AKIRA has a new director attached

say whaaaa? a live-action-AKIRA feature film? the 1988 Katsuhiro Otomo-created cyber-punk opus (manga) that had influenced and inspired many a creators and creations thru the past 2-decades, THAT AKIRA? (*faints-fall-down-go-boom but not before whizzing-meself-silly*)


apparently the live-action-adaptation was planned as far back as 2003, but now (according to Bloody-Disgusting.com / via) Warner Bros. Pictures is trying to get the movie up and running again, with the announcement of hiring/attaching 29-year-old Oscar nominated Irish director Ruairi Robinson to bring Kaneda and gang unto celluloid-life! (just hope they hire proper teen actors and not the "nearly-young-but-actually-older" ones, IMHO ;p)

i've actually known about this piece of news a coupla days back, but have been indulging in re-watching AKIRA and other Japanimation-flicks like Jin-Roh Wolf Brigade, Ghost In The Shell (the "original", not the travesty that was "Innocence", IMHO), Appleseed et al - and i haveta say, im uber-jazzed for this to work (if it ever takes off) and needless to say, watching AKIRA way back when heightened my lurve for Japanimation, as well as thoroughly influenced me (as im sure have countless others) in my personal-pursuit of all things cyber-punk and neo-futures, until this day ... *AKIRA RAWKS!*

as far as toys are concerned, ii used to really want a 1/6-Kaneda (by Medicom) but 've always wanted Kaneda's bike in 1/6th more (have since missed the boat) and am always reminded of the missed opportunity in Hong Kong yeeeaaars back, when i found a knock-off-1/6-version at a toy-fair, but did not persist in tracking down the toy-rep gggrrrr ... meanwhile, Hobbyfan.com has a garage-kit version of it [all images via] and i can only but drool like a crushed-fanboy dammit LOL



*le-sigh*