NEO TOKYO AS A LIVING ORGANISM IN ANIME “AKIRA”

Abstract

The study reveals the metaphor “Neo Tokyo as a living organism” in Katsuhiro Otomo’s anime “Akira” partially inspired by Kenzo Tange and the Metabolism movement. Within the city of Neo Tokyo as a living organism a continuous vital process, the social life of Neo Tokyo citizens, is unfolding. In the anime, that organism is already terminally ill: corrupt authorities, secret military experiments and the radicalization of society. And the organism eventually dies. Tetsuo, a member of biker gang “The Capsule”, which symbolizes blood carrying medicine though the arteries, destroys the city. The medicine turns into poison, the source of a progressive cancer. In accordance with the “philosophy” of anime “Akira”, both Neo Tokyo and Tetsuo should be considered as a result of the evolution of the Universe initiated by the Big Bang. According to the “philosophy” of “Akira”, anything in the Universe has an energy memory of the Big Bang and can potentially stand up as a bomb that explodes as the Big Bang. Teenager Tetsuo is such a thing: his body explodes like a thermonuclear bomb and destroys Neo Tokyo as a living organism: the growth of cancer cells here is identified with a nuclear chain reaction; Katsuhiro Otomo, as it were, shows that there is no difference between the cell of the living organism and the atom - both are the embodiment of energy. It leads to consider Neo Tokyo, conceptualized as a living organism, as a system of energy flows, on which balance and harmony of interaction the existence of a cityorganism depends. Conceptualizing the city as a living organism and a system of balanced and harmonized energy flows might be useful for urban studies, for example, within the framework of the theory of rational urbanism, according to which it is necessary to take into account the problems of citizens, infrastructure facilities and nature and find optimal solutions to these problems in the process of city planning.