金田正太郎
Shōtarō Kaneda is the protagonist of the 1982-1990 SF action series AKIRA. He's a loudmouth delinquent with good health that leads a motorcycle gang. Kaneda is first introduced when he takes off his helmet on a night ride after ordering the gang to stop before a drop off an express highway leading into old Tokyo. He quickly gets wrapped up in anti-government affairs and finds himself right in the middle of Akira's awakening. In the narrative, he's motivated by revenge.
A word sometime used to describe him in official material is "cockroach" because he's a tough guy that survives almost anything. Nearly being crushed by falling support beams, being sucked into a singularity for almost two months and slipping through time and space as a "ghost," psychic explosions and whatever else.
Kaneda also gets used as comedic relief in both the manga and the movie. I'd say he's the main source, at least for most of the physical comedy. His "slapstick" comes in or after periods of high tension, letting the reader relax a bit before things get serious again. They also provide depth to his character while showing off Otomo's type of humor which I like.
In terms of personality Kaneda's a very headstrong person. He's confident, hates authority, always listens to himself first and prefers to be the boss. He is charismatic and... charming. He's at his best when leading others but he can be demanding and over-protective. His way or nothing. Out of his depth he comes off as an over-confident idiot but he isn't helpless. He even uses this assumption to his advantage. Kaneda is also crude. He's a delinquent, he doesn't really give a shit about good manners. He often avoids these "good morals" in favor of what benefits him. This part of his personality is way more obvious in the manga than in the film.
Side tangent but I think some people ignore the less favorable parts of him just to focus on the good. They prefer the Kaneda in the movie to the Kaneda in the manga and maybe they don't want to think about the uncomfortable moments he has, or the implications of him acting a certain way. They want to make him out to be a total "hero" or make him into a softer character.
I think the truth is that the same Kaneda who cares for the people he's close to and fights for is the same Kaneda who has acted misogynistic, unpleasant, demeaning and selfish. He isn't a horrible person but he's obviously flawed. If you like Kaneda the "Good Guy," you like Kaneda the "Asshole." So, about the less savory aspects of his character, they make Kaneda something like an "antihero" at best. I wouldn't even actually call him that because there's no "heros" or "villains" in AKIRA. There's a balance to Kaneda. His character is more than "plot armor protagonist" or "cool guy" or "idiot." ...But he is a moron.
金田のバイク
Some of the features his bike is fitted with (sourced from the AKIRA Animation Archives and AKIRA World): Two wheel drive and steering, auto-navigation, anti-obstacle radar, a CD player, a neo-halogen laser light, ABS and power support steering. The frame inside is ceramic while the cowl is made from FRP and carbon. All displays are LED. The engine itself is combustion, providing electricity to the wheels and suspension through magnetism, made possible with a room temperature superconductor. I'd classify his bike as a "hybrid" type.
His bike model has the internals of a hypersports bike but the ergonomics of a chopper (low, relaxed seat position with the feet forward). The specs on his motorcycle made it a match with Honda's VF1000R of the time but by now it's outclassed by a lot of models in top speed.
Besides his jacket from the movie, his bike is probably the most recognizable part of AKIRA related to Kaneda. Enough so to have multiple attempts at real-world reproduction. According to Otomo, the design was inspired by the TRON cycles, Luigi Colani's "Frog" sculpture, and the choppers from Easy Rider (1969).
グッズ
真の金田
Being fictionkin it means I have a version of Kaneda in my memories. That's "my" Kaneda, I guess. He was very similar to his story-self in personality and looks but there are events in the story that were slightly different or didn't happen because of who he actually was. The "real" Kaneda was different in the way that real people aren't just characters in stories serving narrative purposes.
The "real" Kaneda wasn't a bunch of personality traits in a list. You can get the point of a person across like that but it's not the 100% of a person. He had idiosyncracies that made up who he was. Likes, dislikes, goals, fears, etc. I can't get the full depth of him as a person on a "fanpage." I don't really want to. If you read AKIRA then you kind of know Kaneda, don't you? You know an image of him. He was more than a "seinen protagonist" to me.
Some info ※ Not headcanons
- He was left-handed, ambidextrous for some things
- Smoked cigarettes enough to be habit
- To me his "iconic" jacket was like this but red
- Lost a tooth in the right side of his mouth
- He sounded like Mitsuo Iwata's performance
- Liked 80s-90s music (J-rap, Western hip hop, pop [rock], city pop)
"Kaneda music"
Some songs remind me of Kaneda. Here are a few.
