title: Taylor Momsen

text: On November 30, 2012, it was announced that the Pretty Reckless' fourth single "Kill Me" would be released on December 11. The track was the last song to be featured in the "Gossip Girl" series finale.


title: Taylor Momsen

text: Momsen cites Kurt Cobain, Chris Cornell, the Beatles, Led Zeppelin, the Who, Pink Floyd, AC/DC, Marilyn Manson, Oasis, and Shirley Manson of Garbage as some of her personal influences.


title: Taylor Momsen

text: "Going to Hell" was released on March 18, 2014. The release marked the band's largest sales week to date and landed at number five on the Billboard 200 with over 35,000 copies sold in its first week. The success of the record saw Taylor, along with the rest of the band, break records when they became the first female-fronted band to reach No. 1 on the rock radio charts with its first two singles: "Heaven Knows" in March 2014 and "Fucked Up World" in September 2014. The Pretty Reckless also spent the majority of late 2013 throughout 2014 on tour supporting "Going To Hell". In 2014, her band also supported Fall Out Boy in their European leg of the Save Rock n Roll Tour along with New Politics.


title: Taylor Momsen

text: Throughout 2015, Momsen continued to record new material for the third Pretty Reckless album. On September 29, 2016, the band released the single "Take Me Down", which reached number one on the "Billboard" Mainstream Rock chart. The third album, "Who You Selling For," was released in October 2016.


title: Taylor Momsen

text: In 2020, Momsen lent her vocals to the American rock band Evanescence for "Use My Voice", a single from the band's album "The Bitter Truth," alongside other artists such as American rock vocalist Lzzy Hale from Halestorm, Dutch symphonic metal vocalist Sharon den Adel from Within Temptation, and electronic violinist Lindsey Stirling.


title: Taylor Momsen

text: The Pretty Reckless released their fourth album, "Death by Rock and Roll", on February 12, 2021. The Pretty Reckless became the first female-fronted band to have five number one singles when "Death by Rock and Roll" hit number one on the charts.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík ( ; ) is the capital and largest city of Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói bay. Its latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. With a population of around 131,136 (and 233,034 in the Capital Region), it is the centre of Iceland's cultural, economic, and governmental activity, and is a popular tourist destination.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík is believed to be the location of the first permanent settlement in Iceland, which, according to Landnámabók, was established by Ingólfr Arnarson in 874 CE. Until the 18th century, there was no urban development in the city location. The city was officially founded in 1786 as a trading town and grew steadily over the following decades, as it transformed into a regional and later national centre of commerce, population, and governmental activities. It is among the cleanest, greenest, and safest cities in the world.


title: Reykjavík

text: According to legend, the first permanent Norse settlement in Iceland was established at Reykjavík by Ingólfr Arnarson around the year AD 870, as described in the Book of Settlement. Ingólfr is said to have decided the location of his settlement using a traditional Norse method: when land was in sight, he cast his high seat pillars overboard and promised to settle where the gods decided to bring them ashore. Two of his slaves then searched the coasts for three years before finding the pillars in the bay which eventually became the site of Reykjavík.


title: Reykjavík

text: The name is of Old Norse origin, derived from the roots "reykr" ('smoke') and "vík" ('bay'). The name is said to be inspired by steam rising from hot springs in the region. The original name was "Reykjar-vík", with an "r" suffix for the genitive singular of "reykr"; the modern version "reykja-" uses the genitive plural. The name's meaning is still transparent in modern Icelandic. The name originally referred to both the bay on the northern shore of the modern city centre, between and Laugarnes, as well as the estate and farm of Ingólfr Arnarson. This form of the name fell out of use shortly after settlement, and the estate was referred to as "Vík á Seltjarnarnesi" until the name Reykjavík was revived when urban development began centuries later.


title: Reykjavík

text: The name has been translated as "Bay of Smoke" in English language travel guides, or variations thereof, such as "Smoky Bay", "Smoke Cove", "Steam Bay", etc.


title: Reykjavík

text: The site of the modern city centre was farmland until the 18th century. In 1752, King Frederik V of Denmark donated the estate of Reykjavík to the corporation. The leader of this movement was . In the 1750s, several houses were built to house the wool industry, which was Reykjavík's most important employer for a few decades and the original reason for its existence. Other industries were undertaken by the Innréttingar, such as fisheries, sulphur mining, agriculture, and shipbuilding.


title: Reykjavík

text: The Danish Crown abolished monopoly trading in 1786 and granted six communities around the country an exclusive trading charter. Reykjavík was one of them and the only one to hold on to the charter permanently. 1786 is thus regarded as the date of the city's founding. Trading rights were limited to subjects of the Danish Crown, and Danish traders continued to dominate trade in Iceland. Over the following decades, their business in Iceland expanded. After 1880, free trade was expanded to all nationalities, and the influence of Icelandic merchants started to grow.


title: Reykjavík

text: Icelandic nationalist sentiment gained influence in the 19th century, and the idea of Icelandic independence became widespread. Reykjavík, as Iceland's only city, was central to such ideas. Advocates of an independent Iceland realized that a strong Reykjavík was fundamental to that objective. All the important events in the history of the independence struggle were important to Reykjavík as well. In 1845 Alþingi, the general assembly formed in 930 AD, was re-established in Reykjavík; it had been suspended a few decades earlier when it was located at Þingvellir. At the time it functioned only as an advisory assembly, advising the king about Icelandic affairs. The location of Alþingi in Reykjavík effectively established the city as the capital of Iceland.


title: Reykjavík

text: In 1874, Iceland was given a constitution; with it, Alþingi gained some limited legislative powers and in essence became the institution that it is today. The next step was to move most of the executive power to Iceland: Home Rule was granted in 1904 when the office of Minister for Iceland was established in Reykjavík. The biggest step towards an independent Iceland was taken on 1 December 1918 when Iceland became a sovereign country under the Crown of Denmark, the Kingdom of Iceland.


title: Reykjavík

text: By the 1920s and 1930s, most of the growing Icelandic fishing trawler fleet sailed from Reykjavík; cod production was its main industry, but the Great Depression hit Reykjavík hard with unemployment, and labour union struggles sometimes became violent.


title: Reykjavík

text: On the morning of 10 May 1940, following the German occupation of Denmark and Norway on 9 April 1940, four British warships approached Reykjavík and anchored in the harbour. In a few hours, the allied occupation of Reykjavík was complete. There was no armed resistance, and taxi and truck drivers even assisted the invasion force, which initially had no motor vehicles. The Icelandic government had received many requests from the British government to consent to the occupation, but it always declined on the basis of the Neutrality Policy. For the remaining years of World War II, British and later American soldiers occupied camps in Reykjavík, and the number of foreign soldiers in Reykjavík became about the same as the local population of the city. The Royal Regiment of Canada formed part of the garrison in Iceland during the early part of the war.


title: Reykjavík

text: The economic effects of the occupation were positive for Reykjavík: the unemployment of the Depression years vanished, and construction work began. The British built Reykjavík Airport, which remains in service today, mostly for short haul flights (to domestic destinations and Greenland). The Americans, meanwhile, built Keflavík Airport, situated west of Reykjavík, which became Iceland's primary international airport. In 1944, the Republic of Iceland was founded and a president, elected by the people, replaced the king; the office of the president was placed in Reykjavík.


title: Reykjavík

text: In the post-war years, the growth of Reykjavík accelerated. An exodus from the rural countryside began, largely because improved technology in agriculture reduced the need for manpower, and because of a population boom resulting from better living conditions in the country. A once-primitive village was rapidly transformed into a modern city. Private cars became common, and modern apartment complexes rose in the expanding suburbs.


title: Reykjavík

text: In 1972, Reykjavík hosted the famous world chess championship between Bobby Fischer and Boris Spassky. The 1986 Reykjavík Summit between Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachev underlined Reykjavík's international status. Deregulation in the financial sector and the computer revolution of the 1990s again transformed Reykjavík. The financial and IT sectors are now significant employers in the city.


title: Reykjavík

text: The city has fostered some world-famous musicians and artists in recent decades, such as Björk, Ólafur Arnalds and bands Múm, Sigur Rós and Of Monsters and Men, poet Sjón and visual artist Ragnar Kjartansson.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík is located in the southwest of Iceland. The Reykjavík area coastline is characterized by peninsulas, coves, straits, and islands.


title: Reykjavík

text: During the Ice Age (up to 10,000 years ago) a large glacier covered parts of the city area, reaching as far out as Álftanes. Other parts of the city area were covered by sea water. In the warm periods and at the end of the Ice Age, some hills like Öskjuhlíð were islands. The former sea level is indicated by sediments (with clams) reaching (at Öskjuhlíð, for example) as far as above the current sea level. The hills of Öskjuhlíð and Skólavörðuholt appear to be the remains of former shield volcanoes which were active during the warm periods of the Ice Age. After the Ice Age, the land rose as the heavy load of the glaciers fell away, and began to look as it does today.


title: Reykjavík

text: The capital city area continued to be shaped by earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, like the one 4,500 years ago in the mountain range Bláfjöll, when the lava coming down the Elliðaá valley reached the sea at the bay of Elliðavogur.


title: Reykjavík

text: The largest river to run through Reykjavík is the Elliðaá River, which is non-navigable. It offers salmon fishing within the city limits. Mount Esja, at , is the highest mountain in the vicinity of Reykjavík.


title: Reykjavík

text: The city of Reykjavík is mostly located on the Seltjarnarnes peninsula, but the suburbs reach far out to the south and east. Reykjavík is a spread-out city: most of its urban area consists of low-density suburbs, and houses are usually widely spaced. The outer residential neighbourhoods are also widely spaced from each other; in between them are the main traffic arteries and a lot of empty space. The city's latitude is 64°08' N, making it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state (Nuuk, the capital of Greenland, is slightly further north at 64°10' (about 4km) but Greenland is a constituent country, not an independent state).


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík has a subpolar oceanic climate (Köppen: "Cfc") closely bordering on a continental subarctic climate (Köppen: "Dfc") in the 0 °C isoterm. The city has had its present climate classification since the beginning of the 20th century.


title: Reykjavík

text: At 64° north, Reykjavik is characterized by extremes of day and night length over the course of the year. From 20 May to 24 July, daylight is essentially permanent as the sun never gets more than 5° below the horizon. Day length drops to less than five hours between 2 December and 10 January. The sun climbs just 3° above the horizon during this time. However, day length begins increasing rapidly during January and by month's end there are seven hours of daylight.


title: Reykjavík

text: Despite its northern latitude, temperatures very rarely drop below in the winter. The proximity to the Arctic Circle and the strong moderation of the Atlantic Ocean in the Icelandic coast (influence of North Atlantic Current, an extension of the Gulf Stream) shape a relatively mild winter and cool summer. The city's coastal location does make it prone to wind, however, and gales are common in winter (influence of the Icelandic Low).  Summers are cool, with temperatures fluctuating between , rarely exceeding . This is a result of exposure to the maritime winds in its exposed west coast location that causes it to be much cooler in summer than similar latitudes in mainland Scandinavia. Contrasting this, winter days are milder than anywhere in far southern Sweden and the vast majority of Denmark. Reykjavík averages 147 days of rain (more than 1 mm) per year. Droughts are uncommon, although they occur in some summers. July and August are the warmest months of the year on average and January and February the coldest.


title: Reykjavík

text: In the summer of 2007, no rain was measured for one month. Summer tends to be the sunniest season, although May averages the most sunshine of any individual month. Overall, the city receives around 1,300 annual hours of sunshine, which is comparable with other places in northern and north-western Europe such as Ireland and Scotland, but substantially less than equally northern regions with a more continental climate, including the Bothnian Bay basin in Scandinavia. Nonetheless, Reykjavík is one of the cloudiest and coolest capitals of any nation in the world. The highest temperature recorded in Reykjavík was , reported on 30 July 2008, while the lowest-ever recorded temperature was , recorded on 21 January 1918. The coldest month on record is January 1918, with a mean temperature of . The warmest is July 2019, with a mean temperature of .


title: Reykjavík

text: The Reykjavík City Council governs the city of Reykjavík and is directly elected by those aged over 18 domiciled in the city. The council has 23 members who are elected using the open list method for four-year terms.


title: Reykjavík

text: The council selects members of boards, and each board controls a different field under the city council's authority. The most important board is the City Board that wields the executive rights along with the City Mayor. The City Mayor is the senior public official and also the director of city operations. Other public officials control city institutions under the mayor's authority. Thus, the administration consists of two different parts:


title: Reykjavík

text: The Independence Party was historically the city's ruling party; it had an overall majority from its establishment in 1929 until 1978, when it narrowly lost. From 1978 until 1982, there was a three-party coalition composed of the People's Alliance, the Social Democratic Party, and the Progressive Party. In 1982, the Independence Party regained an overall majority, which it held for three consecutive terms. The 1994 election was won by Reykjavíkurlistinn (the R-list), an alliance of Icelandic socialist parties, led by Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir. This alliance won a majority in three consecutive elections, but was dissolved for the 2006 election when five different parties were on the ballot. The Independence Party won seven seats, and together with the one Progressive Party they were able to form a new majority in the council which took over in June 2006.


title: Reykjavík

text: In October 2007 a new majority was formed on the council, consisting of members of the Progressive Party, the Social Democratic Alliance, the Left-Greens and the F-list (liberals and independents), after controversy regarding REI, a subsidiary of OR, the city's energy company. However, three months later the F-list formed a new majority together with the Independence Party. Ólafur F. Magnússon, the leader of the F-list, was elected mayor on 24 January 2008, and in March 2009 the Independence Party was due to appoint a new mayor. This changed once again on 14 August 2008 when the fourth coalition of the term was formed, by the Independence Party and the Social Democratic Alliance, with Hanna Birna Kristjánsdóttir becoming mayor.


title: Reykjavík

text: The City Council election in May 2010 saw a new political party, The Best Party, win six of 15 seats, and they formed a coalition with the Social Democratic Alliance; comedian Jón Gnarr became mayor. At the 2014 election, the Social Democratic Alliance had its best showing yet, gaining five seats in the council, while Bright Future (successor to the Best Party) received two seats and the two parties formed a coalition with the Left-Green movement and the Pirate Party, which won one seat each. The Independence Party had its worst election ever, with only four seats.


title: Reykjavík

text: The mayor is appointed by the city council; usually one of the council members is chosen, but they may also appoint a mayor who is not a member of the council.


title: Reykjavík

text: The post was created in 1907 and advertised in 1908. Two applications were received, from Páll Einarsson, sheriff and town mayor of Hafnarfjörður and from Knud Zimsen, town councillor in Reykjavík. Páll was appointed on 7 May and was mayor for six years. At that time the city mayor received a salary of 4,500 ISK per year and 1,500 ISK for office expenses. The current mayor is Dagur B. Eggertsson.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík is by far the largest and most populous settlement in Iceland. The municipality of Reykjavík had a population of 131,136 on 1 January 2020; that is 36% of the country's population. The Capital Region, which includes the capital and six municipalities around it, was home to 233,034 people; that is about 64% of the country's population.


title: Reykjavík

text: On 1 January 2019, of the city's population of 128,793, immigrants of the first and second generation numbered 23,995 (18.6%), increasing from 12,352 (10.4%) in 2008 and 3,106 (2.9%) in 1998.


title: Reykjavík

text: The most common foreign citizens are Poles, Lithuanians, and Latvians. About 80% of the city's foreign residents originate in European Union and EFTA member states, and over 58% are from the new member states of the EU, mainly former Eastern Bloc countries, which joined in 2004, 2007 and 2013.


title: Reykjavík

text: Children of foreign origin form a more considerable minority in the city's schools: as many as a third in places. The city is also visited by thousands of tourists, students, and other temporary residents, at times outnumbering natives in the city centre.


title: Reykjavík

text: In addition there are hinterland areas (lightly shaded on the map) which are not assigned to any district.


title: Reykjavík

text: Borgartún is the financial centre of Reykjavík, hosting a large number of companies and three investment banks.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík has been at the centre of Iceland's economic growth and subsequent economic contraction over the 2000s, a period referred to in foreign media as the "Nordic Tiger" years, or "Iceland's Boom Years". The economic boom led to a sharp increase in construction, with large redevelopment projects such as Harpa concert hall and conference centre and others. Many of these projects came to a halt in the following economic crash of 2008.


title: Reykjavík

text: Per capita car ownership in Iceland is among the highest in the world at roughly 522 vehicles per 1,000 residents, though Reykjavík is not severely affected by congestion. Several multi-lane highways (mainly dual carriageways) run between the most heavily populated areas and most frequently driven routes. Parking spaces are also plentiful in most areas. Public transportation consists of a bus system called Strætó bs. Route 1 (the Ring Road) runs through the city outskirts and connects the city to the rest of Iceland.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík Airport, the second largest airport in the country (after Keflavík International Airport), is positioned inside the city, just south of the city centre. It is mainly used for domestic flights, as well as flights to Greenland and the Faroe Islands. Since 1962, there has been some controversy regarding the location of the airport, since it takes up a lot of valuable space in central Reykjavík.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík has two seaports, the old harbour near the city centre which is mainly used by fishermen and cruise ships, and "Sundahöfn" in the east city which is the largest cargo port in the country.


title: Reykjavík

text: There are no public railways in Iceland, because of its sparse population, but the locomotives used to build the docks are on display. Proposals have been made for a high-speed rail link between the city and Keflavík.


title: Reykjavík

text: Volcanic activity provides Reykjavík with geothermal heating systems for both residential and industrial districts. In 2008, natural hot water was used to heat roughly 90% of all buildings in Iceland. Of total annual use of geothermal energy of 39 PJ, space heating accounted for 48%.


title: Reykjavík

text: Safnahúsið (the Culture House) was opened in 1909 and has a number of important exhibits. Originally built to house the National Library and National Archives and also previously the location of the National Museum and Natural History Museum, in 2000 it was re-modeled to promote the Icelandic national heritage. Many of Iceland's national treasures are on display, such as the Poetic Edda, and the Sagas in their original manuscripts. There are also changing exhibitions of various topics.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík is the capital, and in fact Iceland’s only city, and as such, it plays a vital role in all cultural life in the country. The city is home to Iceland’s main cultural institutions, boasts a flourishing arts scene and is renowned as a creative city with a diverse range of cultural happenings and dynamic grassroots activities. Most of the country’s writers live in the city, and it also provides the setting for the majority of contemporary Icelandic literature – a development that has gone hand in hand with the rapid expansion of the city in the past 100 years or so.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavík is home to Icelandic medieval literature, including the Sagas of the Icelanders and the Poetic Edda, landmarks of world literature still widely read and translated today. This literary heritage is the core of the nation’s identity and narrative art is the single most important part of its cultural history. The Árni Magnússon Institute for Icelandic Studies in Reykjavík is the centre of this heritage. It preserves manuscripts, conducts research on them and publishes texts for the public, in addition to offering research facilities and tutoring to foreign scholars and students. The Arnamagnean Manuscript Collection was added to the UNESCO Memory of the World Register on 31 July 2009. Reykjavík city was designated as a UNESCO City of Literature in 2011 and joined then the UNESCO Creatives Cities network.


title: Reykjavík

text: Iceland is one of the smallest linguistic areas in the world, with only around 330,000 inhabitants and very few speakers outside the country. The language has not changed much since the time of settlement in the 9th century and modern Icelanders can still read the original medieval texts with relative ease. Literature plays a vital role in cherishing and cultivating the language, both original Icelandic literature and translations. Language undergoes constant renewal and development in fiction, and translation of foreign work has also been instrumental in conserving this thousand-year-old literary language.


title: Reykjavík

text: Several Reykjavík writers have received international and Nordic awards. Halldór Laxness was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1955 for “vivid epic power which has renewed the great narrative art of Iceland”. The House of Halldór Laxness, Gljúfrasteinn, in the capital area can be visited year-round. A number of writers have won the Nordic Council’s Literature Prize, among them are Thor Vilhjálmsson, Einar Már Guðmundsson and Sjón, and authors such as Guðrún Helgadóttir, Kristín Steinsdóttir and Ragnheiður Gestsdóttir are winners of The Nordic Children’s Literature Prize. Crime writer Arnaldur Indriðason has won prizes abroad, including The Golden Dagger Award. Among other prizes awarded to writers from Reykjavík are the Kairos Preis (Andri Snaer Magnason), the Swedish Academy’s Nordic Literature Prize (Guðbergur Bergsson) and the Prix de Page (Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir). Contemporary Icelandic writers are published in an increased number in translations throughout the world.


title: Reykjavík

text: Alcohol is expensive at bars. People tend to drink at home before going out. Beer was banned in Iceland until 1 March 1989 but has since become popular among many Icelanders as their alcoholic drink of choice.


title: Reykjavík

text: The Iceland Airwaves music festival is staged annually in November. This festival takes place all over the city, and the concert venue Harpa is one of the main locations. Other venues that frequently organise live music events are Kex, Húrra, Gaukurinn (grunge, metal, punk), Mengi (centre for contemporary music, avant-garde music and experimental music), the Icelandic Opera and the National Theatre of Iceland for classical music.


title: Reykjavík

text: The arrival of the new year is a particular cause for celebration to the people of Reykjavík. Icelandic law states that anyone may purchase and use fireworks during a certain period around New Year's Eve. As a result, every New Year's Eve the city is lit up with fireworks displays.


title: Reykjavík

text: Reykjavik Golf Club was established in 1934. It is the oldest and largest golf club in Iceland. It consists of two 18-hole courses—one at Grafarholt and the other at Korpa. The Grafarholt golf course opened in 1963, which makes it the oldest 18-hole golf course in Iceland. The Korpa golf course opened in 1997.


title: Reykjavík

text: Clubs classified as youth clubs offer youth teams where anyone can train with the team, though each club is based in a certain area of Reykjavík and mainly serves that area.


title: Reykjavík

text: In July 2013, mayor Jón Gnarr filed a motion before the city council to terminate the city's relationship with Moscow, in response to a trend of anti-gay legislation in Russia.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Jack Reacher is the protagonist of a series of crime thriller novels by British author Lee Child. In the stories, Jack Reacher was a major in the US Army's military police. Having left the Army at age 36, Reacher roams the United States, taking odd jobs and investigating suspicious and frequently dangerous situations.


title: Jack Reacher

text: , 27 novels plus some short stories have been published. The most recent novel is "No Plan B". Three novels have been adapted for the screen. Two of the adaptations are films, starring Tom Cruise as Reacher: "Jack Reacher" (2012) from the ninth novel, "One Shot", and "" (2016) from the eighteenth novel, "Never Go Back". The third adaption is a television series on Amazon Prime Video, starring Alan Ritchson: "Reacher" (2022). This was adapted from the first novel, "Killing Floor".


title: Jack Reacher

text: At the time Lee Child sat down to write his first novel "Killing Floor", he was unemployed, having been made redundant from his position as a presentation director for Granada Television. According to Child, authorship was a purely pragmatic decision: "I wasn't one of these people that felt compelled to write. It had to keep a roof over our heads, so it was totally, totally 110% commercially motivated."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Critics have perceived other influences in Jack Reacher's creation. Bob Cornwell quotes Lee Child's reply in another interview as having created Reacher "as an antidote, to all the depressed and miserable alcoholics that increasingly peopled the genre". Similarly, editor Otto Penzler published an essay by Child explaining that Jack Reacher was created deliberately in contrast to the prevailing trends in crime fiction. His name is short and commonplace, as opposed to quirky or unusual; Reacher's personal ethics and wandering lifestyle are reminiscent of the chivalrous knight errant of medieval lore as opposed to an anti-hero tormented by addiction and haunted by past misbehavior.


title: Jack Reacher

text: The character's name first came to Child in a supermarket when an old lady, noting the span of Child's arms, asked for his help in reaching out to a can of pears. On seeing this, Child's wife commented that if his writing career did not work out he could "always get a job as a reacher in a supermarket". Reacher's ex-military background was a specific and tactical choice on his behalf. Child has explained, "I thought that I would do a book that's not the same as everybody else's. Everybody else had their guy working: a private eye in Boston or a police lieutenant in L.A., or wherever. I thought, 'Well, he won't be working, and he won't live anywhere, and let's just take it from there.'" Child also felt that this origin would lend itself to the character's personality and nomadic lifestyle: "This idea of the rootless alienation has got to come from somewhere, and I noticed that the most alienated people are always ex-military, because it's like going from one solar system to the other, it's so different. So that was an easy choice: Make him ex-military. Then make him ex-military police because, broadly speaking, these would be crime novels, and he had to have some investigative experience, and he had to understand procedures and forensics and so on. So that part was all set in stone".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Numerous critics have pointed out the various similarities between Lee Child and Jack Reacher. Bryan Curtis, writing for "Grantland", and Natasha Harding and Caroline Iggulden, in a separate article for "The Sun", have brought out the various similarities between Child and Reacher: Child is tall while his protagonist stands ; both writer and creation constantly consume coffee; like Reacher, Child "lives in cheap pairs of jeans and T-shirts and finds the idea of buying expensive clothes to be irrational"; and "Jack Reacher's famous physical qualities are based on Child's playground memories as a child". Child tends to agree with such observations: "I was huge as a kid and Reacher's stature is me translated as a kid. I enjoyed being bigger and fighting shamelessly. I've done a fair amount of headbutting. It's an awesome manoeuvre." Andy Martin notes that "just as Reacher is half-Rimbaud, half-Rambo, Child is both art-for-art's-sake Parnassian and ruthless businessman."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Curtis, as well as Harding and Iggulden, have also considered the role Child's dismissal from Granada had on Reacher's development. Curtis notes that "Child created Reacher from the smoldering embers of his own rage. It might seem like a simplistic theory, but it's true. Like the author, Reacher was workplace surplus: He was a military policeman in an era of Army downsizing. The act of leaving his job turned Reacher into a protective figure, an avenging angel." He finds that Reacher's actions are a manifestation of Child's anger at his sacking and that his violent ways of dealing with villains is "cathartic" to the author.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Child views Jack Reacher as a "happy-go-lucky guy. He has quirks and problems, but the thing is, he doesn't know he's got them. Hence, no tedious self-pity. He's smart and strong, an introvert, but any anguish he suffers is caused by others." He was asked about the casting of Tom Cruise in the role of Jack Reacher. (Tom Cruise's casting as Jack Reacher was met with severe criticism from fans of the book series, primarily because the disparity in their heights: Reacher is portrayed as a blond, tall, 250-pound man in the novels, while Cruise is a brunette.) Child replied that "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force". In physique and appearance, Child has compared him to Rugby Player Lawrence Dallaglio.


title: Jack Reacher

text: He has also referred to Reacher on multiple occasions as a 'knight-errant' and in an interview for "Time" magazine describes the character as: "(He's) two things in one. On the surface, he is an ex-military cop who is suddenly dumped out into the civilian world. He doesn't fit in, and he spends his time wandering America, seeing the things that he's never had time to see before. He's trying to stay out of trouble, but masterfully once a year getting into trouble. He's also the descendant of a very ancient tradition: the noble loner, the knight errant, the mysterious stranger, who has shown up in stories forever… He is a truly universal character... I'm writing the modern iteration of a character who has existed for thousands of years."


title: Jack Reacher

text: The stories that I love are basically about the knight-errant, the mysterious stranger. And the reason why people think that's an essentially American paradigm is the Westerns. The Westerns were absolutely rock solid with that stuff. You know, the mysterious rider comes in off the range, sorts out the problem, and rides off into the sunset. It is just such a total paradigm, but not invented in America. That was imported from the medieval tales of Europe. The knight-errant: literally a knight, somehow banished and forced to wander the land doing good deeds. It's part of storytelling in every culture. Japan has it with the ronin myth; every culture has this Robin Hood idea. So really, that character was forced out of Europe as Europe became more densely populated and more civilized. That character no longer had stories in Europe; it had to migrate to where the frontier was still open and dangerous, which was America, essentially. So the character, I think, is actually universal and historic, most recently, normally represented in America. I think the Westerns saw it firmly adopted by America, so yeah, right now, we think of this as a completely American character, but really, it's more historic than that. But I'm very happy to have that reference made.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Child also views Reacher as "post-feminist" stating that he does not parlay in "gender distinction...Reacher likes strong, realistic women, and he treats women with respect...he doesn't cut them any slack, but also he has no negative preconceptions. If you're a woman, he will be your friend; but if necessary, he will kill you."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Jack Reacher was born on a military base in Berlin, on 29 October 1960. Regular references are made to the fact that Reacher's given name is Jack, which is not a nickname for John, and that he has no middle name. His military record officially refers to him as "Jack (none) Reacher". From the time he was a boy, his family, even his mother, simply called him "Reacher", an appellation that has stayed with him, but was never given to his brother.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher's mother Josephine Moutier Reacher (née Moutier) was a French national, and Reacher was fluent in French from early childhood, but as he admits in "The Affair" (2011) he speaks the language "Un peu, mais lentement" ("A little, but slowly"). Reacher's maternal grandfather was at the Battle of Verdun in the First World War and in the French Resistance in the Second, and lived to a ripe old age, which in Reacher's view means that his grandfather had "beaten the odds". Reacher's mother as a 13 year old guided Allied Air Crews to safety in WWII.


title: Jack Reacher

text: After being shunted around the world, growing up on U.S. military bases where his father, Stan, a Marine Captain, was stationed, he gained an education in basic survival as well as an opportunity to enter the United States Military Academy at West Point. After four years at West Point (1979 to 1983) Reacher achieved the ranks of 2nd lieutenant, 1st lieutenant, captain, and major, including an intervening demotion from major to captain in 1990 during his tenure in the military police. His commanding officer, Leon Garber, promoted Reacher twice in 18 months, making him the youngest peacetime major anyone could remember. During his tenure, his achievements were recognised in the form of citations and awards including the Silver Star, the Defense Superior Service Medal, two Legions of Merit, Soldier's Medal, Bronze Star, Army Commendation Medal, and a second Silver Star and Purple Heart for wounds sustained in the bombing of the US Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983.


title: Jack Reacher

text: While his Silver Star and Purple Heart are cited on his profile, all of the other medal citations involve official secrets and are therefore redacted. The short story "Deep Down" hints that he possibly was awarded the Legion of Merit as a result of exposing a female liaison officer who was leaking confidential information to the Soviet Union.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher served in the Army's Military Police Corps, resigning his commission and mustering out at the rank of major. His unit, the fictional 110th Special Investigations Unit, was formed to handle exceptionally tough cases. He left the armed forces in 1997, partly due to a reduction in the forces and partly because he verbally offended a lieutenant colonel during an investigation in Mississippi, who then singled him out for discharge.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Among his formal qualifications, Reacher is described as the only non-Marine to win the Wimbledon Cup, a US Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational Rifle Competition; achieving a record score in 1988. Anecdotally his fitness reports rated him well above average in the classroom, excellent in the field, fluently bilingual in English and French, passable in Spanish, outstanding on all man-portable weaponry, and beyond outstanding at hand-to-hand combat.


title: Jack Reacher

text: After leaving the Army, Reacher became a drifter, his only baggage a folding toothbrush, although after the September 11 attacks, with restrictions on wire transfers in the light of fraud he is obliged to carry an ATM card and photo ID in the form of a (generally expired) American passport.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Emily Sargent, while conducting an interview with Lee Child, describes Reacher's post-military life as follows:


title: Jack Reacher

text: You will never find Reacher going to the laundry or doing the ironing. When his clothes get dirty he simply goes to the local hardware store and buys a functional pair of chinos and a workman's shirt and stuffs the old ones in the bin. No mortgage, no wife, no ties, he is a perfectly free agent, unlimited and unbound, incapable of ever settling down.


title: Jack Reacher

text: He's an ex-military policeman, and he was demobilized in his middle thirties after having served all of his adult life in the [U.S.] Army and having grown up on Marine bases, because his father was a Marine. The idea was to have a character that was plausibly rootless. Most people who are wanderers do it for other reasons—they are mentally ill, or something like that. Reacher is completely competent, but he's just habituated to this fragmented life in the military, so he can't settle into civilian society. The idea of staying anywhere for more than a few days is anathema to him.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher himself expounds on a hypothesis about this vagrant lifestyle in "Never Go Back". He states that he is genetically predisposed to roaming about. He asserts that some peoples had a natural wanderlust, such as the British Empire, the Vikings, and the Polynesians. He recognizes the economic reasons for their voyages but argues that "some of them could not stop". He believes that, when prehistoric humans lived in small bands, a gene evolved to prevent inbreeding. Consequently, "every generation and every small band had at least one person who had to wander". This would lead to "mixing up of gene pools" and would be "healthier all around". Reacher concludes:


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher's large physique means his character is sometimes mistaken by other people. For example, in "Die Trying", Reacher is wrongly suspected by the FBI of being involved in a kidnapping, which assesses him (solely on the basis of a few photos) as such: "The big guy is different. Different clothes, different stance, different physically. He could be foreign, at least partly, or maybe second generation. Fair hair and blue eyes, but there's something in his face. Maybe he's European, perhaps a European mercenary or terrorist." Reacher is aware of this perception. In "Make Me" Reacher gets off a train in a remote town called Mother's Rest, simply because he likes the name of the town. When he sees a woman approaching him with a look of expectation, he immediately understands that the person she was waiting for must be very tall like him, as it is his standout feature when people first meet him.


title: Jack Reacher

text: In "Echo Burning", Reacher narrates how he first turned "his fear into aggression". He was about four when he watched a television show on space adventures. One episode depicted a space monster which then terrified the young Reacher. He was unable to sleep for days, thinking the monster was under his bed and would get him if he tried to sleep. According to Reacher, he then became angry: "Not at myself for being afraid, because as far as I was concerned the thing was totally real and I should be afraid. I got mad at the thing for making me afraid. For threatening me". Reacher then one night "kind of exploded with fury". In his words, Reacher "raced down the monster" and successfully changed his fear into fury. He also stated he has never been scared since.


title: Jack Reacher

text: This fact is later referenced in "Never Go Back", when an Army psychological study of fear in children is cited that shows Reacher to have abnormally fast reflexes and aggression levels at the age of six; Reacher believes that this abnormal level of aggression at that age is not due to genetics, as the Army report suggested, but because he got tired of being frightened, and trained himself "to turn fear into aggression, automatically".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher seldom shows remorse for the numerous felonies he perpetrates and has a primal sense of justice. In "Personal", after killing a thug, he defends his actions to his distraught accomplice, Casey Nice, by stating the man could have spent his life performing good deeds such as "helping old ladies across the street", "raising funds for Africa" or "volunteering in the library". Instead the man extorted money and hurt people and when "finally he opened the wrong door, what came out at him was his problem, not mine".


title: Jack Reacher

text: This primitivity on the part of Reacher is commented upon in "Never Go Back", in which Reacher is described by Susan Turner as being like "something feral...It's like you've been sanded down to nothing but yes and no, and you and them, and black and white, and live or die. You're like a predator. Cold and hard." (p. 176–177) However, when she witnesses Reacher's outrage at the hurt inflicted upon an innocent waitress, she reconsiders and states that he is actually not feral as she had earlier presumed. Furthermore, she notes that Reacher had until then attempted to solve only her problems, neglecting the problems of his own:


title: Jack Reacher

text: This underlying kindness perceived by Turner is visible in many of Reacher's actions: he stands up for the right of women in both "Echo Burning", whose central plot involves him aiding a woman's escape from her abusive husband, and in "Worth Dying For", in which he breaks the nose of an abusive husband for beating up his wife. He is also shown to be sympathetic to those in need, as seen in "The Hard Way" where he bequeaths Edward Lane's fees paid to him for the medical treatment and living expenses of a man whom Lane had betrayed many years back.


title: Jack Reacher

text: This point is further elucidated in "Personal", when Reacher reminisces while standing at his mother's grave:


title: Jack Reacher

text: She had said, 'You've got the strength of two normal boys. What are you going to do with it?' I hadn't replied. Our silence was part of the ritual. She answered for me. She said, 'You're going to do the right thing.' And I had tried, mostly, which had sometimes caused me trouble, and sometimes won me medals of my own.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher is described as brutally proficient in hand-to-hand combat. He is quite fast for his height, and often fights opponents his size or larger. His skill is attributed to the fact that he grew up all over the world, due to being in a Marine Corps family. While he is not a master in any one form of combat, he tends to incorporate moves from various styles. His favorite moves are headbutts, elbow strikes, and kicks to the groin. As Child once put it, "Reacher's fighting style is like throwing a running chainsaw into a crowd." Reacher generally goes with the flow of the fight, caring about winning more than how he wins. However, he plans out how to strike first or react to the first strike, and how he'll make sure the other person never fights him again. As he puts it, "The other guy cares how he wins, I care about pissing on the other guy's grave."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher has an internal clock. He sets a time to wake up at and his body automatically awakens. He often sets a timer in fights to try and get a tactical edge. Reacher also has a fascination with numbers. In "Bad Luck and Trouble", Reacher uses this to deduce that the amount of money deposited without his knowledge into his bank account was an attempt by Neagley, his colleague from the Military Police Corps, to contact him.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher has extremely acute deduction skills. He generally gains his information simply from talking to people or making minute observations. He will pick up on a simple pause and relate it back to what he is trying to figure out. He is known as one of the best investigators the Army's Military Police Corps had to offer, and he led a special unit tasked with difficult cases.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher is also described as a skilled marksman, principally in "One Shot", being the only non-Marine to win the US Marine Corps 1000 Yard Invitational rifle competition.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher has a love for music, especially blues. It was this affinity that inspires Reacher to get off the bus at the start of "Killing Floor", and in the same novel reveals that he has a music collection in his head, replaying tracks as he travels without needing the technology others seem to be obsessed with and burdened by. Reacher explains this to detectives investigating an early morning suicide on a near-deserted New York subway near a visit to a blues club on Bleecker Street.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher espouses no personal religious beliefs but is scathing in his dismissal of town boss Thurman's fundamentalist Christian position in the novel "Nothing to Lose": When asked if he is "born again" Reacher says, "Once was enough for me" and later rhetorically asks Thurman, "I'm here to visit the sick and you want to have me beaten up? What kind of Christian are you?" He also mentions at the opening of "Bad Luck and Trouble" that he avoids Alaska Airlines because "they put a scripture card on the meal trays".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher is also critical of the corruption of traditional spelling, such as the use of contractions like "U" for "you", "lo" for "low", disliking the absence of the apostrophe in "DONT WALK" pedestrian signage before they were replaced, then noting he also disapproved of replacing words with pictures.


title: Jack Reacher

text: While Reacher knows how to drive, in "A Wanted Man" he professes to be a bad driver, and in "Bad Luck and Trouble" he says he cannot rent a car because he does not have a driver's license. In "Without Fail" Agent Frolich trawls various databases for Reacher, only to discover he is effectively untraceable, because without a driver's license he has no photograph and no address.


title: Jack Reacher

text: His face looked like it had been chipped out of rock by a sculptor who had ability but not much time.


title: Jack Reacher

text: From "A Wanted Man": "He was one of the largest men she had ever seen outside the NFL. He was extremely tall, and extremely broad, and long-armed, and long-legged. The lawn chair was regular size, but it looked tiny under him. It was bent and crushed out of shape. His knuckles were nearly touching the ground. His neck was thick and his hands were the size of dinner plates...A wild man. But not really. Underneath everything else seemed strangely civilized...His gaze was both wise and appealing, both friendly and bleak, both frank and utterly cynical."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher is described as being tall, weighing and having a chest. In "Never Go Back", he is described as having "a six-pack like a cobbled city street, a chest like a suit of NFL armor, biceps like basketballs, and subcutaneous fat like a Kleenex tissue." In his youth, his physical appearance was likened to that of a "bulked-up greyhound". He also reveals that his size is purely genetic; he states in "Persuader" and "Never Go Back" that he is not much of an exercise enthusiast.


title: Jack Reacher

text: He has various scars, most notably a collection of roughly stitched scars on his abdomen caused by a bombing in Lebanon, with ugly raised welts that are later instrumental in saving his life, a white scar that intersects his shrapnel scar that he received during a knife fight in "Gone Tomorrow". Reacher attributes his survival to the rough MASH stitch work.


title: Jack Reacher

text: His various other scars include one from a chest shot with a .38 Special. and a powder burn from a near-miss at point blank range, and one on his arm where his brother struck him with a chisel.


title: Jack Reacher

text: He suffers his first ever broken nose in "Worth Dying For", at over 50 years of age. He resets the bone with a thump from his palm and later puts on a plaster bandage made of duct tape.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher's maternal grandfather, Laurent Moutier, was a furniture restorer in Paris, who, at age 30, volunteered for the French Army in 1914 at the outbreak of World War I, fighting at Verdun and The Somme. Between 1919 and 1929 he was commissioned to produce wooden legs for wounded veterans. Josephine Moutier was his only child. He died in 1974 at age 90. Jack, as a boy, met him three times and is described as having liked him. In "Second Son" Reacher is impressed with his grandfather's stoic acceptance of approaching death and says that "A man who survived Verdun and The Somme as well as the WWII anti-Nazi Resistance has already beaten the odds".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher's mother, Josephine Moutier Reacher, born in France, was 30 years old when Reacher was born. She met Reacher's father in Korea and married him in the Netherlands. When she was only 13, she joined the French Resistance and under the alias "Beatrice" worked with "Le Chemin de Fer Humain" (the Human Railroad), saving 80 men. She garroted a schoolmate, a boy who threatened to give her up to the Nazis, and would later receive the "Médaille de la Résistance" (the Resistance Medal) for further heroism. She was widowed in 1988, and died in 1990 at the age of 60 of lung cancer. Reacher described his mother as "gallic, feminine, obstinate," and "[the] most stubborn woman possible." He also branded her a fatalist as she had concealed her cancer from her children and had refused treatment for a one-year period before her death. However Reacher compares her favourably to his father: "My father hadn't killed the enemy at the age of thirteen. But my mother had. She had lived through desperate times and she had stepped up and done what was necessary." Reacher also has great respect for his mother: at her funeral he buried his "Silver Star" medal with her, and on learning of her role in World War II, states that he became the man he was because of her. In "Die Trying", when the FBI mistakenly assumes Reacher to be in league with the book's villains, the Bureau experts observing Reacher's demeanor on footage from a security camera consider him to be "a foreigner, probably a European mercenary". Additionally, in the same book, Reacher tricks the antagonists into believing he is a French mercenary, speaking French seemingly fluently.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher's father, Stan Reacher, was a United States Marine Corps captain, who served in Korea and Vietnam. His military service kept his family continually moving all around the world to various military bases. At the time of the short story "Second Son", when Jack was 13, he was stationed in Okinawa and involved in preparing contingency plans for an invasion of Mainland China. In the same short story, Stan Reacher is depicted as "a child of the depression," coming from a miserly New England family, and as a result was a proponent of the theories of "Waste not, want not," "Make do and mend," and "Don't make an exhibition of oneself." Jack described his father as "a plain New Hampshire Yankee with an implacable horror of anything fancy...he had no use for wealth and excess. Very compartmentalized guy. Gentle, shy, sweet, loving man, but a stone-cold killer. Next to him I look like Liberace". Jack Reacher furthermore highlighted this dichotomy in his father's behaviour by stating that he would be engaging in violent actions such as "how to angle a claymore mine so the little ball bearings explode outward at exactly the right angle to rip the enemy's spines out of their backs with maximum efficiency" one day, and the next day would be doing something calmer, like "watching birds," After military service, "there was no place left for people like him." He died in 1988. James Stanfield, in an article concludes that "Reacher clearly looked up to and idolised his father, and though Reacher's reasons for leaving the service were very different to his dad's, they've ended up at the same point."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Reacher had only one sibling, brother Joe Reacher, who was two years older than Jack. Physically, Joe was one inch taller and a "little slighter" than his younger sibling, weighing . Joe was born on a military base in the Philippines, and Jack is described as helping Joe beat up the kids who gave him trouble in school, and vice versa. However Joe also had scuffles with his own brother, given the scar that Jack had put on his forehead during their childhood. Joe was also a West Point graduate, and spent five years in military intelligence, where he never won any of the "good medals", only the "junk awards. "Jack described his brother as being pedantic, and called him a perfectionist, "a man horrified with anything less than the best." Joe is described as joining the US Treasury Department, and died at age 38 in the line of duty, having arranged a meeting with a potential investigation subject. Because he was killed in the line of duty, his name can be found on the Treasury Department's Roll of Honor


title: Jack Reacher

text: While making an analogy in "The Affair", Reacher claims to know his paternal grandfather and have many cousins. However, "Past Tense", establishes that Reacher hasn't met anyone in his father's family when he visits the town his father came from. During the events of "Past Tense", Reacher meets three distant cousins of his, one of whom, Mark Reacher, is involved in a murderous criminal conspiracy, with their distant relation not compelling Reacher to show him any mercy. One of the others is named Stan Reacher, and reveals that Reacher's father (real name William) used his name to enlist in the Marines while underage after killing a local criminal. Stan never knew William's parents, or how closely related they were to his. Stan also is unclear exactly how closely related he and Reacher are to Mark but believes Mark is one of the many grandchildren of a relative Stan never met in person, who made a fortune in real estate. Reacher leaves town with good new stories about his father, but with little additional insight into his exact family tree.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Critics have noted the strong theme of "justice" pervading the character as well as the book series. Claire E. White characterises the titular protagonist as a "wanderer, a hero who is a bit alienated from the establishment, but whose sense of justice is strong. He reminds ("me") a bit of a character from the Old West: the strong, mysterious loner who never stays in town for long." Mike Ripley detected the influence of Jack Schaefer's western novel "Shane" in the Reacher novel "Echo Burning" while Bob Cornwell calls the debut Jack Reacher novel " Killing Floor" "a classic western". Grantland columnist Bryan Curtis calls the character "a protective figure, an avenging angel" and quotes the author Michael Connelly describing the Reacher book series: "These are postmodern Westerns, they're "Shane". A stranger comes to town and sets things right. Then he leaves town." The critic Emily Sargent says of the fictional Reacher: "just the kind of no-nonsense, ramrod hero an intelligent five-year-old would dream up: a strapping, broad-shouldered, idealized father-figure, something akin to God in his wisdom and power, alternately benevolent and overwhelmingly cruel, fair but firm. Good at saving damsels in distress and sorting out bad guys."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Rick Gekoski, writing for "The Guardian", takes a similar if darker interpretation of the character: "Reacher is, of course, in a long line of American outcast heroes who abjure emotional ties, head out into the wilderness and take upon their own broad shoulders the primitive moral conscience of the tribe. Too immature to make a sexual commitment, obsessed with death and terror, this archetypal hero of American fiction was first described in Leslie Fiedler's classic "Love and Death in the American Novel" (1960)." In the same article he also questions whether Fiedler would find that Reacher's hypermasculinity is a sign of the character's "repressed homosexuality".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Malcolm Gladwell, in an article for "The New Yorker", perceives a difference in the Reacher character and the traditional Western characters in terms of the symbolism they represent to the general public. In his opinion, "The traditional Western was a fantasy about lawfulness: it was based on a longing for order among those who had been living without it for too long. The heroes conduct themselves according to strict rules of chivalry. They act— insofar as it is possible —with restraint. In the world we live in today, by contrast, we have too much order: we are, as we have been reminded so frequently lately, over-policed. Our contemporary fantasy is about lawlessness: about what would happen if the institutions of civility melted away and all we were left with was a hard-muscled, rangy guy who could do all the necessary calculations in his head to insure that the bad guy got what he had coming. That's why there are rarely any police in Reacher novels—or judges or courts or lawyers or any discussion or consideration of the law. Nor is there any restraint on the part of the hero. He's not pointing toward a more civilized tomorrow. He's leading us back into the wilderness, with the reassurance that our psychopaths are bigger and stronger than the bad guys' psychopaths."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Sargent also notes the dichotomy in Reacher's character, stating that he is intellectual and generous despite his exterior appearance of being "unkempt, unshaven and out of uniform, a loner, avenger, perpetual outsider at odds with the army". In Sargent's express opinion:


title: Jack Reacher

text: Curtis concurs, remarking that "Reacher isn't just a mindless vigilante. He can also be a liberal do-gooder. He has expressed sympathy for gays in the military and undocumented immigrants. In Child's latest book," A Wanted Man", Reacher worries that the Patriot Act will lead to all sorts of 'national security bullshit.' Child has invented a kind of progressive vigilantism. The scumbag is killed, but usually for the right reasons."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Multiple critics have pointed out that the Jack Reacher character is characterized by his spells of silence, with Curtis claiming "Reacher's classic line is silence."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Others have been critical of the various implausibilities and contradictions present in the character and his behavior. Notes "The Washington Post" journalist Kevin Nance: "The unlikelihoods and outright impossibilities stack up. Ever a frugal sort, Reacher travels mostly by hitchhiking (as he does at the beginning of "A Wanted Man" and 2001's "Echo Burning," both set roughly in the time they were written), even though the practice is roughly as current as bellbottoms and even though his appearance is, as previously established, notably simian. (Not that this deters a series of smart, attractive young women, most of them officers of the law, from jumping into bed with him.) And although he's a loner who seems never so happy — rather like Agent Cooper in "Twin Peaks" — as when sitting quietly in a diner with a cup of black coffee and a piece of pie, he has an uncanny knack for stumbling into the worst kinds of trouble, almost none of it connected to himself." Michael Cavacini has concurred with this, stating that unlike traditional whodunits, where a detective "simply solves a problem because it's his job", Reacher has no formal reason to be involved in anything and consequently "seems to always wind up in a situation where something goes wrong and he must make right".


title: Jack Reacher

text: Lee Child has described Reacher's accomplices and their characterization and origin in the following terms: " The whole cast for each book is new. It kind of depends on what the scenario is and what the set up is. Do I use people that I actually know? In a way yeah, because you met people and you regard them as meta-typical as one thing or another – so as a large extent, yes, they are based on people I've met but not specific individuals."


title: Jack Reacher

text: Jill Hemingway, age 34 according to a police transmission, was a suspended FBI agent operating freelance in New York during 1977. She had been investigating the criminal activities of a New York mobster, Croselli but her investigation had been shut down and she had been suspended, pending review as part of a deal cut by Croselli with the FBI. She had since tried to unsuccessfully bring Croselli down by getting him to boast of his crimes on tape. She admitted that bringing down Croselli had become somewhat of an obsession for her, stating "[Croselli] burns her up." Hemingway is described as a thin, pale, nervous, blonde woman and she teams up with a nearly seventeen year old Reacher in the novella "High Heat" to incriminate Croselli. She suffered from heart-related ailments and she dies near the end of the story due to a heart attack after having accomplished her goal. Reacher commented, "She died young, but she had a smile on her face."


title: Jack Reacher

text: The 2012 action thriller film "Jack Reacher" was adapted from the 9th novel, 2005's "One Shot," and starred Tom Cruise in the title role. The film was directed by Christopher McQuarrie. Cruise reprised the role in the sequel, "", an adaptation of the 18th Jack Reacher book, "Never Go Back", which was directed by Edward Zwick, and released 21 October 2016.


title: Jack Reacher

text: Tom Cruise's casting was met with criticism from fans of the book series, primarily because the disparity in their heights, with Reacher portrayed as a blond, tall, 250-pound man in the novels, while Cruise is a tall brunet. In 2012 Child commented on Cruise's casting by saying, "Reacher's size in the books is a metaphor for an unstoppable force, which Cruise portrays in his own way." In 2018, Child expressed the opinion that the fans were right about the height of actor portraying the character.


title: Jack Reacher

text: On 14 November 2018, Child announced that he made a deal with Skydance Television and Paramount Television to produce a "Jack Reacher" series based on Child's novels, during which feature films would no longer be produced. He also stated that Tom Cruise would not be returning to the role, and that another actor would be cast in the role, which he hoped would represent the character more properly than seen in the films. Paramount Television and Skydance Television are said to be producing the potential series. Child said of the recasting:


title: Jack Reacher

text: "I really enjoyed working with Cruise. He's a really, really nice guy. We had a lot of fun. But ultimately the readers are right. The size of Reacher is really, really important and it's a big component of who he is...So what I've decided to do is – there won't be any more movies with Tom Cruise. Instead, we're going to take it to Netflix or something like that. Long-form streaming television, with a completely new actor. We're rebooting and starting over and we're going to try and find the perfect guy.


title: Jack Reacher

text: On 15 July 2019, Variety reported that Amazon will develop the series for Prime Video with Nick Santora as the showrunner, writer and executive producer alongside Child, Don Granger, Christopher McQuarrie, David Ellison, Dana Goldberg and Marcy Ross. On 4 September 2020, Alan Ritchson was cast as the titular role. On 2 December 2021, the series, simply titled "Reacher", premiered 4 February 2022.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: FC Red Bull Salzburg is an Austrian professional football club based in Wals-Siezenheim, that competes in the Austrian Bundesliga, the top flight of Austrian Football. Their home ground is the Red Bull Arena. Due to sponsorship restrictions, the club is known as FC Salzburg and wears a modified crest when playing in UEFA competitions.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: The club was known as SV Austria Salzburg, and had several sponsored names, before being bought by Red Bull GmbH in 2005 who renamed the club and changed its colours from its traditional violet and white to red and white. The change resulted in some of the team's fans forming a new club, SV Austria Salzburg.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Founded in 1933, the club won its first Bundesliga title in 1994, which was the first of three in the span of four seasons which also saw them reach the 1994 UEFA Cup final. The club has won sixteen league titles and nine Austrian Cups, all nine of which came as doubles, as well as three Austrian Supercups.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: FC RB Salzburg was founded on 13 September 1933 as SV Austria Salzburg, after the merger of the city's two clubs, Hertha and Rapid. In 1950, the club was dissolved but re-founded later the same year. It reached the Austrian top flight in 1953, and finished 9th of 14 clubs in its first season there, avoiding relegation by five points.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Vienna-born Erich Probst was Salzburg's first-ever international, earning the last of his 19 Austrian caps on 27 March 1960. Adolf Macek, who made the first of his four international appearances on 9 October 1965, was the club's first local player to earn a cap for Austria.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Salzburg were top-flight runners-up for the first time in the 1970–71 season, gaining 43 points to Wacker Innsbruck's 44. The club's first-ever European campaign was in the 1971–72 UEFA Cup, and it was eliminated 5–4 on aggregate by Romanian club UTA despite a 3–1 home victory in the second leg. In 1974, Salzburg reached the Austrian Cup final for the first time, losing 2–1 away to Austria Wien in the first leg before a 1–1 home draw in the second.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: In 1978, the club's official name was changed to SV Casino Salzburg and in 1997, to SV Wüstenrot Salzburg, due to a sponsorship deal with an Austrian financial services corporation. The team often remained referred to as "SV Austria Salzburg".


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Salzburg reached their first and so far only European final, the 1994 UEFA Cup final, where they lost both legs 1–0 to Inter Milan. That same season, Salzburg won their first Bundesliga title, beating Austria Wien by 51 points to 49. The title was retained the following season as Salzburg beat Sturm Graz on goal difference. The 1995–96 season saw a drop to eighth place, one above a relegation play-off, but the club's third title in four seasons was won in 1997 as they beat holders Rapid Wien by three points.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Salzburg's inaugural UEFA Champions League campaign in 1994–95 saw them reach the group stage by beating Israel's Maccabi Haifa 5–2 on aggregate. They were drawn into Group D with holders and eventual finalists Milan and eventual winners Ajax, as well as AEK Athens. Despite drawing both matches with Ajax, Salzburg picked up a solitary 3–1 win away in Athens and were eliminated in third place.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: The Red Bull company headed by Dietrich Mateschitz purchased the Salzburg Sport AG on 6 April 2005. The club's bylaws were amended so that the RedBull Salzburg GmbH has the sole right to appoint and recall board members of the club. After the takeover, Mateschitz changed the club's name, management, and staff, declaring "this is a new club with no history". The club's website initially claimed that it was founded in 2005, but was ordered to remove this claim by the Austrian Football Association. The new authority removed all trace of violet from the club logo and the team now play in the colours of red and white, to the consternation of much of the club's traditional support. A small pair of wings form the motif of the new club crest, displayed on the team jersey, in accordance with Red Bull's commercial slogan at the time: "gives you wings". This complete re-branding of the team proved very similar to Red Bull's treatment of its two Formula One racing teams, Red Bull Racing and Scuderia Torro Rosso, now rebranded as Scuderia AlphaTauri. Red Bull, however, would not completely follow this precedent when it acquired the MetroStars club in Major League Soccer (MLS) in the United States; while it rebranded the team as the New York Red Bulls, it chose to recognise the MetroStars' history.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: The traditional supporters tried to resist the radical changes and formed their own movement in order to regain some of the tradition. Several fan-clubs throughout Europe voiced their support in what they saw as a fight against the growing commercialisation of football. However, after five months of protests and talks between the club owners and traditional fans, no compromise was reached. On 15 September 2005, the "violet" supporters stated that the talks had irreversibly broken down and efforts to reach an agreement would be terminated.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: This gave rise to two separate fan groups: the "Red-Whites", who support "Red Bull Salzburg" and the "Violet-Whites", who want to preserve the 72-year-old tradition and refuse to support the rebranded club. The Violet-Whites ultimately formed a new club, Austria Salzburg after viewing Red Bull's offer to maintain the original colours only for the goalkeeper's socks at away games as an insult.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: In May 2006, Red Bull announced on their website that they had hired veteran Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni, together with his former player, German FIFA World Cup winner Lothar Matthäus, as co-trainers. The pair initially denied having reached a deal, but officially signed on 23 May 2006. Red Bull ultimately won the 2006–07 Bundesliga by a comfortable margin with five games still left in the season after drawing 2–2 with previous season's champions Austria Wien on 28 April 2007.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Red Bull were beaten by Shakhtar Donetsk in the third qualifying round of the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League, and were then knocked out of the 2007–08 UEFA Cup in the first round by AEK Athens. On 13 February 2008, Giovanni Trapattoni confirmed that he would be taking over as the new Republic of Ireland national team manager in May. In his final season, the club finished as runners-up, six points behind champions Rapid Wien. Trapattoni was succeeded by Co Adriaanse, under whom they finished as champions, but he left after one year. His successor was Huub Stevens. On 14 May 2010, Stevens' Red Bull retained the Bundesliga.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Stevens was replaced by Dutchman Ricardo Moniz at the end of the 2010–11 season, in which Red Bull were denied a third consecutive title by Sturm Graz, who won the league by a three-point margin. Red Bull finished second in the league, and qualified for the following season's UEFA Europa League. Moniz was ordered to integrate young players from the Junior squad: at the beginning of the 2011–12 season Daniel Offenbacher, Martin Hinteregger, Georg Teigl and Marco Meilinger were promoted to the first team. In the 2011–12 season, Red Bull won the Bundesliga league title and Cup double.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: After the 2011–12 season, Moniz departed his post despite having a year remaining on his contract. The new coach for the 2012–13 season was Roger Schmidt, who came from SC Paderborn of the German 2. Bundesliga. In July 2012, Red Bull were knocked out of the Champions League in the second qualifying round against F91 Dudelange of Luxembourg, losing the first leg 1–0 away, followed by a 4–3 home win which saw the club eliminated on away goals.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: After that, the team was changed fundamentally. At the end of the transfer period, new players were purchased: Valon Berisha, Kevin Kampl, Håvard Nielsen, Sadio Mané, Isaac Vorsah, Rodnei. In the 2012–13 season, the team finished second in the league, behind champions Austria Wien. They recaptured the league title the following season with an 11-point margin over the runners-up. Also, in the 2014–15 season, they won both the Bundesliga and the cup as they did again in the 2015–16 season. In December 2014, the coach Peter Zeidler was dismissed and replaced for the last two matches in the first half of the season by Thomas Letsch. Then Óscar García took over.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Also in the next 2016–17 season, Salzburg won both the Bundesliga and the cup. In 2018, Salzburg lost the cup final against Sturm Graz. At the beginning of the 2017–18 season, Marco Rose became coach after Óscar García left the club. In the UEFA Europa League, Salzburg reached the semi-finals in which they lost to Olympique de Marseille 2–3 on aggregate after extra time, having won during the campaign against Borussia Dortmund and Lazio.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: After eleven failed attempts to reach the group stage, Red Bull only managed to qualify directly to the 2019–20 Champions League, since the 2018–19 UEFA Champions League winner, Liverpool, qualified to the competition via their domestic league.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: In the years from 2013 to 2019, Salzburg earned €300 million from transfers of players like Munas Dabbur, Xaver Schlager, Stefan Lainer, Hannes Wolf, Diadie Samassekou, Takumi Minamino, Erling Haaland.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: In 2021, Salzburg had a transfer balance of €218 million for the last five seasons, behind UEFA Champions League participants Ajax (€242 million) and Benfica (more than €335 million). Salzburg had a positive balance in every year. In the 2020-21 and 2021-22 season they reached both the Championship and the Cup final. In the 2021-22 UEFA Champions League they reached the knock-out stage for the first time. In the round of 16 they played versus FC Bayern München.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: In 2009, Red Bull bought an amateur club in Leipzig, Germany and re-named them RasenBallsport Leipzig (so named to circumvent local rules on corporate naming) with the aim of establishing a leading branded team in that country in a similar mould to its existing franchises in Salzburg and other locations. Over the next decade, Leipzig became the owners' main football project, and the close relationship between the teams was exemplified by the number of players moving between them (Georg Teigl, Marcel Sabitzer, Yordy Reyna and Stefan Ilsanker all transferred from Salzburg to Leipzig) with some of the Austrian fans becoming increasingly annoyed at their best players being signed by the 'step-sibling' club in their mission to climb through the levels of German football. There are also links between their youth systems and scouting networks.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Having finished as runners-up in their debut season in the German top flight, RB Leipzig gained entry to continental football for the first time, specifically the 2017–18 UEFA Champions League for which Red Bull Salzburg had also qualified as Austrian champions; this raised the issue of a possible conflict of interest between the clubs due to the level of influence exerted by Red Bull over both teams and the close sporting relationship between them in various aspects. After examining the operational structures during June 2017, UEFA declared themselves satisfied under their regulations that the two clubs (particularly Salzburg) were suitably independent from the Red Bull corporation, and sufficiently distinct from one another, for both to be admitted to their competitions. In the first season following that ruling, both reached the quarter-finals of the 2017–18 UEFA Europa League but did not play each other, with RB Leipzig eliminated by Olympique de Marseille who then also knocked out Salzburg in the semi-finals. However, in the next edition of the same competition, RB Leipzig and Red Bull Salzburg were drawn together in Group B to meet competitively for the first time. Salzburg were the victors in both fixtures between the clubs (3–2 in Germany, 1–0 in Austria) and also won all their other matches to top the group, while Leipzig failed to progress after dropping further points against Celtic and Rosenborg. On 17 December 2020, Dominik Szoboszlai poised to become the second RB Salzburg player to move to RB Leipzig in space of 6 months after Hwang Hee-chan completed the switch in summer.


title: FC Red Bull Salzburg

text: Since 2012, FC Liefering, currently participating in the Austrian First League, has been a farm team for Red Bull Salzburg.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: While most of the character designs and settings were adapted from the manga, the plot differs considerably and does not include much of the last half of the manga, which continued publication for two years after the film's release. The soundtrack, which draws heavily from traditional Indonesian gamelan as well as Japanese noh music, was composed by Shōji Yamashiro and performed by Geinoh Yamashirogumi.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: "Akira" was released in Japan on July 16, 1988, by Toho; it was released the following year in the United States by Streamline Pictures. It garnered an international cult following after various theatrical and VHS releases, eventually earning over $80million worldwide in home video sales. It is widely regarded by audiences and critics as one of the greatest films ever made, especially in the animation, action and science fiction genres, as well as a landmark in Japanese animation. It is also a pivotal film in the cyberpunk genre, particularly the Japanese cyberpunk subgenre, as well as adult animation. The film had a significant impact on popular culture worldwide, paving the way for the growth of anime and Japanese popular culture in the Western world as well as influencing numerous works in animation, comics, film, music, television and video games. An iconic scene from the film, known as the ""Akira" slide" scene, has been widely referenced and homaged in many works of animation, film and television.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In 2019, following a world war triggered by the sudden destruction of Tokyo on July 16, 1988, Neo-Tokyo is plagued by corruption, anti-government protests, terrorism, and gang violence. During a violent protest, the hot-headed Shōtarō Kaneda leads his vigilante "bōsōzoku" gang, the Capsules, against the rival Clown gang. Kaneda's best friend, Tetsuo Shima, inadvertently crashes his motorcycle into Takashi, an esper who escaped from a government laboratory with the aid of a resistance organization. Assisted by fellow esper Masaru, Japan Self-Defense Forces Colonel Shikishima recaptures Takashi, has Tetsuo hospitalized, and arrests the Capsules. While being interrogated by the police, Kaneda meets Kei, an activist within the resistance movement, and tricks the authorities into releasing her with his gang.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: At a secret government facility, Shikishima and his head of research, Doctor Ōnishi, discover that Tetsuo possesses powerful psychic abilities similar to Akira, the esper responsible for Tokyo's 1988 destruction. Esper Kiyoko forewarns Shikishima of Neo-Tokyo's impending destruction, but the city's parliament dismisses Shikishima's concerns, leading him to consider killing Tetsuo to prevent another cataclysm. Meanwhile, Tetsuo escapes from the hospital, steals Kaneda's motorcycle, and tries to flee Neo-Tokyo with his girlfriend Kaori, but the Clowns ambush them. The Capsules rescue Tetsuo and Kaori, but Tetsuo begins suffering from intense headaches and hallucinations and is taken back to the hospital.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: Overhearing their plan to rescue Tetsuo and the other espers, Kaneda joins Kei's resistance cell. At the hospital, the espers try killing Tetsuo via hallucinations, but the attempt is thwarted. A frustrated Tetsuo searches for them, killing any orderlies and militiamen blocking his path. The resistance group infiltrates the hospital, and Kiyoko draws Kei and Kaneda into Shikishima and the espers' futile attempts to stop Tetsuo. Kiyoko tells Tetsuo that Akira, located in cryonic storage beneath the Olympic Stadium's construction site, could help Tetsuo with his powers. After rejecting everyone around him, especially Kaneda, Tetsuo flees the hospital to hunt for Akira.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: Kei, used by Kiyoko as a medium to stop Tetsuo, breaks her and Kaneda out of military custody. Shikishima stages a coup d'état against Neo-Tokyo's government and directs its military forces to destroy Tetsuo at any cost. At the Capsules' former hangout Harukiya Bar, Tetsuo confronts gangmates Yamagata and Kai over Kaneda's bike and kills Yamagata after his protest. Kai relays the news to Kaneda, who vows to avenge his friend, while Takashi brings Kei away. Mistaken for Akira by cultists, Tetsuo rampages through Neo-Tokyo, arriving at Akira's cryogenic storage dewar under the stadium. Kei fights Tetsuo, but he defeats her and exhumes Akira, only to find that his remains have been sealed in jars for scientific research.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: Kaneda fights Tetsuo with a laser rifle, and Shikishima fires an orbital weapon at him. While the latter destroys his arm, neither is able to stop him. Shikishima and Kaori approach the stadium, where Tetsuo, now with a robotic arm, is in great pain and losing control over his powers. Kaori tries restraining Tetsuo while Shikishima unsuccessfully offers to heal his injuries and help control his abilities. Kaneda again fights Tetsuo who, weakened from the missing arm, mutates into a gigantic mass of flesh, engulfing Kaneda and killing Kaori. As the mass grows, the espers revive Akira to stop it. Reuniting with his friends, Akira creates a singularity, drawing Tetsuo and Kaneda into another dimension. The espers teleport Shikishima to a safe distance as the singularity destroys Neo-Tokyo in a mirror of Tokyo's previous destruction, and they agree to rescue Kaneda, knowing that they will not be able to return to this dimension as a result.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In the singularity, Kaneda experiences Tetsuo and the espers' childhoods, including his and Tetsuo's friendship and the espers' psychic training before Tokyo's destruction. The espers return Kaneda to Neo-Tokyo, informing him that Akira will take Tetsuo to safety and that Kei is developing psychic powers. Ōnishi witnesses the birth of a universe but is killed in his lab's destruction. After consuming most of Neo-Tokyo, the singularity disappears and water floods the crater left in its place. Mourning Tetsuo's loss, Kaneda discovers that Kei and Kai have survived, and they ride off into the ruins while Shikishima watches the sunrise. Tetsuo introduces himself at an unspecified plane of reality and triggers the creation of a universe, finally transcending the limitations of human existence.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: While working on the "Akira" manga, Katsuhiro Otomo did not intend to adapt the series; however, he became "very intrigued" when the offer to develop his work for the screen was put before him. He agreed to an anime film adaptation of the series on the grounds that he retained creative control of the project — this insistence was based on his experiences working on "Harmagedon". The Akira Committee was the name given to a partnership of several major Japanese entertainment companies brought together to realize production of an "Akira" film. The group's assembly was necessitated by the unconventionally high budget of around ¥1,100,000,000, intended to achieve the desired epic standard equal to Otomo's over 2,000-page manga tale. The committee consisted of Kodansha, Mainichi Broadcasting System, Bandai, Hakuhodo, Toho, LaserDisc Corporation and Sumitomo Corporation who all forwarded money and promotion towards the film. The animation for the film was provided for by animation producers, Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now TMS Entertainment).


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: "Akira" had pre-scored dialogue (wherein the dialogue is recorded before the film starts production and the movements of the characters' lips are animated to match it; a first for an anime production and extremely unusual even today for an anime, although the voice actors did perform with the aid of animatics), and super-fluid motion as realized in the film's more than 160,000 animation cels. Computer-generated imagery was also used in the film (created by High-Tech Lab. Japan Inc. and the cooperative companies for computer graphics, Sumisho Electronic Systems, Inc. and Wavefront Technologies), primarily to animate the pattern indicator used by Doctor Ōnishi, but it was additionally used to plot the paths of falling objects, model parallax effects on backgrounds, and tweak lighting and lens flares. Unlike its live-action predecessors, "Akira" also had the budget to show a fully realized futuristic Tokyo.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: The film's production budget was (), with the combined production and advertising budget believed to be reaching (). This figure has caused some sources to claim it was the most expensive anime film at the time of release, however, this claim has been disputed by the film's producer Shigeru Watanabe.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: The teaser trailer for "Akira" was released in 1987. The film's main production was completed in 1987, with sound recording and mixing performed in early 1988. It was released in 1988, two years before the manga officially ended in 1990. Otomo is claimed to have filled 2,000 pages of notebooks, containing various ideas and character designs for the film, but the final storyboard consisted of a trimmed-down 738 pages. He had great difficulty completing the manga; Otomo has stated that the inspiration for its conclusion arose from a conversation that he had with Alejandro Jodorowsky in 1990. He later recalled that the film project had to begin with the writing of an ending that would bring suitable closure to major characters, storylines, and themes without being extraordinarily lengthy, so that he could know in reverse order which manga elements would make the cut into the anime and thus suitably resolve the manga's various elements into a lean, two-hour story. Otomo has called making the film before finishing the manga "the worst possible idea". Although he came to like having two similar but different versions of the same story, he still felt too much of the original was cut out of the film.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: Otomo is a big fan of "Tetsujin 28-go". As a result, his naming conventions match the characters featured in "Tetsujin 28-go": Kaneda shares his name with the protagonist of "Tetsujin 28-go"; Colonel Shikishima shares his name with Professor Shikishima of "Tetsujin 28-go", while Tetsuo is named after Shikishima's son Tetsuo Shikishima; "Akira"s Ryūsaku is named after Ryūsaku Murasame. In addition, Takashi has a "26" tattooed on his hand which closely resembles the font used in "Tetsujin 28-go". The namesake of the series, "Akira", is the 28th in a line of psychics that the government has developed, the same number as "Tetsujin-28".


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: One of the film's key animators was Makiko Futaki; she went on to become a lead animator for Studio Ghibli films such as "Kiki's Delivery Service", "Princess Mononoke" (1997) and "Howl’s Moving Castle" (2004), before passing away in 2016. Another key animator who worked on "Akira" was former animator Yoshiji Kigami; he animated several entire scenes in "Akira", such as the action scene in the sewers. He later joined Kyoto Animation.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: "Akira" was released by Toho on July 16, 1988. At the Japanese box office, it was the sixth highest-grossing Japanese film of the year, earning a (distributor rentals) of in 1988. This made it a moderate success at the Japanese box office. By 2000, the film had earned a Japanese distribution rental income of . The film's 4K remaster received a limited Japanese IMAX re-release in May 2020.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: Fledgling North American distribution company Streamline Pictures soon acquired an existing English-language rendition created by Electric Media Inc. for Kodansha, which saw limited release in North American theaters on December 25, 1989. Streamline became the film's distributor, with Carl Macek leading the distribution. Upon its initial limited US release, "Akira" grossed about in the United States.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In the United Kingdom, "Akira" was theatrically released by Island Visual Arts on January 25, 1991. It debuted at number three on the UK box office charts, grossing £439,345 in its opening weekend. It was fourth place the following week, was in the top ten for four weeks, and in the top 12 for seven weeks, grossing £878,695 by early March 1991. It was re-released on July 13, 2013, celebrating the 25th anniversary of the film, and again on September 21, 2016.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In Australia, "Akira" was theatrically released by Ronin Films. In Canada, the Streamline dub was released by Lionsgate (at the time known as C/FP Distribution), who would eventually become Manga Entertainment's owner through their media operating unit Starz Distribution, in 1990. In 2001, Pioneer released a new English dub which was produced by Animaze and ZRO Limit Productions and was presented in select theaters from March through December 2001. It was the 20th digital cinema release in North America ("" was the first in 1999).


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In Thailand, it was first released in 1990 under the Thai title "อากีรา คนไม่ใช่คน" (""Akira human nonhuman"") with a Thai dubbed by Nontanund Entertainment, and was brought back to release only at Major Cineplex cinemas by Dream Express (DEX) in 2020.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In 2020, Manga Entertainment announced they would be releasing Akira in 4K and IMAX in the UK. The re-release in October 2020 debuted at number three on the UK box office charts, grossing £201,124 in its opening weekend. The restored 4K version was shown in North American movie theaters on September 24, 2020, and for multiple days in select IMAX auditoriums and other cinemas worldwide.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: VHS releases included the initial Streamline Video offering (May 1991), which received later wider distribution by Orion Home Video (September 1993). In the United Kingdom, "Akira" was released on video by Island World Communications in 1991. By 1993, the film had sold 60,000 tapes in the United Kingdom, 100,000 tapes in Europe, and 100,000 tapes in the United States.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: The success of this release led to the creation of Manga Entertainment, who later took over the release. The original VHS release of "Akira" started up Manga Entertainment Australia and VHS distribution was handled by Ronin Films and PolyGram until 1994 when Siren Entertainment took over all of Manga Entertainment Australia's distribution including "Akira" under a special license from PolyGram, which handled Island's video distribution. "Akira" was re-released on video in 1994, and again on DVD in 2001 and distributed by Madman Entertainment and The AV Channel. Pioneer Entertainment issued a DVD and a VHS with a new English dub (the dub produced by Animaze) in 2001. This was one of the few releases from Pioneer to feature THX-certified audio and video. In 2002, Manga released a two-disc DVD featuring the new Pioneer/Animaze English dub followed in 2004 by another two-disc set containing the original Japanese as well as both the Streamline and Pioneer/Animaze dubs. This version did not contain standard English subtitles, only closed captioning subtitles. In 2005, Manga Entertainment and Boulevard UMD released "Akira" on UMD for the PlayStation Portable in the United Kingdom using the original Streamline dub.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: In 1992, video-distribution company the Criterion Collection, which specializes in licensing "important classic and contemporary films", released a LaserDisc edition of "Akira". The release is notable in that "Akira" is the first animated film to be released by Criterion and for more than twenty years their sole animated film to be released until their 2014 Blu-ray/DVD release of "Fantastic Mr. Fox" (2009).


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: A Blu-ray disc edition of the film was released on February 24, 2009, in North America by Bandai Entertainment under the Honneamise label. A Blu-ray edition of "Akira" was subsequently released in Australia by Madman Entertainment under exclusive license from Manga Entertainment UK and Kodansha. Madman has recently released a DVD/Blu-ray combo which license is separate from the standalone Blu-ray release because instead of the DVD version being the Manga Video UK version, it uses Madman/Manga's 2001 Special Edition DVD release which is licensed from Manga UK. The Blu-ray release is the first use the format's highest audio sampling rate (Dolby TrueHD 5.1 at 192 kHz for the Japanese audio track) and first to use the hypersonic effect (only available on the Japanese track and on high-end audio systems). Beyond Japanese with English subtitles, the Blu-ray also features the 2001 Pioneer/Animaze English dub (TrueHD 5.1 at 48 kHz). The DVD version was again released in 2012 by Bandai Entertainment. The film was licensed again by Funimation following Bandai Entertainment's closure shortly after its DVD release. The Funimation release includes both English dubs, Streamline in stereo and Pioneer in 5.1 surround (both TrueHD at 96 kHz). Funimation released a 25th anniversary Blu-ray/DVD combo and separate DVD release on November 12, 2013, which features the TrueHD Japanese audio and both English dubs (TrueHD at 96 kHz on Blu-ray). Best Buy released a limited edition exclusive Blu-ray Steelbook the same year.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: On April 24, 2020, an Ultra HD Blu-ray version was released in Japan by Bandai Namco Entertainment, featuring a 4K HDR remaster sourced from the original 35mm film print, as well as the 192 kHz audio transfer created for prior Blu-ray releases. The same remaster was released by FUNimation on December 22, 2020.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: , the film has earned over $80 million in worldwide home video sales. In the United States, it was the seventh best-selling DVD anime film of all time and grossed $2,086,180 in Blu-ray sales . In the United Kingdom, it was 2020's ninth best-selling foreign language film on physical home video formats and the year's second best-selling Japanese film (below the anime "Weathering with You").


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: The Streamline dub version first premiered on the Sci-Fi Channel in the 1990s during their week-long anime events and "Saturday Anime" block. The Pioneer dub of the film has aired twice on Adult Swim's Toonami programming block, once on December 7, 2013, with a rating of TV-MA-V, and again on December 20, 2014, both times with explicit language and nudity censored. It has aired numerous times on Australian FTA station SBS. In the United Kingdom, the film aired several times on BBC Two between 1994 and 1997.


title: Akira (1988 film)

text: On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes the film has an approval score of 91% based on 53 reviews, with an average rating of 7.90/10. The site's critical consensus reads, ""Akira" is strikingly bloody and violent, but its phenomenal animation and sheer kinetic energy helped set the standard for modern anime."