Postmodern Elements in Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s Akira (1988)

Purpose of the Study: This research paper intends to unravel and examine the postmodern elements in Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s anime film Akira (1988). This paper aims to analyze and critically study the postmodern elements as evident in the film and add more knowledge to the existing critical studies available on the film. Methodology: The primary text for this research is Katsuhiro Ōtomo’s anime film Akira (1988). Close textual analysis has been applied to analyze the text in view of the characteristics of postmodernism. The text is read in terms of postmodernism’s traits. Main Findings: Akira symbolically summarizes thoughts, ideas, and movements in post-WWII Japan. The film references many disaster texts from the repertoire of Japanese literature, cinema, and popular culture. The film exemplifies many postmodern traits such as discontinuity, pastiche, schizophrenia, hyperreality, cyberpunk, posthumanism, the cyborg et cetera. Application of the Study: This study will be beneficial to those who are pursuing research on anime and manga studies, cultural studies, popular culture, and postmodernism. Furthermore, this research will add more knowledge to the existing literature available on this anime film. Novelty/Originality of the Study: Ōtomo’s film Akira has evoked critical studies from a variety of critics and disciplines. However, a broader critical overview of the film’s postmodernism has always been lacking in the critical studies available on the film. Moreover, some specific issues such as posthumanism, the cyborg, postmodern paradoxes, glocalization et cetera have been overlooked by the critics. Therefore, this study will try to fill in the gaps of the previous studies.