Akira 35th Anniversary Box Set

Product Information

One of the greatest achievements by Akira Kurosawa, Ikiru shows the director at his most compassionate—affirming life through an explora­tion of death. Takashi Shimura beautifully portrays Kanji Watanabe, an aging bureaucrat with stomach cancer who is impelled to find meaning in his final days. Presented in a radically conceived two­part structure and shot with a perceptive, humanistic clarity of vision, Ikiru is a multifaceted look at what it means to be alive. Each volume is now housed in a sturdy hardcover and, unlike previous English printings, now reads in the traditional right-to-left. The manga also retains the original hand-drawn sound effects and is printed on high-quality paper, so Otomo’s detailed art is incredibly crisp. Akirahas never looked better. I also like how the movie feels so different, less personal and way more nuanced and political, it really makes both these works unique and worth consuming, over and over.

On a Technical Note: While I prefer the original right-to-left orientation of the 35th Anniversary box-set, Kodansha is still using the Dark Horse translation that appeared before Japanese formatting surprised the hell out of US publishers by catching on. It's only as big a deal as you make it, in my opinion; but if you can't stand the R-to-L format, and don't give a shit about 'preserving the artist's original vision', or whatever (does that sound right?), you can still find the Western oriented format in print, for a while, anyway. Is long been a fan of the movie but not read the source. My boss lent me Vol 1 recently and I devoured it. The panel work in this is incredible to this day. A must for anyone into graphic art.Toshiro Mifune swaggers and snarls to brilliant comic effect in Akira Kurosawa's tightly paced, beautifully composed Sanjuro. In this sly companion piece to Yojimbo, jaded samurai Sanjuro helps an idealistic group of young warriors weed out their clan's evil influences, and in the process turns their image of a "proper" samurai on its ear. Less brazen in tone than its predecessor but equally entertaining, this classic character's return is a masterpiece in its own right. This portrait of female volunteer workers at an optics plant during World War II, shot on location at the Nippon Kogaku factory, was created with a patriotic agenda. Yet thanks to Akira Kurosawa’s groundbreaking semidocumentary approach, The Most Beautiful is a revealing look at Japanese women of the era and anticipates the aesthetics of Japanese cinema’s postwar social realism. I have to say that it has taken me some time to achieve this with the added delay of travelling with work but I managed it in the end and I have to say that I enjoyed this this time as much if not more so than before. A vivid, visceral Macbeth adaptation, Throne of Blood, directed by Akira Kurosawa, sets Shakespeare’s definitive tale of ambition and duplicity in a ghostly, fog-enshrouded landscape in feudal Japan. As a hardened warrior who rises savagely to power, Toshiro Mifune gives a remarkable, animalistic performance, as does Isuzu Yamada as his ruthless wife. Throne of Blood fuses classical Western tragedy with formal elements taken from Noh theater to create an unforgettable cinematic experience. A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity.

As someone who owns multiple versions of the series (did I mention I’m a huge fan?), this is the definitive version of the manga. Malgré cela, j'ai trouvé le manga visuellement magnifique. Je vois sans peine content cela a pu être une oeuvre fondatrice de l'esthétique cyberpunk. First time I became aware of Akira was in the mid 90s or towards the late 90s. And it was the anime. All I saw was the cover for the video cassette. And learned there was a manga too sometime later. So up until now, actually and finally reading the manga, 40 years after it was first published, I thought the person on the cover was Akira! Now obviously I know that it is Kaneda that's on the cover with his motorbike! I knew it was a classic, but I was blown away at how fantastic this series actually is! What I found out, ironically enough, is that the film adaptation and the source books are vastly different stories. The manga series is rather large, so one would obviously think that many subplots and miniature story arcs would need to be condensed or altogether scrapped, like many films need to do. But no, this is an entirely different story. Same beginning, similar climax, but virtually every plot beat that happens in the book is completely different than the film. Where the film "ends" is approximately 40% of the way through the story, but it uses the same climax that the series has. Odd.Jean Renoir and Akira Kurosawa, two of cinema's greatest directors, transform Maxim Gorky's classic proletariat play The Lower Depths in their own ways for their own times. Renoir, working amidst the rise of Hitler and the Popular Front in France, had need to take license with the dark nature of Gorky's source material, softening its bleak outlook. Kurosawa, firmly situated in the postwar world, found little reason for hope. He remained faithful to the original with its focus on the conflict between illusion and reality—a theme he would return to over and over again. Working with their most celebrated actors (Gabin with Renoir; Mifune with Kurosawa), each film offers a unique look at cinematic adaptation—where social conditions and filmmaking styles converge to create unique masterpieces. Digital goods, open DVDs and Blu-rays, smart art prints, mystery bundles, and final sale items are excluded from the return policy.