Japanese anime remembers the atom bomb, decades after Hiroshima
Neo Toky, the setting of the popular anime film Akira, is about to explode. (Neo Tokyo/)Frank Fuller is an adjunct professor of political science at Villanova University. This story was originally featured on The Conversation.At the end of Katsuhiro Otomo’s dystopian Japanese anime film Akira, a throbbing, white mass begins to envelop Neo-Tokyo. Eventually, its swirling winds engulf the metropolis, swallowing it whole and leaving a skeleton of a city in its wake.The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki–along with the firebombings of Tokyo–were traumatic experiences for the Japanese people. It’s no surprise that for years, the devastation remained at the forefront of their conscience, and that part of the healing process meant returning to this imagery in literature, in music and in art.The finale of Akira is only one example of apocalyptic imagery in the anime and manga canon; a number of anime films and comics are rife with...