Montealegre - Akira

The film Akira was not what I expected but at the same time the film was really interesting to me. The main character Tetsuo and Kaneda seemed like two ordinary kids to me in the beginning of the film, but as soon as you begin to see the type of world they are living in you learn they might be a bit different than what you’d expect. Tetsuo and Kaneda are apart of a motorcycle gang. It seems that Tetsuo and Kaneda grew up together, and Kaneda has always been more of the big brother figure. Kaneda from time to time would have to save Tetsuo and have to step and show Tetsuo the way. After years of feeling weaker than Kaneda, Tetsuo begins to feel a little bit of resentment towards Kaneda. One day Tetsuo is experimented on and gains power. Personally, I do not believe the government should have the right to experiment on anyone. Yes, experiments must be conducted to learn and advance in science, but I do not be it is morally right to do such a thing. There are other ways science can be handled. Throughout the film you could see chaos in this post apocalyptic world, the government had become corrupted. It seemed they had military men everywhere to keep the citizens under control, which I found to be unnecessary. I felt that the government ordered the military to control the people rather than to protect the people. The teenagers in the film, like Kaneda and Tetsuo reflected the rebellion against the war that all the people had. The corrupted government became an issue that affected the lives of everyone in the movie. Social injustice played throughout the entire movie. Back to the experiments done on people, I believe this goes along with the social injustice the government got away with. The government allowed experiments to go on, and their favorite test subjects were little kids. I felt bad for Tetsuo in the end though. Tetsuo was one of the underdogs and he only longed to become more independent from Kaneda. I don’t think Tetsuo expected the power he gained to consume him as it did. Personally, I felt as though Tetsuo would have turned back if he had known what he was going to become. Growing up in a world like he did things must have been rough, but he was not a bad kid. My heart goes out to Tetsuo.