Customer Reviews

Akira, Vol. 3

5 star:		(6)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Volume Three of Katsuhiro Otomo's epic sci-fi saga finds the newly awakened Akira being pursued by Kei and Kaneda, the Army, Nazu's militant faction, weirdly-powered flying children, strange Government robots, etc.

After being freed from his cryogenic sleep by Tetsuo in the last volume, Akira is still groggy, and so we really don't get any insight into his character, and he doesn't become an active participant in the story until the very end of the book. What an ending, though! After this, the series spins off into totally unexpected territory. This volume seemed like mostly filler, though. The story is basically just a lot of people playing "keepaway" with Akira; He's stolen from Kaneda by the flying kids, Nazu snatches him from the flying kids, etc. Like most long stories (In any medium), the middle lags.

Otomo's art continues to be mind-boggling. The amount of detail in every panel is incredible, and you could just linger over the art all day. Even at three stars, Akira 3 is better than most other comics....

Why on earth are people so concerned with the number of pages? Who cares?!! This third installment of the series is by far the most emotionally and graphically charged part of the story to date. The characters and the complex web of fate that entwines them are explored in much greater depth. The political factions and their agendas are brought to light. Relationships develop between the characters and new characters shed a whole new light on understanding the world of Neo-Tokyo and its political climate. In general the story takes focus and burns a hole right through to the last page as Akira and his devastating power "awaken". Graphically stunning. An epic story that continues to grow in scope. Unbelievable. Otomo is an unrivaled master of the medium.

This book was hard to get a copy of, but I finally managed to get my hands on one yesterday. Like the first two volumes, I read it straight through as soon as I got home. I hadn't planned to do that, but it was so good I couldn't put it down.

This volume is the smallest so far in terms of the number of pages, but it is almost non-stop action from first page to last. Akira is awake, but still groggy from his long sleep. Multiple groups want to capture and control him before he fully wakes up. You can't skip a page if you want to keep track of who has Akira from one moment to the next.

Lots of action, lots of firepower, lots of destruction. I can't wait for volume four.

If you know of the Akira Anime this Manga should be of no surprise; however, there are some definite differences that will become evident upon reading. 1st off the anime is way way shorter and edited to such an extent that most casual watchers are left feelin confused. These books will clear up any problems you may have had with the movie and expand upon the foundation the movie laid out. Be aware these books not in color.

Another fine installment in the Akira series in my opinion. The book has (yet again) less pages than the previous volume (book I - 364 pages, book II - 300 pages, book III - 280 pages of which a big segment is an even quicker read than any of the previous parts) but it doesn't fail to impress ... again.

After Tetsuo got Akira out of the ground at the Olympic site (in volume II) their time together doesn't last long when Tetsuo mysteriously disappears (for almost the entire book), and Kaneda and Kei take a confused and dazed Akira with them. Neo-Tokyo turns out to have changed into a battle-ground where chaos rules as a result of the Colonels 'safety measures' (last volume). Martial Law has been declared. What follows is an almost volume-wide "hunt for Akira" that takes place all over the ravages of neo-Tokyo in which each 'competitor' (such as the Colonel and his project-members, the government, the rebels and the mysterious Lady Miyako) has it's own reasons to get their hands on him. The rebel group even splits into two parties when it turns out there's a traitor among them. Akira himself is letting everything happen as it may. He is 'up' but not fully 'awake' yet. But it's just a matter of time before he WILL awake and become the enormous force that legends tell he is, but nobody is able to predict how long that will take. Nor does anyone know what to do when it will happen.

Storywise this book makes the least progress of all three volumes that are published at this point in time, which I don't neccesarilly mean to say as a bad thing. It's just that each scene gets even more exposure, more pages, than each scene has had so far (which was already big) and so you're at the end of the volume before you know it, without the story being that much further. Where Otomo used to take 10 pages for a scene in the previous volumes, he takes 20 here. The real emphasis in this book is mainly on the confrontations between the several parties of interest, which are drawn out over the better part of the pages. However, art-wise I must say that this volume is so far the most powerfull by far, especially in the last 60 pages which left me quite speechless (and I don't have that easily). In the end it leaves us with a great cliffhanger which makes the wait for volume IV to be published not exactly easier. A volume of which I'm glad to have heard it will be 400 pages.

With an emergency situation declared, the spooks and pollies start manoeuvring. The Colonel is not going to take the blame, and instigates a military takeover, after Kaneda and Kei have escaped with Akira.

More of the psionic children come out to play. A confrontation with the Colonel causes the death of one of these children, and this sets the awesomely powerful Akira off.

Neo-Tokyo gets it in the head, again.

ini buku yang wajib dimiliki, sinting surinting aja kalau nggak punya. Forget everything else.

Akira, the title character, is central to this volume. Initially, he appears to be an asset that everyone wants, but the long-hinted at power of Akira is slowly awakened as the story progresses.

The awakening of Akira changes the whole nature of the story. Both in the content and in the illustrations, you can see that a very large change has come to the world, and that things won't be the same again.

And speaking of the illustrations: the sheer scope of the story is well captivated by Katsuhiro Otomo's art. Quite, quite spectacular.

At the end of this volume, we are halfway through the six volumes of this epic story. From my uncertain beginnings, I'm now sure I'll be following this through to the end.

With Akira finally freed from his cryonic sleep, all the forces that are interested in him start their wars against each other. SO many characters, yet so exciting as the story moves kinetically through chases and battles around Neo Tokyo. It keeps me over the edge as a fast-paced action movie with a foreboding sense that something big is about to happen.

And it does, when Akira's dormant telekinesis power is unleashed, it's nothing short of massive bewilderment. Think of the power of 1000 atomic bombs hidden inside the body of a boy, exploding at the same time. The destructions scenes are so detailed, I couldn't help wondering how long it took Mr. Otomo to draw these pages.

Just sheer wonder.

They throw a lot of new characters at you in this one, and it can be hard to keep up. But hang in there and read it twice if you have to. I can't wait until I can get the next one, because the ending if (almost literally!) da bomb.