Akira is making a huge comeback! Now, we’re not just getting a live-action adaptation—we’re getting an anime series too.
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While promoting his upcoming film, creator Katsuhiro Otomo broke the news during an Anime Expo panel. He revealed the cult classic’s return will be in an anime format. Japanese animation studio Sunrise Inc. will produce the anime. This legendary studio also produced Cowboy Bebop, Gintama, and the Gundam series.
Akira is coming back in anime form, with Sunrise producing. Not a sequel! They want to make use of more of the content from the manga, but they're apparently still figuring out exactly what they want to make.
My bet is this will be the FMA: Brotherhood of Akira. pic.twitter.com/HfycaQaRE1
— Evan Minto (@VamptVo) July 5, 2019
Its release date is yet to be announced. But seeing that Taika Waititi’s live-action adaptation will be out by 2021, we might get the anime series around this time as well.
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As of now, we can only speculate on how they’ll do Akira’s TV comeback. It could be similar to Full Metal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a reboot of an anime classic of the same name. They updated FMA’s animation and tweaked some storylines in Brotherhood.
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But if we’re tweaking Akira’s old animation for TV? Hell, that’s a tall order. After all, Akira’s animation is quite legendary. They used over 160,000 animation cells, meaning animators illustrated every element in the film.
Fandom is right: it changed Japanese animation forever. How will its TV series follow up? We can only wait until the series drops, whenever that may be.
Still from Akira