Why Race Matters in Akira

Pre-script? Disclaimer? :  It might be hypocritical for me to be writing about this as if I know what I'm talking about. As a White U.S.-ian, I have no claim beyond admiration to the original Akira manga and movie, or the circumstances around their creation. Nor do I have any claim to speak for the Asian, and Asian-American actors and audiences being jilted by this movie. But the situation strikes me as, to be blunt, fueled by racism, and to not point that out would be basically the same as condoning it. If anyone reading this feels I've overstepped my bounds here, please call me on it.

Post contains spoilers for those who have not seen/read the Akira film and or manga.

 So, I'm pretty sure most people who read this are familiar with the history of whitewashing in the U.S film industry. If nothing else, you're probably at least aware of the recent controversies around the Last Airbender and Prince of Persia films.
Now, as in the case of the Last Airbender travesty, I don't find 'It's a fantasy world, so everyone must be white by default' a tenable argument by any means. But even it has more excuse than the bullshit that looks to be happening in the WB's adaptation of Akira.

I'll just be upfront about this: I adore Akira. Thanks to a fanboy babysitter, I more or less grew up with Japanese cartoons, comics, and videogames, but Akira was my real introduction to the incredible depth, beauty and power of animation as a filmic form, and to the complex world of 'grown up' anime. This movie/manga introduced me to my now much beloved apocolyptic scifi, and Tetsuo spawned a permenant fangirl love for anti-hero's (different than underdogs), and otherwise seemingly amoral protagonists who are nonetheless vulnerable and loyal to their friends. I could go on and on and on and on, but suffice it to say; I freaking love Akira. So, I was briefly curious and excited when I heard about the possibility of it being remade, live action, by serious and competent filmakers. Until I saw the casting short lists for the lead roles:




For the role of Tetsuo: Robert Pattinson, Andrew Garfield and James McAvoy.
For the role of Kaneda: Garrett Hedlund, Michael Fassbender, Chris Pine, Justin Timberlake and Joaquin Phoenix  Thanks to Racebending for the info

....No. A thousand times no. 

Where do I start with what's wrong with this? I guess I can sort of break it down into two sections, but those still overlap a lot. A) as an anime fan and casual academic, I believe this does great injustice to the original work, and the literary tradition in which it is situated. B) It's racist as shit. These are a bit hard for me to separate, because what's not racist about basically erasing the cultural and historical context out of which a work was born? If the proposed blanket Americanization of Akira isn't indicative of the belief in some kind of cultural superiority, I don't know what is.

So, here goes:

(Section A is based on my forays into manga and anime studies, in which I am by no means an expert, just a slightly educated fan. I apologize for the lack of citations, I don't have my source materials on me now, and this is from memory, and thus not as detailed, or accurate as it could be.)

A) Why this disrespects the original in specific, and the Japanese entertainment industry in general.
Okay, this is a big one. A really really big one: Bomb Imagery.  Guess what U.S? We don't have the cultural/historical trauma of being the only country in the world to have had a nuclear bomb dropped on us. Two, actually. And to be familiar with Akira and say that it's plot and imagery is somehow separable from nuclear anxiety is to be ignorant of history. Akira is one of a an entire genre of Japanese apocalyptic films that refer to the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The first such of these that I know of being Godzilla, the opening scene of which is of a devastated city, very much reminiscent of footage taken of the aftermath of the bombings. Bomb imagery and anxiety has influenced much of Japanese horror and science fiction since the end of WWII. Akira is clearly part of this tradition, with the opening shot being destroyed by and atomic bomb, Neo-Tokyo being set in a massive crater after WWIII, the primary conflict being driven by a combination of human experimentation with technology who's power they don't understand, and can't control (played out on multiple levels by the gov'ts inability to control Tetsuo, and Tetsuo's giddy power binge which he ultimately can't control either) and the climactic end being an explosion that looks very much like depictions of a nuclear one. To remove this story from Japan and set it in Neo-Manhattan, with white actors, as the WB production intends, is to undermine the very real power behind those images for Japan, and ignore a rich and established film and literary tradition in favor of...what? Some weird need for familiarity? As if we can't be expected to empathize with human tragedies if they didn't happen to U.S-ians?. Not to mention more than a little twistedly appropriative, considering you know, it was the U.S that dropped those bombs.
Speaking of ignoring the legitimacy of other peoples story telling traditions, it bears mentioning that in the originals, the main characters are all about 15. Yeah. Do any of the actors listed above look like they could pull that off to you? Why is this important? Well, let's have a look at the (especially prevalent in manga and anime) tradition of the 'monstrous youth'. Think of some well known anime characters...lets just throw out: Naruto (naruto), Lain (serial experiments lain), and Nia (guren laggan). What do these three characters have in common? They are all youths (12-14 ish) whose relationship to self and others is mediated by their own unwilling monstrosity. Naruto is a social outcast because he serves as the container for a the Kyuubi, a devastatingly powerful monster that sometimes posseses him when in dire straights. Lain, it turns out, is not a person at all but a program, and Nia is the arguably artificial creation of one of the series 'big bads' not quite human, animal, or what have you.  Now, of course, monstrosity means different things when applied to all of them, but change and hybridization of consistent. This isn't to say that the trope of the 'monstrous youth' exists only in Japanese story telling, but it has had and continues to have a significant presence there, which was particularly telling at the time of Akira's being written and published. Tetsuo is truly a monstrous youth, given a terrible power over which he cannot control and which is ultimately destructive, as the result of human meddling with dangerous technology. This corresponds to both the trials of adolescence, but particularly the trials of adolescence and inter-generational strife between those growing up in the post-war period, and those who had lived through it. Tetsuo's monstrosity can be read as representative of the perceived 'lostness' of rebellious youth during the recession, and how alien they must have seemed to their parents who had lived through the war. So, taking the story out of Japan and changing the characters races and ages again undermines both longstanding literary traditions, and lessons the emotional impact of several story elements that depend in part on cultural and historical context

B) Why these casting decisions would be overtly racist, even without the whole ignoring-context-and-dismissing-of-Japanese-literary-traditions-because-we-only-like-American-shit-thing.
Casting white characters in these roles contributes to a long history of whitewashing in U.S cinema. We saw it Airbender and Prince of Persia. Before that we saw it in Lawrence of Arabia, Breakfast at Tiffanys,  Bullet Proof Monk, 30 Days of Night, Starship Troopers, 21, the Dragon Ball Z movie, and I'm sure many more. In the last couple years, a little under 2% of big grossing films have had Asian American leads. Which is weird, since that's not exactly representative of the U.S population. Asian-American actors (well, really all actors who aren't caucasian) are routinely funneled into supporting roles, and often typecast or tokenized. The underlying belief seems to be that only white faces are bankable. The underlying belief to that being that apparently U.S movie goers can only empathize with White people, and nobody else's existence really needs to be seriously acknowledged anyway. Which kind of implies that only White people are people. Since, you know. Empathy.
The best part? As seen above, the main characters are keeping their Japanese names. Because that, in combination with everything else about the movie, isn't remotely appropriative or anything.
It's not even believable. At all. It's not like Manhattan is a white-only city. I strongly doubt a Neo-Manhatten would be either. There is really, really, no reason to cast White actors in the roles of Kaneda and Tetsuo besides simply not wanting Asian-American actors to have them. And guess what? That's racist. Seriously, break the cycle. Give the roles to some of the many great but underrated Asian-American actors. Or open up casting calls to look for new talent completely. I'm more than willing to bet that the unbankability of actors of color is one fabricated and perpetuated by Hollywoods refusal to take 'risks' on actors of color in leading roles. 


TL;DR: By taking Akira and setting it in the U.S with white actors we completely dismiss the longstanding and totally worthy body of work to which it is attached, apparently solely because that body of work is Japanese, not U.S-ian, and perpetuate the marginalization of actors of color, and the media under-representation of people of color as a whole. Which, you know, demonstrates massive problems of empathy and social status. Use your consumer power and tell the entertainment industry to stop pulling this shit.


Stuff to do about it:
Join the FB petition, use numbers to show WB that their audience won't stand for these discriminatory policies