Watch This: 'Bartkira- the Animated Trailer'

More than 25 years after its original release Akira remains a classic not only of anime but of cult cinema as a whole. All these years later it still inspires artists and creators around the world. One of the most fun examples of this is the Bartkira project- which mashes up Akira with the unlikely bedfellow (you guessed it) The Simpsons.

Originally devised in comic form by Ryan Humphrey (you can read the comics at the official Bartkira site) it was then decided to produce an animated trailer to accompany it. Made to resemble an authentic 80s trailer (complete with VHS effects) the short remakes the iconic original replacing all the characters and locations with those from The Simpsons, while retaining the original audio.


So Neo-Tokyo becomes Neo-Springfield and Bart becomes Kaneda. Some of the character substitutions are inspired (look out for the role chosen for Ned Flanders). In a similar way to other fans projects such as Moon Animate Make-Up, it was made by crowdsourcing sequences from various animators around the world.  In this case more than 50 animators were involved with the two and a half-minute clip. Make sure to have the annotations turned on to see all the artists involved.

It ends with thanks to "all the strong, beautiful, majestic lawyers of Fox and Toho for their excellent sense of Humour. Please don't sue us". Hopefully, it will remain available, as it's a fantastic work of art. The makers of The Simpsons have been shown to be very supportive of fan works in the past, although this time there is the added complication of Akira's producers Toho. So just in case.. we recommend you makes sure to watch it while you can!