Akira Producer Sets Fans Straight on the Movie's Budget

The property of Akira, which spawned one of the most popular and legendary films in the medium of [...]

By Evan Valentine

The property of Akira, which spawned one of the most popular and legendary films in the medium of anime, had a big year in 2019 with the announcement that the franchise would be returning with a new series from creator Katsuhiro Otomo and this year, a producer on the original film, revealed details about the budget that was responsible for bringing the story of Tetsuo and Kaneda to life! The movie which was released in 1988 gave us a future cyberpunk world that was riddled with social unrest as well as psychic powers run amok!

The animation and story of Akira did a fantastic job of earning its reputation as one of the best, if not the best, anime movie that was released in the medium. With a 4K release of the film also slated to hit this year as well, producer Shigeru Watanabe took the opportunity to rectify the long running belief that the original budget for the film released by Toho Studios was around $9 million USD. Watanabe set the record straight on social media, still not entirely sure what the overall budget was, but proclaiming that the original figure that was displayed by Google and Wikipedia was not correct.

On his Official Twitter Account, Shigeru Watanabe posted a message that he was looking to uncover just where the idea of these additional funds had come from and whether or not he could get help from netizens while noting that the "production cost was less than 1.1 Billion Yen" which is the budget that was stated by many:

Are you excited for the return of Akira in the upcoming anime series from creator Katsuhio Otomo? Do you consider it to be the greatest anime movie of all time? Feel free to let us know in the comments or hit me up directly on Twitter @EVComedy to talk all things comics, anime, and Akira!

Via Crunchyroll

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