YMMV / Prophecies of Nostradamus

• Awesome Music: The haunting score by Isao Tomita adds a strange, dreamlike quality to what is otherwise an incredibly bleak film. For a sample, here's the main theme.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment:
  • Akira's hallucinations at the dance recital
  • Mariko's dance number at the beach.
• Broken Aesop: The movie heavily emphasizes its Green Aesop but the nihilistic tone of the film's 'prophecy' gimmick undermines the message that our choices determine our planet's future.
• Harsher in Hindsight: One scene depicts the Fukushima nuclear power plant (yes, that Fukushima) going up in a massive explosion. Furthermore, thanks to the film itself being withdrawn from circulation in its uncut form due to the controversial scene with the post-atomic mutants, victims of the actual Fukushima nuclear meltdown won't have to relive seeing it destroyed by a controversial film.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: An actor, last name Kurosawa, playing a photographer named Akira. Sounds familiar...
• Narm: In two languages: Mariko reveals to Akira she's having a baby. "A-Ka-Chan". In the English dub, "A-Ba-by".
• Overshadowed by Controversy: The film's gruesome depiction of mutated human beings was considered so disturbing that the studio was forced to withdraw the original uncut version from circulation. In addition, survivors of the Atomic Bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were appalled by the film's depiction of radiation victims as vicious, mindless monsters, believing such a portrayal would only serve to perpetuate discrimination against those affected by radiation exposure in real life. Said controversy ultimately sealed the fate of a proposed sequel and God's Godzilla^note which was also going to use mutated humans in a similar role, on top of possibly offending Religion with an evil Jesus Christ.
• Signature Scene: The fantasy sequence in the climax with the Mutated Children fighting in a post nuclear wasteland is the most infamously remembered scene in the movie due to the aforementioned controversy, which lead to the aftermentioned banning.
• Tear Jerker:
  • Mrs. Nishiyama trying to keep her family's spirits up as she's slowly dying.
  • Mr. Kida's sorrow and horror over the birth of his deformed grandchildren, one of which is stillborn, both are tragically put down in a Mercy Kill not long after.

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