Akira Explained: Manga vs Film, Neo-Tokyo and What Happens
The short version
Akira is Katsuhiro Otomo's cyberpunk epic about a biker gang leader, his friend who gets psychic powers, and the city that can't contain either. It exists as a six-volume manga (1982 to 1990) and a 124-minute film (1988), and the film compresses the story heavily.
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What Akira is#
It's the Japanese cyberpunk landmark. Otomo wrote and drew the manga for Kodansha's Young Magazine from December 1982 to June 1990, 120 chapters collected in six volumes. The film followed in 1988, directed by Otomo himself, while the manga was still running.
Both are set in 2019 in Neo-Tokyo, a city built on artificial islands in Tokyo Bay after the old Tokyo was destroyed by an explosion that started a world war. Neo-Tokyo is gripped by terrorism, gang violence and a government that has lost the plot. Otomo uses cyberpunk conventions to tell a story about power, isolation and corruption.
Manga vs film#
The film condenses the plot considerably, but keeps the main characters and adds scenes and motifs of its own. Otomo agreed to the adaptation on the condition that he kept creative control, and the film was finished in 1988, two years before the manga ended. That helps explain why the endings differ.
The two even disagree about when the old Tokyo fell. In the film the destruction is dated July 16, 1988. In the manga it's December 6, 1982. Our read: the film is the better first stop, and the manga is where you go afterward for the politics, the cult of Lady Miyako and the American fleet that never makes it into the movie.
The cast and the city#
Shotaro Kaneda leads the Capsules, a bosozoku biker gang. His childhood friend Tetsuo Shima crashes into an esper child named Takashi and wakes up with telekinetic powers. Kei is a resistance fighter. Colonel Shikishima is the military man who wants to stop Tetsuo before he destroys the city.
Akira is the name of the esper behind the original disaster, kept in cryogenic storage under the Olympic site. Neo-Tokyo is set to host the XXXII Olympic Games, which is why a certain stadium keeps turning up.
Spoilers What happens in the film
Tetsuo's powers grow until he kills people who get in his way. Kaneda joins Kei's resistance cell, and Shikishima stages a coup to deal with Tetsuo. Tetsuo digs up Akira's cryogenic storage under the Olympic stadium site and finds Akira dead, his remains sealed in jars. The military's orbital laser destroys Tetsuo's arm, and he mutates into a vast mass of flesh.
The espers revive Akira, who creates a singularity that pulls Tetsuo and Kaneda in. Kaneda sees the espers' memories and is returned. Neo-Tokyo is consumed, leaving a flooded crater. In the last scene Tetsuo introduces himself and triggers the creation of a universe. Kaneda, Kei and Kai ride off into the ruins.
Spoilers What happens in the manga
Akira is freed, and when Takashi is shot, a second psychic explosion ravages Neo-Tokyo. Sometime later the city is divided between Lady Miyako's followers and the Great Tokyo Empire, a cult led by Tetsuo with Akira as a figurehead. Americans arrive by aircraft carrier. Tetsuo's body keeps mutating.
In the end Akira cancels out Tetsuo's explosion with his own, and the espers, Akira and Tetsuo rise to a higher plane. When the UN sends peacekeepers, Kaneda declares the city's sovereignty as the Great Tokyo Empire.
Influence, and where to start#
Akira has been credited with shaping Japanese cyberpunk and with helping anime break into the West. Ghost in the Shell, Cowboy Bebop and Serial Experiments Lain are among the works it influenced, along with Hollywood films like The Matrix and Dark City. Cyberpunk 2077 is also on the list. Kaneda's motorcycle appears in Ready Player One.
Start with the film, which is 124 minutes and one of the best-looking things ever drawn. Read the manga afterward. For other anime in the genre, see Cyberpunk Anime, Ghost in the Shell and Cyberpunk: Edgerunners. For the genre itself, What Is Cyberpunk?.
Explore#
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