American Rapper and Record Producer Kanye West once revealed his favorite anime movie that is one of the greatest anime projects in the world.

Globally popular American rapper and record producer, Kanye West, also known as Ye is one of the most controversial personalities out there. He is known for a lot of things and one of them is his love for anime. From using these anime series and movies for inspiration to sampling their scores for his music, Ye has proved his love for anime time and time again.

However, when it comes to his favorite anime, Ye decided to go with Akira, the wildly popular cyberpunk action anime movie, which came out in 1988. Akira is one of the most recognized anime movies in the world, which had a box office collection of $49 million when it initially came out. There are many other celebrities who have expressed their love for it.

Ye has been quite vocal about his love for Akira as he has expressed it multiple times on his social media handles. His love for the Japanese anime movie is understandable, considering its relevance in the current political scenario which is more contentious than ever.

Kanye West’s love for Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira

A few years ago, Ye out of nowhere decided to make a revelation to his fans about his love for the Akira movie as he took to X and made a bunch of tweets about it. He first shared a post where Akira’s creator Otomo, was holding a pair of Yeezy Boost 700 Wave Runners, and Ye pointed out that the anime movie is his biggest creative inspiration in the world.

While his tweets were removed, The Fader shared them as Ye explained how he used Akira as a comparison for almost all of his works.

Ye posted:

Every stage show I’ve ever worked on Every video not just Stronger every product even when I was in the hospital I would think… oh shit this is like Akira. This is not only the greatest animation achievement in history the subject matter is so relevant to the current state of the world

According to reports, Ye had used Akira as a reference for the music video of Stronger, a song from his third studio album, called Graduation, which came out in 2007. There are many parallels between the Stronger music video and the Akira movie.

It was known for a long time that Kanye West was an avid fan of the anime community but the fact that it had such a big impression on him was totally unexpected.

Kanye even compared Akira to Spirited Away
Ye’s love for Akira is also reflected in the fact that in 2011, Kanye posted a now-deleted tweet which pointed out that Akira was way better than Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. His tweet was shared by Cartoon Brew, and it stated: “No way Spirited Away is better than Akira…NOOO WAAAY…sorry was just looking at a youtube of top 10 anime films.”

1988 Anime Movie – Akira | Credit: TMS Entertainment

Akira is a movie about a dystopian world where situations can escalate at any moment and become worse for the general public. The contentious political themes, combined with the threat of the Cold War and nuclear conflicts, feel very relevant to the current political scenario with the recent change in the Oval Office.

Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that Akira is one of the greatest anime movies out there, and it has inspired a lot of other celebrities, series, and projects. There were rumors of Akira getting a live-action adaptation, and hopefully the project will get some big update soon.