promote Japanese animation into the Western vision, which had a profound impact on the popular culture of film, television, music, and games in later generations. Kanye West has been blunt about the shock of watching the film as a child, and its "Stronger" music video released in 2007 is a tribute to this classic.
△ Countdown to the Japanese cinema Akira
Katsuyo Otomo's works all seem to have a strong personal color. Whether it is his directing of "Akira" and "Steam Boy", or the "Memories Trilogy" and "Metropolis", there is no shortage of grand explosion scenes. In Akira alone, Tokyo was "destroyed" twice by him. "Destruction" has thus become one of the most distinctive labels in Katsuyo Otomo's aesthetic.
△ "Akira" derives the LOGO of countless classic intentions
Close-Up, which means "close-up" in cinematic terminology, refers to a shot that focuses on a certain part, zooms in on details to achieve the artistic effect of emphasizing or advancing the plot. A good film can be interpreted in multiple ways, and in the same way, a great director has different sides. In the following, we will focus on the "destruction" element in Katsuyo Otomo's films, and get a glimpse of the reflection on human nature hidden under its destructive aesthetic.
●Aesthetics of destruction under cold machinery●
In 1983, Katsuhiro Otomo became the first manga artist to win the SF Awards in Japan with "Children's Dreams". In his early comic works, you can see that this master of animation is fascinated by elements such as mechanics and explosions. Katsuyo Otomo's meticulous realistic painting style and profound apocalyptic worldview shook the mainstream of Japanese manga that was promoting the plot with simplified abstract pictures at that time, and his appearance was also regarded as an important node in the transformation of the Japanese manga industry.
The icy city created by the interweaving of machinery, skyscrapers, prosperity and ruin is instantly reduced to ruins by the sound of explosions, and a sad apocalyptic mood arises spontaneously. This is the usual method of Katsuyo Otomo. Most of his stories take place in an alternate world of technologically advanced but social decay. It is precisely because of this strong contrast that his works provide inspiration for the construction of Cyberpunk's worldview in later generations.
△ The classic depth composition of "Akira"
Katsuyo Otomo's obsession with grand and deep scenes was largely influenced by the French cartoonist Mœbius. Mœbius's work is known for its imagination and sense of space, and his short comic strip The Long Tomorrow is probably the first in the world to visualize Cyberpunk. Also inspired by Blade Runner's director, Ridley Scott.
△ "Akira"
In addition to "Akira", which opened with a devastating big bang, the treacherous space cemetery in "Her Memories", the aging tokyo in "Old Man Z", the oppressive postmodern metropolis Metropolis in "Metropolis", and the classical and complex City of London in the Victorian era in "Steam Boy", all suffered from Otomo Katsuyo's "poisonous hands".
In order to achieve stunning visual effects, Katsuyo Otomo's animation works are known for their high costs.
△ Painting with full of light and banknotes
The original paintings of "Akira" are as many as 150,000, and Katsuyo Otomo himself completed more than 700 pages of split-shot scripts on his own. In order to ensure the delicate character movements, "Akira" uses the now obsolete "celluloid Celluloid" hand-drawn technology, which is unimaginably large. The sky-high production fee of 700 million yen also made Akira the most expensive animated film in Japan at that time. After 9 years of polishing, "Steam Boy" cost 2.4 billion yen, setting a new record again.
● Reflections on human nature behind "destruction" ●
△ The cyberpunk style of Akira
Katsuyo Otomo's "destruction" is clearly not just about visual effects.
In "Akira", the military wants to create humans with superpowers, only to be threatened by this uncontrollable force; the conflict between the two is escalating while humans in "Metropolis" are more and more respectful of artificial intelligence, resulting in the almost extinction of all mankind; in "Steam Boy" two forces compete for scientific and technological forces, resulting in a big war; the army in "Other Weapons" is vulnerable to the intelligent chariots created by humans; the protagonist in "The Stinkiest Weapon" unknowingly, Bring devastating biological weapons to the heart of the city, absurdity, and strike humanity.
△ A classic scene of film and television that has been repeatedly copied and paid tribute
These stories revolve around the timeless theme of Katsuyo Otomo's films, "How Humans Should Use Technology." His fascination with machines is palpable, but at the same time he is concerned about the impact of technology on humans, and this ambivalence makes his work unique. Perhaps out of a warning to humans, the relationship between humans and technology in movies is often pessimistic.
But Katsuyo Otomo does not blame technology for "destruction", on the contrary, he believes that technology itself is innocent, and it is human beings themselves who ultimately lead to destruction. Selfishness, greed, and jealousy in human nature are all catalysts for that mushroom cloud. If people blindly "create gods" and challenge nature, they will eventually be eaten by human power.
Katsuyo Otomo was born in 1954, and the haze of Japan's defeat in the war, coupled with the international strife and security struggles that followed, gave him a reflection on the war. Subsequently, Japan's economy and science and technology began to develop rapidly, hosting the Tokyo Olympic Games in 1964, and Japan became the world's second largest capitalist economic power after the United States in 1968.
During this period, the behemoths of reinforced concrete began to stand, and the whole country was immersed in a thriving mood. By the end of the 1980s, however, the illusion of prosperity was shattered at the cost of economic take-off, environmental damage, and the national experience of environmental destruction was being punctured.
△ The poster of the Chinese version of "Akira"
In fact, most of the inspiration for "Akira" comes from Katsuyo Otomo's observations on the streets of Tokyo during this period, and the so-called "God Prophecy" is nothing more than a review of Showa Tokyo, and the history of repeating it makes the theme behind the film more thought-provoking. Ironically, the expensive Akira is also a product of this economic bubble. Combined with the era experienced by Katsuyo Otomo, it is not surprising that his works are full of anti-war sentiments, apocalyptic complexes, and speculations about technology and human nature.
"A boy with extraordinary abilities stands on the ruins of Tokyo, and everyone will say that this is Katsuyo Otomo." Miyazaki's comment succinctly reveals the most common elements of Katsuyo Otomo's films—technology, youth, and destruction.
For mechanics, sensual infatuation and rational fear are mixed in Katsuyo Otomo's films. Technology can benefit or destroy humanity. When the contradiction between the two intensifies to an irreconcilable degree, Katsuyo Otomo often chooses to end all this with "destruction", and seems to be throwing this difficult problem to the audience.
Shotaro Kaneda, a bad teenager who likes to race cars in "Akira", James Ray Steam, a genius teenager who loves mechanics in "Steam Boy", and Katsuyo Otomo portray these teenagers who like to fiddle with machines, it seems that they are also pinning a glimmer of hope in a desperate story.
△ Cover of the fourth book of the manga
Katsuyo Otomo's films have always been endowed with a cautionary meaning that will never be out of date. Especially in the special context of the present, the meaning is becoming more and more obvious. Imagine how Katsuyo Otomo will continue to dance with "Destruction" in his new work ORBITAL ERA.