By James Robert Shaw (The Wind up Geek)
The Japanese application company LINE, a subsidiary of Naver Corporation has released a set of Akira chat stickers based on Katsuhiro Otomo’s 1988 film of the same name. The stickers are licensed through Bandai Namco Entertainment Inc, display many of the characters from the film including Shōtarō Kaneda (Japanese seiyū: Mitsuo Iwata) and Tetsuo Shima (Nozomu Sasaki).
The stickers are available in both Japanese and English. According to one user in the Vintage Anime Fans Facebook group, the stickers themselves appear not to be locked to any specific country.
Akira chat stickers are now available for purchase but according to LINE’s official site you must have at least one of the following operating enviroments:
LINE for iOS or Android version 3.1.1 or higher, LINE for NOKIA Asha version 1.7.20 or higher, LINE for BlackBerry version 1.10 or higher, LINE for Windows Phone version 2.7 or higher, or LINE for FireFox version 1.1.4 or higher is required.
Here is the Japanese trailer from the 1988 film written by Katsuhiro Otomo and Izo Hashimoto, with direction by Otomo and music by Shoji Yamashiro.
Source(s): Vintage Anime Fans Facebook group, Gwyn Campbell, Nestor Nunez, LINE Corporation, and Akira 2019.
