[Kyoma] AKIRA Colored - Epic Comics (Upscaled)
2x upscale of all 38 issues of AKIRA by Epic Comics
These are considered to be the first digitally colored “comics”, by colorist Steve Oliff.
In the late 80s, editor Archie Goodwin came to Katsuhiro Otomo and asked him to localize Akira in English. It would be published by Marvel Comics’ imprint Epic Comics. Otomo said yes, but then came the frustrating task of localizing it.
Jo Duffy wrote the localization, Michael Higgins did the lettering, and Katsuhiro Otomo himself redid the art so that it would make sense in English.
Upscaled with 4xRealWebPhoto_v3_atd model based on the recently released Adaptive-Token-Dictionary Network.
The model does a great job of removing compression artifacts, keeping the line art from getting wobbly, and preserving most of the screentone patterns. Out of all the models I’ve tried, this is probably the only one where the output doesn’t look like a smeary mess. The only downside is a slight color shift.
Comparisons: https://slow.pics/c/ERsXxXO7
Resulting images were downscaled to 2200px then saved as q97(4:4:4) jpegs, encoded with JPEGLI
Link to the model used:
4xRealWebPhoto_v3_atd: https://openmodeldb.info/models/4x-RealWebPhoto-v3-atd
Reading Direction:➡️Left to Right
DDL
File list
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AKIRA Colored - Epic Comics
- 01.cbz (118.3 MiB)
- 02.cbz (120.8 MiB)
- 03.cbz (126.6 MiB)
- 04.cbz (133.9 MiB)
- 05.cbz (128.2 MiB)
- 06.cbz (115.7 MiB)
- 07.cbz (113.1 MiB)
- 08.cbz (116.1 MiB)
- 09.cbz (113.4 MiB)
- 10.cbz (119.2 MiB)
- 11.cbz (119.3 MiB)
- 12.cbz (114.6 MiB)
- 13.cbz (130.6 MiB)
- 14.cbz (118.6 MiB)
- 15.cbz (114.8 MiB)
- 16.cbz (145.1 MiB)
- 17.cbz (127.7 MiB)
- 18.cbz (111.2 MiB)
- 19.cbz (108.3 MiB)
- 20.cbz (116.1 MiB)
- 21.cbz (114.1 MiB)
- 22.cbz (115.6 MiB)
- 23.cbz (120.0 MiB)
- 24.cbz (121.3 MiB)
- 25.cbz (111.4 MiB)
- 26.cbz (119.9 MiB)
- 27.cbz (119.5 MiB)
- 28.cbz (106.4 MiB)
- 29.cbz (113.2 MiB)
- 30.cbz (113.4 MiB)
- 31.cbz (111.0 MiB)
- 32.cbz (103.5 MiB)
- 33.cbz (104.9 MiB)
- 34.cbz (98.9 MiB)
- 35.cbz (103.1 MiB)
- 36.cbz (111.7 MiB)
- 37.cbz (119.9 MiB)
- 38.cbz (118.9 MiB)
Comments - 9
BaitoSenshi
The horribly colored WORST version of Akira and it’s upscaled too?! What a treat!
…I think I’m going to vomit.
TheOtakuX
Is there any non-flipped english digital version?
Hououin (uploader)
@TheOtakuX There is no “digital version”.
Hououin (uploader)
@BaitoSenshi
TheOtakuX
I didn’t mean specifically official, scans of the unflipped manga would count as well.
exiledmind
For real, whoever “colored” this really did a lazy job, still for the most part is a decent up-scale, but I rather have a b/w version.
Hououin (uploader)
@TheOtakuX Pretty sure there aren’t any. The Italians raws that I saw once were also formatted left to right. The new German imprint probably also isn’t flipped. Even the Japanese 6 volume book set compilation of these 38 issues is in the same format. Anyways, unflipping the scans would also require manual redraws of majority of the signs and even readjustment of some speech bubbles, as Otomo himself redid the art to accompany the English localization.
For further explanation read this: https://ia601404.us.archive.org/13/items/akira_202408/akira.pdf
XRA9
>The new German imprint probably also isn’t flipped
Certainly*
It’s also colored. Carlsen’s chief editor implicitly stated he wanted the version that “introduced Akira to the Western public”, namely the mirrored, colorized version.
TheOtakuX
@Hououin I’m just surprised nobody has scanned the unflipped Kodansha release. I think it was only the box set, though, individual volumes I’ve seen are flipped.