Beloved anime classic Akira (previously) is in the process of getting a live-action adaption courtesy of Warner Bros. and Legendary Pictures. In fact, they're currently trying to assemble a cast. Oddly enough, despite keeping the leading characters' names Kaneda and Tetsuo, all the actors approached are white. This hasn't gone unnoticed, and Racebending.com is preparing a campaign to protest. Just last year M. Night Shyamalan's adaption of The Last Airbender (previously) drew massive criticism for having an all-white cast in an Asian setting. [more inside]
posted by Harald74 on Mar 24, 2011 - 230 comments

Announcing: The Art of Akira Exhibit Its stunningly fluid and detailed animation often required as many as nine separate cel layers. The 125 minute feature was comprised of over 160,000 cels and almost as many backgrounds, each one completely hand–drawn and hand-painted. Purists recognize Akira as the last completely hand-created animated feature.

Joe the Peacock, in collaboration with Toonseum, presents a project to 'expose as many people as possible to the brilliance' of Akira.

Akira previously: 1 2 3
posted by shakespeherian on Feb 4, 2010 - 76 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