1. Mimesis is an important concept in the study of literature and art. It refers to the ways in which art and literature deliberately imitate or represent real-life events, even when removed from the historical context of those events. How can we apply it to this and other texts we’ve discussed in this class?
2. What roles do age and gender play in Akira? Is there any significance to the fact that the majority of the main characters (Kaneda, Tetsuo, the other bikers, Kei, the Espers, etc.) are teenagers or children? How are female characters portrayed in the film/manga?
3. In “Born of Trauma,” Thomas Lamarre writes:
“Ultimately, the repetition and escalation promise to inure us to mass destruction, producing a desire to get even closer to it and at the same time making anything less than mass destruction feel a relief, a ‘victory.’ Images of global annihilation imply a mixture of habituation, fascination, and addiction.” (131-132)
Does this still hold true for our imaginaries in 2021? Do you think the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has changed our relationship to the imagery of destruction?
