Leading the charge for my 2nd wave is another legendary series, this one by Otomo Katsuhiro of AKIRA, Mother Sarah, and Steamboy fame, AKIRA being the most acclaimed and famous work of his. Otomo spent 8 years working on the project, and supposedly it was never completed to his utmost satisfaction. What he has created however has won numerous industry awards both domestically and abroad, and has stood the test of time tremendously well. It is as good as the day he put the wrap on it so many years ago.
AKIRA is set in a post-post-apocalyptic world of 2030, in a vast metropolis built on the ashes of a Tokyo annihilated by a blast from an unknown power. The lives of a group of delinquents are forever changed one night when one of them is involved in an accident which triggers his latent psychic ability. When he is whisked away by clandestine government agents, the others goes after him. Slowly the plot unravels, and the unimaginable power known as AKIRA that destroyed Tokyo 38 years ago and triggered WWIII is revealed.
in 1988 AKIRA was adapted into a landmark animated film, although its plot differs markedly from the print version. Together they are credited as having introduced both forms of storytelling to West and led the way for their popularization in the early 1990s. More recently, Hollywood has been hard at work trying to come out with a white-washed live-action adaptation of it, of which I am very unenthusiastic about. Regardless, the best version is now preserved for all times on the internet and here at MU.
AKIRA v3-4
AKIRA v5-6
◆ The 1st Ten ◆
◆ AKIRA ◆
November 19th, 2011 at 6:18 AM
Writeup soon.
November 20th, 2011 at 1:21 AM
a great chap of manga history
well done
phil
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:36 PM
just the stuff i need
(btw could you guys put a pack of Blade of the Immortal together?, its really hard to put all the chapters together with some of them having atleast 3 different number. it’s a pain in the ass and i am still not sure if i have every chapter and in right order)
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:36 PM
anyway: great job with your classic Manga packages.
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:22 PM
I don’t see why not :)
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:41 AM
BOTI is a bit tricky because of the differing volume and chapter numbers from eng/jp versions and such.
i’d love to see a pack, as i want to read it from the beginning again. but you’ll have your work cut out XYZ :P
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:11 AM
I have the eng ver. up to a certain vol. v20 maybe? I’ll have to look.
After that I have it too :) I think only one vol. the quality is not up to the standard set by the others.
November 23rd, 2011 at 2:38 AM
thats good news :D
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:55 AM
Awesome manga! one of my favorites. After seeing this post I decided it’s time to change my wallpaper to an Akira one :D
btw this post would have been perfect if it contained all of Otomo Katsuhiro manga available in english, Mother Sarah was uploaded here, you should probably add a link to it in the post, also Domu is a must read for anyone who liked Akira, but the one we uploaded some time ago seems to be dead.
November 23rd, 2011 at 8:54 PM
Those are for later. This one’s dedicated AKIRA.
November 23rd, 2011 at 9:16 PM
AKIRA is one of my all-time favorites as well, big thanks again! I can’t fathom the amount of work and dedication that poured into this piece.
I’m also very sceptical towards the announced Hollywood projects (AKIRA, Cowboy Bebop, BAA). Let’s see, nothing’s been decided so far (iirc).
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:25 PM
Does anyone know if the giant sized french ones are in colour or black and white?
Cause I heard there’s a version that just translated straight from the old marvel English ones.
The Older colour ones were not bad but when it got into the 90’s, they used those awful photoshop gradients.
November 23rd, 2011 at 10:26 PM
I love Akira. I read it years ago, but I agree, it has aged very well. Domu was also an excellent read. Thanks to MU I also discovered his other work Short Piece. So yeah, thank you guys, I’m glad so many people like Otomo like I do.
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:42 PM
i think i had the full colour version of akira. but unfortunately my pc is on the opposite side of the world :P i preffered the black and white anyway.
also on that artbook post we did, we had the akira art book which was pretty good. i bet the link for that’s dead too though…..
November 24th, 2011 at 1:52 AM
Don’t fret, I’ll look for it on ze internez!
Re: Found, cleaned, uploaded!!
November 24th, 2011 at 10:33 AM
oh good that you remind me of the coloured version. there were like 20 books of them in our library and i read them totally out or order back then (could only read those that weren’t borrowed). my first manga experience and it was glorious. the coloured version were good. maybe the german version had some redo on the colour version coz i never noticed photoshop gradient effects on the later books. i’m gonna look ze internet for them but if any of you can upload them at some point it’d be much appreciated
November 28th, 2011 at 5:42 PM
Could we have Mediafire or Megaupload Links?
And really Thankx for this release it’s awesome…