Blu-ray Review: Akira

By Cyril Pearl -- Video Business, 2/23/2009

HONNEAMISE
Street: Feb. 24
Prebook: now
> BD version of anime classic looks good and sounds even better.

The granddaddy of modern feature-length anime films, 1988’s Akira remains a startling and timeless post-apocalyptic adventure and a perfect title for adaptation to the Blu-ray format. Presented in 1080p using MPEG-4 AVC codec, the Blu-ray version looks appropriately crisp and colorful, with the motion sequences—particularly the motorcycle chases—looking particularly pleasing. Presented in Dolby TrueHD 5.1, the audio quality is exceptionally fine, the aforementioned motorcycle sequences offering the best example of the strong and well-separated soundtrack. One major disappointment is that the majority of the supplements that were on the standard DVD special edition are not included on the Blu-ray, which makes it difficult to justify its high price point.

Shelf Talk: The highest-profile Blu-ray anime release to hit the new release shelf thus far, Akira is sure to click with followers of anime and manga who undoubtedly already own the standard DVD version. Also, fanboys (and gals) of this stripe are early adopters and have probably been waiting to give their system a workout with a seminal anime title.

Anime, color, R (mature themes, violence, brief nudity), 124 min., BD $49.98, Japanese and English with optional English subtitles, reviewed on a Samsung LN-T7081 LCD 70-inch HDTV with LED backlight and HDMI connection
Extras: storyboards
Director: Katsuhiro Ôtomo
First Run: L Int’l., 1988, NA