For many, the ending of the classic Japanese anime Akira is mysterious. We remember “Kaneda!” yelled at top volume, we remember strange tendrils, we remember feeling sad for some reason that we can’t name, but we do not remember just exactly what happened at of the end of the breakthrough animated film. But everyone who has seen Akira does remember one thing with perfect clarity: the bike slide. The Akira bike slide is so iconic that is rings throughout cinema, television, and manga history. Here’s more from The Avocado (please note the writer uses explicit language):
The earliest instance of the Akira Bike Slide in animation I can find is from the episode Robins Reckoning (part 2) of Batman: The Animated Series from 1993. A landmark episode for the series it received an Emmy for most outstanding half hour or less program, and is widely considered one of the best episode (two episodes) of the show. There were 4 story board artists on this episode, Joe Denton, Curt Geda, Gary Graham and Doug Murphy it could have been either of those 4 men that added the reference, or it could have been episode director Dick Sebast who got it’s inclusion.
This is one of the few references that doesn’t start on an extreme close up of the characters face though, instead having Robin enter from the bottom of the screen. Though it’s worth noting that with the episode coming out in 1993, and most likely being in production in 1992. They would have, at best had a VHS copy of the movie for reference without any ability to frame by frame or shit like that. So like cut em a fucking break ya know?