Saturday 6 July 2019

Brand new AKIRA anime in development

Akira creator Katsuhiro Otomo is returning to his most famous creation for a new project.


His seminal graphic novel collection is getting a brand-new anime adaptation, this time for television. The 1988 Akira animated movie, although a classic, had to compress six very large volumes totalling some 2,000 pages into under two hours, which resulted in a film that left out very large chunks of the narrative. As the film was also released two years before Otomo completed the manga, there were also some significant differences in the story and ending.

The new adaptation aims to adapt all six graphic novels very closely, so will probably be a multi-season project using the latest animation techniques. The 1988 original movie is still getting some love, however, with a brand-new 4K remaster underway for release in April 2020.

This news comes a few weeks after it was confirmed that Taika Waititi will be helming the long-awaited live-action version of the story, for release in May 2021.

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