The Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony featured popular video game tunes and placards evoking manga, yet Nintendo and AKIRA were noticeably absent. According to a proposal document submitted to the IOC in April last year, the original plans for the opening ceremony were significantly more ambitious.
The Weekly Bunshun tabloid, which obtained a copy of the 280-page proposal document, reported in April that the ceremony would have opened with a scene of AKIRA‘s iconic red bike bursting into the venue. AKIRA creator Katsuhiro Otomo would have drawn an illustration of the 2020 Neo Tokyo in a subversion of the apocalyptic events of the manga. The iconic Nintendo character Mario, among other beloved pop culture figures, was also planned to appear as a CG character as the athletes of each nation are introduced.
Other planned appearances include the dancers Daichi Miura, who has…
