As a child soldier in Cambodia's notorious Khmer Rouge army Aki Ra laid many landmines. He now clears these deadly bombs with a stick and a pocketknife, more than 10,000 to date. It is very dangerous. No one pays him to do it. Aki is the real deal.
posted by lazaruslong on Sep 13, 2009 - 64 comments

Kurosawa: The Last Emperor documentary by Alex Cox (Repo Man). Featuring Francis Coppola, John Woo, Bernardo Bertolucci, Paul Verhoeven, Arturo Ripstein, Andrei Konchalovsky, Mike Hodges, and Kasuko Kurosawa. 50mins.
posted by vronsky on Sep 11, 2009 - 11 comments

20 years after its cinematic debut, Akira is being released on bluray. [more inside]
posted by slimepuppy on Oct 17, 2008 - 96 comments

New Kwest combining Daft Punk and Akira. Can you hear the Birdsong? (via Digg)
posted by Rubbstone on Jul 3, 2007 - 49 comments

Hisaharu Motoda’s “Neo-Ruins” series of lithographs depict the cityscape of a post-apocalyptic Tokyo, where familiar streets lie deserted, the buildings are crumbling and weeds grow from the broken pavement. More here, here & here.
posted by jonson on May 10, 2007 - 39 comments

Akira2019: a fan-site devoted to the classic Japanese manga and anime, offering up production cels, background info on the ground-breaking digital coloring technique used in the Epic translation, images, and film music.
posted by Blazecock Pileon on Apr 13, 2007 - 26 comments

Gender differences in literary taste - The Guardian (inter alia) has been reporting two English professors' studies of reading habits and feelings about books by gender. Others (newest to oldest): most revelatory books by reader gender (for men), (for women), author gender by reader gender. The methodology may not be unassailable but the findings are interesting and plausible. [viaduct vianochicken]
Sidenote: I did a little research following a comment on MR and reached a non-obvious conclusion: women hate Akira Kurosawa (check out those charts; for comparison). Theories welcome.
posted by grobstein on Apr 10, 2006 - 36 comments

Steamboy is a steam punk anime adventure by Katsuhiro Otomo (of Akira fame). Here's the synopsis. Here's the trailer. Looks hella-impressive. Kinda makes my pants shrink. Anybody else know more info on this?
posted by freakystyley on Apr 24, 2004 - 15 comments

Tetsuo! Kaneda! Akira on DVD!
posted by ritualdevice on Jan 29, 2001 - 6 comments