u/Soggy_Comfortable_27

https://preview.redd.it/jrws2bvzsakh1.png?width=1148&format=png&auto=webp&s=dbefc9df0dea17a60696f4616f73181d6ddbcdea

Reading through the manga again, and this panel always struck me as though I'm missing something. I feel like Neo-Tokyo at night is shown from above in several other places and often there's these patterns that look like... words? (I know they're not.)

But these lines have distinct angles and start and stop points. I don't think they're street lights visible from this high up and I feel like Otomo doesn't do much by accident. Does anyone have any ideas what these lines are or are supposed to represent? Or am I looking for something that isn't there? (A very distinct possibility.)

Thanks in advance for any cool ideas.

So, I've been using Google Translate on the Akira Club book, and in the section devoted to the Young Magazine title pages, there's often a little non-sequitur quote from Otomo in the corner.

For example, the quote above reads "I turned on a UHF antenna and watched TV Kanagawa. I was surprised at how interesting it was." (I realize it's Google Translate, so it might not be gospel.)

My question is why? Where did the quotes come from? Why did the producers of the book or Otomo himself feel the need to tell me about what he was watching on TV at the time? Or in others, that he had a cold? Or that he was frustrated because he couldn't find the hairy crabs that he liked? What's the point?

The only answer I could come up with is that as an artist myself, sometimes I'll jot down a few notes about where and what I was doing when I was working on a piece, maybe on the back of the canvas, just so later on I could say "Oh, I did this one in between helping Jeff move back into town", just to get a sense of where my life and headspace was at the time. Could this be something like that?

Thanks in advance if anyone has any ideas on the reason, or if they're just there to be there.

Question about this panel

Question about Akira Club book