While the Japanese people’s fascination with animated cinema is well known, the utter devotion to the pillars of anime culture still astound us at times.
The 1988 film Akira is perhaps the best-known and most celebrated example of anime ever. Its storyline follows a gang of biker-teens in the post-apocalyptic world of Tokyo in 2019. The main protagonist is a 16-year-old malcontent called Kaneda, who pilots a super-futuristic red cycle that is capable of seemingly physics-defying feats.
Though probably not blessed with the preternatural accelerative and handling characteristics of Kaneda’s bike, the builders of this convincing replica have at least gotten the looks spot on. While the ins and outs of how the Akira fan bike was built lies in inscrutable Japanese, we’re told that the bike is street legal, and fully operational.
Check out our gallery of achingly hip Kaneda bike images in the gallery below.
+ Gizmodo: Kaneda Motorbike is Not as Mighty as Jason Chen, Still Kicks-Ass
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Akira was the first anime I ever saw, and that bike captured my imagination big-time. I always presumed that it was electric drive (allowed both front and rear wheels to be driven without complicated mechanical linkages) with the juice generated from a microturbine, although a fuel cell could do it too. Imagine that…an all-wheel-drive bike with full torque from 0RPM. And it can be done with today’s or tomorrow’s tech.
That is by far, the best cosplay accessory EVER.
The movie is awesome, but a Hayabusa II will do just fine.
“Twin ceramic rotor drives on each wheel. Lets see, and these are… Computer controlled antilock brakes. Hmm, 200 hundred horses at 12000 rpm!”
Sweet. Now someone needs to build the bike that changes into jetpack bodyarmor from Robotech.
[…] brought you an interesting report about Japanese fans of the Akira movie and comic book franchise, building life-sized versions of some of the fantastic motorcycles featured in the […]
[…] experimentation project. But the stars of the flick are the hyper-trick bikes gang members ride. The replica below was built by a fan—will the filmmakers do as good a job? With DiCaprio signed on to produce, there won’t be […]
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