Akira is required viewing for any fan of Japanese animation, a ground-breaking film which helped introduce many western audiences to anime. Though the plot is all over the place and goes in some pretty gnarly directions, the film is praised more for its atmosphere and style: it presents a gorgeous-looking cyberpunk landscape and has been enormously influential in the sci-fi genre ever since it came out (such that numerous attempts have been made to adapt it into a live-action movie). Tempting though it is to call the film style over substance, it's nevertheless a film that makes the viewer feel an awful lot even where the plot lacks sophistication and direction. The sheer insanity of the giant teddy bears and blob-like mutations is impossible to forget, and in the service of a film that is absolutely unlike nothing else out there.