Akira's Tokyo 2020 Olympic Prediction

The 1988 anime film Akira, set in a futuristic 2019 Neo-Tokyo, made a striking prediction by depicting Tokyo preparing to host the 2020 Olympic Games. Throughout the film, background signage and announcements treat the upcoming 2020 Olympics as a major national event. In one scene, a billboard promoting the Games is defaced with a call to cancel them, turning that prediction into a subtle commentary on public unease. Decades later, Tokyo did in fact win the bid for the 2020 Olympics, and real-world debates over whether the Games should be canceled during the COVID-19 pandemic made Akira’s Olympic prediction feel uncannily prescient.

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