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Many eyes have been fixed on Katsuhiro Otomo’s manga Akira since the announcement that Tokyo will be the location of the 2020 Summer Olympics. Akira is a classic sci-fi work that was serialized in Weekly Young Magazine from 1982-’90 and adapted into a movie in ‘88. Of course, the attention on the work is due to that fact that it is set in Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019 just before the Olympic games are to be held the following year.
In Akira, World War III breaks out after a bomb is dropped on the Kantou region of Japan. Tokyo, which was destroyed, is in the process of reclaiming its prosperity and wins the bid for the 2020 Olympics. Starting with the signboard “Home of the Tokyo Olympics,” the work depicts many scenes related to the Olympics.
The Olympics have frequently been the center of attention among fans since Japan’s invitation to the 2016 Summer Olympics. Due to the work so closely predicting this new event, there is now huge anticipation surrounding the year 2020. In response to an article on this same topic posted to Naver Matome earlier this month, fans commented, “My mind is running wild with thoughts of the Olympic torch relay being done with Kaneda’s bike,” and, “A huge, mysterious explosion due to a weird experiment in Tokyo won’t occur right before the Olympics, right? (lol).”
After the announcement of Tokyo winning the bid for the 2020 Summer Olympics in the early morning of Sept. 8, the work received a huge spike in attention. “Akira” became the No. 1 searched keyword on Yahoo Japan and an abundance of comments began accumulating, such as, “Amazing!” and, “That’s right,” and, “What a perfect coincidence.” A portion of these comments have been collected on Togetter.
Source: Netolabo
