Esper

Esper or Espers may refer to:

Arts and entertainment

People

Other uses

See also

Akira (manga)

Akira (often stylized as AKIRA) is a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Katsuhiro Otomo. Set in a post-apocalyptic Neo-Tokyo, the work uses conventions of the cyberpunk genre to detail a saga of turmoil. Initially serialized in the pages of Young Magazine from 1982 until 1990, the work was collected into six volumes by its publisher Kodansha. The work was first published in an English-language version by the Marvel Comics imprint Epic Comics, one of the first manga works to be translated in its entirety. Otomo's art is considered outstanding, and a breakthrough for both Otomo and the manga form. Throughout the breadth of the work, Otomo explores themes of social isolation, corruption, and power.

An animated film adaptation (anime) was released in 1988 which shortened the plot considerably, but retained much of the main character and plot structures from the manga as well as many original scenes and settings. The manga takes place in a longer time frame than the film, and involves a much wider array of characters and subplots. Otomo's Akira anime marked his transition from a career primarily in manga, to one almost exclusively in anime.

Esper (fiction)

In fiction, an esper (stylized as ESPer) is an individual capable of telepathy and other similar paranormal abilities. The term was apparently coined in this sense by Alfred Bester in his 1950 short story "Oddy and Id" and is derived from the abbreviation ESP for extrasensory perception.

Esper in science fiction

In Alfred Bester's novel The Demolished Man, a significant portion of human population are espers, including many of the main characters.

In Ridley Scott's Blade Runner, there is a scene featuring a device called an "ESPER" that is used to manipulate photographs.

The comic book series Espers, by writer James D. Hudnall and other artists, debuted in 1986 and has been since published by Eclipse Comics, Marvel Epic and Image Comics. The Espers are a team of people with psychic powers who fight a global conspiracy.

Pow!, a British comic magazine, featured the Esper Commandos, a group of powerful psychics secretly working for the British government, in their 1971 annual.

In Simon R. Green's Deathstalker series, espers are a strain of humans with psychic powers.