American ‘Akira’ Movie Concept Art Makeups Masaru
The live action cinematic adaptation of Katsuhiro Otomo's Akira may be moving forward again under Warner Bros. and director Jaume Collet-Serra, but it remains to be seen if any of the art commissioned back when the movie was to be set in Neo Manhattan and star mostly white actors will move past the concept stage and into an eventual film. That said, it's become less outright entertaining to look at "what might have been" as each piece must now be viewed as "what may still be." Case in point, Howard Lau Design's newly discovered alleged "Akira Make-up FX Pitch," which digitally imagines what a child actor might look like once they're done up to look like the Esper known as Masaru. Take a look after the cut.
One of Akira's three (freaky-looking-kids-who-are-actually-older) friends from the good old days before he went insane and blew up Tokyo the first time, Masaru spends most of Akira dividing his time between working to prevent another psychic catastrophe and tooling around in a hover chair like '90s Professor X. It's not his fault, he and the other Espers were part of a secret government program that exploited their potential for becoming powerful telekinetic kids.
Lau is obviously a talented graphic artist with the unenviable task of trying to please hardcore fans of the original Akira -- and this digital render does look like Masaru -- but I must insist on saving Warner Bros. a little bit of makeup money if they move ahead with another version of the film... especially if they plan on casting a white actor instead of a Japanese one.
Just call Louie Anderson.
More From ComicsAlliance
