Akira foreshadowed demise of Tokyo 2020

NEXT to a countdown showing the number of days to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics is scrawled “just cancel it”. Not a scene from real life but from “Akira”, a remarkably prescient cult Japanese manga series.

With the announcement that the Tokyo 2020 Olympics have been postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic, the coincidence has led to “Akira” trending on Japanese social media with fans hailing its mystic powers.

Created by Katsuhiro Otomo, “Akira” first appeared in comic form, with thousands of pages produced between 1982 and 1990. An anime version came out in 1988 and became a global sci-fi hit.

The action takes place in a dystopian 2019 set in a sinister megacity called “neo-Tokyo”, built after the old capital was destroyed in a mysterious explosion in 1982 that set off World War III.

It tells the story of a boy called Akira, who acquired psychic superpowers from a secret military programme but became so powerful he was disintegrated.

His organs were buried deep underground in an iron box – on the construction site of the Olympic Stadium – only to be found later by another boy called Tetsuo who eventually inherits his powers.

While the Olympics are not central to the plot, Tokyo 2020 appears several times in the story, with uncanny if coincidental similarities to the real Games, now postponed until next year.

In an example of life imitating art, the real countdown clocks at Tokyo 2020 headquarters have now been replaced with a sign that reads “under consideration”.

“The story unfolds in a way that suggests a cancellation or a postponement (of the Olympics) is inevitable,” Kaichiro Morikawa, expert on Japanese pop culture at Tokyo’s Meiji University, told AFP. – AFP