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AKIRA, by Katsuhiro Otomo, combines Japanese cultural history and modern physical science.

 

The history of Japan as a Nation of Islands began at the end of the Ice Age Civilization, about 11,600 years ago, the Jomon people took refuge in the Japanese Islands from flooding of the northern Sunda ocean shelf.

About 400 BC, the Yayoi displaced the Jomon people of the Ice Age Civilization and founded the present-day Japanese civilization. According to tradition, the founding took place about 660 BC when the Sun Goddess, Amaterasu, had a divine child, Ninigi, who then gave birth to Jimmu Tenno, who then constructed a palace on the Plain of Yamato.

By about 400 AD the country was united as Yamato Japan with its political center in and around the province of Yamato (around today's Nara prefecture). The period is also referred to as Kofun period because of the large tombs (kofun) that were built for the political leaders of that era. Buddhism was imported into Japan in the year 538 or 552.

Around 645, Nakatomi no Kamatari started the era of the Fujiwara clan and instituted the Taika reforms which adopted the culture and system of the Chinese Tang dynasty.

Even after the Tang Dynasty (618-907 AD) declined in China, its high culture was preserved in Japan as the culture admired by Katsuhiro Otomo in Akira. Japan defeated Mongol invaders from Korea in 1274 and 1281with the help of the Kamikaze (Divine Wind Typhoons) and maintained its culture through the period of first contact with Europeans (the Jesuit Francis Xavier arrived in 1549), until European and American traders, backed by naval force, entered Japan and brought about the Meiji Restoration of 1868 through which Japan copied the Industrialization and Military Imperialism of another island nation, England. Industrialization has been a successful addition to Tang culture. Although Military Imperialism initially appeared to be succesful in wars with China (1894-95), Russia (1904-05), Korea (1909), China (1915), and Manchuria (1931), the defeat of Japan in World War II showed that the adoption of English Military Imperialism was a major mistake.

That defeat was brought about by bombs using a new (to humanity) power source, Nuclear Energy, developed in the USA in 1941.

Although the USA has great power, it is (compared to Japan) quite young, having only a short (200 years or so) history.

 

Teen-age motorcycle gang member Tetsuo (number 41) is studied by the Scientist and the Colonel.

 Revolutionary Kei explains Akira to Kaneda, Tetsuo's motorcycler friend.

On seeing a Double Helix, Tetsuo (number 41) says: "... What ... What is it?! ... This shape ...! I know it ... the same one Akira's always playing with! ... ?! ...?! ... Oh! ...".

Lady Miyako, Number 19, says of Akira's mental powers: "... brains ... stimulated ... in specific patterns ... to modify genetic material by causing a chain reaction in their DNA. ...

[Compare Resonant Connections between Human Brain Tubulin Electron States and Clover Genetic Material (as well as other types of systems).]
... the power of your mind ... if you chose ... could lay waste to all the energy mankind has amassed. ... In reality, we are all part of the flow of the same cosmic stream. Even scientists don't grasp what their calculations truly show them ...
[Compare the failure of some physicists to believe in Many-Worlds even though, as Charles Seife says in Science 292 (4 May 2001) 823-825: "... Feynman ... treated electrons as ordinary point-particles that circle their nuclei ... To make the [ Feynman ] method work, physicists had to take all possible orbits into account simultaneously, rather than just one as in classical mechanics. Ordinarily, the infinite variety of possible orbits makes Feynman's method impractical. But on page 902, Salieres, Paulus, and colleagues show that the method does indeed hold the key to solving the mystery of the superionized atoms. ...".]
... Men gather together as though they would reverse the cosmic stream, but in truth they are only driftwood. Yet, even as the stream sweeps them along ... they possess one power capable of stopping the stream. When this power is used, the stream will stop for an instant
[Compare the Quantum Zeno Effect.] ...".

 

Tetsuo, Number 41, descibes his power ( here I edited it to refer to the Cosmological Constant GraviPhoton expansion of our Universe, rather than the rotation of the Earth ) to scientists on a U. S. Navy aircraft carrier:

 

Akira ( also Tetsuo ) is a true VoDou Chile.
[Jimi Hendrix taught himself to play the guitar while growing up in Seattle and living in Nashville and Atlanta. Through English Cultural Imperialism, he achieved worldwide fame while living in London. His ancestors were African and Cherokee. His death in 1970 (a year after Woodstock) may have been related to FBI COINTELPRO operations against Black Panthers.]
 

 

As Tetsuo's brain pattern grows out of control, his body also grows uncontrollably without discipline.

 

 

Akira (number 28 [28 = dimension of D4 Lie Algebra]) and his friends Kikoyu, Takashi, and Masaru (numbers 25, 26, 27)

use the Power of their combined Quantum Consciousness to create a disciplined Quantum State

that combines with the undisciplined growth of Tetsuo (number 41)

to create a new Zizzi Conscious Universe:

 

 

 


 

In 2001, Akira is being reintroduced to some new audiences. The Akira Manga is being reprinted (in black and white) by Dark Horse and the Akira movie is being rereleased with new (hopefully better) English dubbing in theaters and in DVD format.

The above images are taken from a Japanese language (English subtitles) VHS version of the movie Akira, and from the black-and-white Dark Horse Akira Manga, and from the color Akira Manga. I used the Encyclopaedia Britannica is a reference source about the history of Japan and about Jimi Hendrix.

 

I regret that my link to Andy Nguyen's Project Akira is no longer working.


 

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