Akira (Full Movie)

AKIRA (アキラ?) is a 1988 Japanese animated action film written and directed by Katsuhiro Otomo based on his hit manga. The film is set in a futuristic and post-war city, Neo-Tokyo, in 2019. While most of the character designs and basic settings were adapted from the original 2182-page manga epic, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, pruning much of the last half of the manga. The film became a hugely popular cult film and is widely considered to be a landmark in Japanese animation and film.


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Plot

On July 16, 1988, Tokyo is destroyed by an apparent nuclear explosion, leading to the start of World War III. Thirty-one years after Tokyo's destruction, Neo-Tokyo, a new megalopolis built on an artificial island in Tokyo Bay, is gripped by political strife, anti-government terrorism, and gang violence. Shotaro Kaneda leads his bōsōzoku gang, the Capsules, which find themselves in a gang war with another group called the Clowns. As Kaneda and his best friend, Tetsuo, battle a pair of Clowns on a highway, the latter almost runs into a child with wizened features and is injured when his bike suddenly explodes. Tetsuo and the child, Takashi, are captured by armed soldiers. Kaneda and his gang are taken in for questioning, where Kaneda unsuccessfully flirts with a young woman named Kei, a member of the terrorist Resistance. Kaneda, Kei, and the remaining Capsules are later released.

Colonel Shikishima and Doctor Onishi, two members of a secret government project, discover that Tetsuo possesses mental frequencies similar to Akira, a little boy with essentially god-like mental abilities who destroyed Tokyo decades before. Because Kiyoko, another one of supernatural children called the Espers, has had visions of a similar destruction of Neo-Tokyo, the Colonel orders the Doctor to kill Tetsuo should his power escalate beyond their control. Tetsuo escapes, meeting up with his girlfriend, Kaori, and stealing Kaneda's motorcycle. As they attempt to leave the city, they are attacked by Clowns, whom Kaneda and the gang defeat upon their arrival. As Kaneda helps the couple recover, Tetsuo begins to suffer a painful headache. On the Doctor's orders, a government van arrives and takes Tetsuo away. That night, Kaneda sees Kei at the scene of a terrorist attack, helps her avoid arrest, and accompanies her to the Resistance headquarters. Kaneda offers to help after the terrorists unintentionally reveal their plan to infiltrate a high-security hospital to rescue Tetsuo.

That night, the Espers–Takashi, Kiyoko and Masaru–attempt to kill Tetsuo before he grows accustomed to his new powers. This attempt on his life, however, only makes Tetsuo more powerful. He goes on a violent rampage through the hospital to the Espers' hospital room, where he learns that Akira is now in cryogenic storage below Neo-Tokyo's new Olympic Stadium. The Colonel, Kei, and Kaneda, arrive too late at the Espers' room, learning that Tetsuo is heading for the Stadium to meet Akira in the hopes he can give Tetsuo more information about his powers. Kei and Kaneda are detained, but Kiyoko–speaking through Kei as a medium–explains that Tetsuo must be stopped and helps them escape. Meanwhile, Tetsuo encounters Yamagata, Kaneda's right-hand man, and kills him. Another capsule named Kai is also there to witness Yamagata's death but is spared. Tetsuo travels to the Stadium, brutally dispatching soldiers who attack him. Arriving at the Stadium, Tetsuo battles and defeats Kei, who is voluntarily being used by the Espers.

Tetsuo finally unearths Akira's cryogenic chamber, only to discover Akira's organs, stored inside glass jars. The Colonel–who by now has taken over Neo-Tokyo and declared martial law–tells Tetsuo that Akira's remains had been meticulously analyzed after Tokyo's destruction and that he's been dead the entire time. Kaneda, having learned of Yamagata's death from Kai, uses Tetsuo's moment of confusion to fire on him with a laser rifle, but Tetsuo is able to block almost all the attacks but the initial one which manages to cut his arm badly. While Tetsuo is distracted by Kaneda, the Colonel tries to destroy Tetsuo using an orbital laser weapon but manages only to sever his right arm. Tetsuo takes off into orbit and destroys the weapon, then spends the night recovering at the Stadium, psychically forging himself a new arm from inorganic material while studying Akira's organs. His girlfriend Kaori arrives and tries to calm him down as his powers create immense physical pain.

The Colonel pleads with Tetsuo to return to the lab, but Tetsuo attacks the Colonel. When the Colonel fires back, with Kaneda (protected by the Espers) joining the fight, Tetsuo is unable to keep control any longer, and his body begins to transform into a gigantic cyborg-like monster that crushes and kills Kaori. The Espers, watching from afar, realize the only way to stop Tetsuo is to call forth Akira, his life force contained in the body parts in the glass jars. Akira's manifestation causes another explosion, and the Espers teleport the Colonel to safety. In spite of Kiyoko and Masaru's insistence that trying to save Kaneda alone would be futile, Takashi jumps into the ever-expanding psychic field. Kiyoko and Masaru agree to join Takashi, aware they likely will not be able to return, and help save Kaneda. Kaneda experiences Tetsuo's and the Espers' memories, including how much Tetsuo trusted Kaneda as a friend and how the children obtained their powers.

The Espers remove Kaneda from the field and tell him that Akira will be taking Tetsuo "away" and to find somewhere safe to ride out the explosion. The explosion engulfs much of Neo-Tokyo, and when it shrinks and, finally, vanishes, leaves a void that is quickly filled by the nearby ocean. Doctor Onishi is caught in the implosion this causes, crushing his van and killing him. Kaneda wakes up to find that Kei and Kai are safe, and they drive away from the ruined stadium into the city. The Colonel walks out of the tunnel The Espers teleported him to and watches the sun rising over the destroyed city. The credits begin with a Big Bang with Tetsuo saying, "I am Tetsuo."