The Asylum Session is a 2009 feature film by Takuto Aoki. Set in the near future, it tells the story of a high-school girl named Hiyoko, voiced by Aya Hirano. She wants to be a painter like her deceased mother, but her father disapproves. She runs away from home, ending up in the Asylum, an abandoned stadium occupied by a commune of misfits. One of them is especially weird: Akira, a tattooed, white-haired rebellious boy with a prosthetic leg who can somehow fly. Unfortunately, the Asylum is about to be demolished. The inhabitants stand up to protect their place. Apart from fighting the police, they decide to protect the Asylum by holding an underground rock fest.
This show provides examples of:
- 20 Minutes into the Future: they have cyborgs, live in smart homes with retinal locks, but the overall setting is pretty much like the present.
- Goggles Do Nothing: Akira doesn't really need goggles to fly, but still wears them in the opening scene.
- Great Offscreen War: The one Akira was made for. Hiyoko learned about it in the school, but we don't get any information about it.
- Missing Mom: Hiyoko's mother died before the events of the movie.
- Pixellation: When Akira goes around naked while his clothings dry.
- Refusal of the Call: Akira's reaction when the Elder tells him to organize the festival.
- Take Our Word for It: We catch only a glimpse of the Asylum from its top, and a long Reaction Shot of Hiyoko astonished by it.
- Time-Compression Montage: The preparations for the festival are shown as a bunch of black and white photos.
- Unperson: The Asylum inhabitants: "Only those who have ID and who pay tax are considered residents".
- What Measure Is a Non-Human?: In-universe. Since Akira is a robot, he's not getting a trial, he'd just be disassembled.
- When You Coming Home, Dad?: Dad was too busy at work to show up for Hiyoko's birthday.
- World Gone Mad: In the end Akira paints a whole building with graffiti. Just as the police is about to take him, the Elder appears out of nowhere leading a mock shinto matsuri parade, and everybody in the streets joins it. They throw the cops into the river while Akira paints over the wole street's buildings.
- You Are Number 6: Akira denies this: red number on his back is crossed out with a tattoo.
