I feel like the Akira and Blade Runner sections are equal but opposite. Whereas with Blade Runner you can go through every show and movie that’s ever used “freeze-enhance” to find the oldest and declare that the original, with Akira we already know where the bike-slide comes from, as all visual replicas of this scene come from texts that were released after Akira. And this is what I mean by equal but opposite... kind of like the difference between inductive and deductive logic. With Akira you’re following one text as it is being alluded to, through homages in other cartoons and anime (deductive), while with Blade Runner you’re following a bunch of individual texts to see how they’re connected in an attempt to reach the ultimate conclusion of calling one the original (inductive).

1. Analysis: Though the Blade Runner prompt asks for this on a broad level, I want you to think of a visual allusion that you know of, and trace the history of its recurrence. Who’s using this visual allusion? Who would recognize it? Where, when, why, and how are they incorporating it into their own content? (This can work for memes as well as other visuals, like paintings and statues.)

   • Fun fact! Tracing the use of the bike-slide from Akira through its imitators to today is a legitimate mode of academic inquiry. The academic jargon (a fancy word for fancy, discipline specific words) by which this kind of analysis is known is rhetorical ecologies. Jenny Edbauer wrote a great article on the slogan “Keep Austin Weird” using this exact method to explore the slogan’s origins, its development, and its appropriation.

2. Composition: Time to be melodramatic! You’re a storyboard artist, and you REALLY want to use the Akira bike-slide visual to enhance the tension in one of your scenes. How do you plan to incorporate this visual? What’s the scene? Who are the characters? What are they riding? Why are they stopping? (10 points if you can get Sans to do this with his bicycle on the surface.)