Mitsuo Iwata

In Akira (1988), Kaneda and Tetsuo give us something to follow when the wider story starts demanding too much explanation. Mitsuo Iwata voices Shotaro Kaneda opposite Nozomu Sasaki’s Tetsuo, and their changing friendship keeps the violence personal. We cared about the two boys because we could still understand what was happening between them when the film grew crowded elsewhere. Iwata gives us a reason to stay interested in Kaneda beyond the next burst of action.

Katsuhiro Otomo’s direction places the voices within a frighteningly tangible, hand-drawn city, and the action has considerable force. The screenplay, by Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, is less reliable about giving everyone a chance to matter. Kei, voiced by Mami Koyama, is among the supporting characters we would gladly have spent longer getting to know. Iwata and Sasaki cannot resolve that imbalance, but the film would be much harder to follow without them. The friendship is clearer than much of the business surrounding it.

Akira was Iwata’s breakthrough, but his subsequent career has spread across television animation, feature films, video games and dubbing. The recurrent casting is as energetic young men, in leads and supporting parts. For Kintaro Oe in Golden Boy (1995), he spent months preparing the voice, a useful reminder of how much work can sit behind an energetic delivery. That preparation interests us because high spirits alone soon become tiring; a character needs something more specific than a plentiful supply of enthusiasm.

His flamboyant comic voices include Emporio Ivankov in One Piece and Champa in Dragon Ball Super (2015). The later work also includes Kiyotaka Ijichi in Jujutsu Kaisen (2020), another television supporting part. Those roles keep us from treating Kaneda as the whole account of his acting, even if Akira remains our starting point. See it for Iwata and Sasaki together; be prepared to wish the other characters had been given as much room.