Akira is Katsuhiro Otomo's 1988 adaptation of his own unfinished manga, following biker-gang leader Kaneda as he tries to stop his friend Tetsuo, whose collision with an escaped psychic child leaves him with telekinetic power that threatens to destroy Neo-Tokyo. A landmark of Japanese animation on its original release, it has grown into one of the most influential science-fiction films of its era.
Perfect Blue follows Mima Kirigoe, a retiring pop idol turned actress, as an obsessive fan's stalking and a string of murders around her erode her ability to distinguish memory from fabrication. Satoshi Kon directed his first feature from Sadayuki Murai's screenplay, reworking an inherited splatter-horror premise into a study of the victim's collapsing perspective rather than the stalker's psychology. Made on a budget of roughly $830,000, it under-performed commercially before building a lasting reputation as one of animation's most influential psychological thrillers, cited as an inspiration by Darren Aronofsky.