Follow TV Tropes

Following

Manga / AKIRA

Go To

https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/akira_poster.png
Neo-Tokyo is about to E•X•P•L•O•D•E

"Heh, heh... what's happened to me? I must be dreaming. I feel like I can take out the world."
Tetsuo Shima

Akira (sometimes spelled AKIRA to differentiate between the work and the title character) is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi cyberpunk manga serialized in Weekly Young Magazine from December 1982 to June 1990. The most recognizable of Katsuhiro Otomo's works, it maintains a sizable influence on pop culture around the world, largely owing to its far better-known 1988 film adaptation by TMS Entertainment.

At 2:17 P.M. on December 6, 1982 (July 16, 1988 in the film)note , a mysterious black-domed explosion destroys Tokyo and sets off World War III. 38 years later (31 in the film), the rebuilt city — now known as "Neo-Tokyo" — has fallen into decay, corruption, and crime.

During a night of civil unrest, as people take to the streets to protest the government, a turf war between two biker gangs rages, only to be halted when a hideously aged escapee from the government is nearly run over by one of the gangsters, using mysterious powers to defend himself and severely injuring the gangster — a young, nervous kid named Tetsuo from the Capsule gang. Moments later, the escapee is taken back into custody by the army; however, they also decide to take Tetsuo with them.

He then becomes the newest test subject for the "Akira Project", an initiative to imbue capable subjects with telekinetic powers. But when Tetsuo's powers awaken, the combination of an inferiority complex harbored since childhood and power beyond his wildest dreams wastes no time in driving him insane. He escapes the lab and goes on a super-powered rampage through Neo-Tokyo, and it falls to a handful of people, including Capsule leader and Tetsuo's friend Kaneda, to put a stop to the destruction.

As mentioned before, the manga received an anime movie adaptation in 1988, directed and co-written by Otomo himself. It's widely different outside the above-mentioned premisenote , retooling certain areas of the manga into a thoroughly Mind Screw plot. It's primarily known for its unusually lavish animation (even by modern standards) and its groundbreaking soundtrack, as well as its runtime being on the heftier end for an animated filmnote . The film proved invaluable in disproving the Animation Age Ghetto, at least for anime in the U.S., and is still considered a landmark production in animation, action and science fiction both at home and abroad. It has been dubbed twice into English, first in 1989 by Kodansha and distributed by Streamline Pictures (which led to a misconception that Streamline produced it themselves) and then in 2001 by Animaze via Pioneer (later known as Geneon). A 4K remaster of the movie was released in 2020.

Being over 2000 pages in six hefty volumes, the story the original manga tells is much longer than the already-lengthy film, featuring even more violence and a greater focus on politics. Because the film was in development and saw its release while the manga was still running does show a bit, critical plot developments in the film often became Late Arrival Spoilers in the manga, but it also led to some characters and concepts that only saw a brief appearance in the film getting explored in greater depth by the manga. The series is notable for being the very first comic book series to utilize entirely computer coloring, when it was first released in the US by Marvel's Epic Comics in the late 80s/early 90s. Later English editions from Dark Horse and Kodansha Comics USA restore the original black-and-white artwork, but the pages remain flipped from left-to-right. For the 35th anniversary of the manga, Kodansha released a special box set under Kodansha USA with a 7th volume titled AKIRA Club, an artbook that compiles all of the chapter page art alongside concept art with the original format of right-to-left reading and the original sound effects in Japanese.

An Americanized Live-Action Adaptation/Foreign Remake had been proposed in 2002, but it spent a long time in Development Hell with little progress made, with a lot of fans furious that the movie was even considered to be set in America. The project seemed to be officially cancelled in 2014 until it was announced the next year that Marco Ramirez (who has written for Daredevil (2015), Sons of Anarchy, Da Vinci's Demons, and Orange Is the New Black) was signed on to write a screenplay for a potential trilogy of films based on the manga. In 2019, Taika Waititi was signed on to direct, and had stated prior that he wanted to retain the original setting and hire a cast primarily made up of actors of Asian (preferably Japanese) descent. A synopsis also confirmed that the movie will take place in Neo-Tokyo. Unfortunately, it was put into limbo yet again when Waititi left production to work on Thor: Love and Thunder instead, resulting in the film losing its May 2021 release date. However, Warner Bros. are still reportedly interested in keeping Waititi involved, and Waititi has stated that he intends to resume work on the film again after completing his upcoming Star Wars film.

Meanwhile, the Akira Project is a crowd-sourced live-action fan trailer which does justice to the source material. See the result here.

Finally, in July 2019, Otomo himself announced during Anime Expo that a new anime project is in development by Sunrise, with the intention of adapting the entire manga's storyline.

Not to be mistaken with Akira Ishida, Akira Kamiya, Akira Toriyama, Akira Kurosawa, Akira Ifukube (the guy who composed the Godzilla theme) or Akira Yamaoka (who composed most of the Silent Hill games). Or Arika, for that matter.

Oh, and it's pronounced "AH-kee-rah", not "uh-KAI-ruh" or "uh-KEE-ruh."


Tropes

    open/close all folders 

    General 
  • Absurdly-Spacious Sewer: Neo-Tokyo's sewers are spacious enough to patrol them with flying craft.
  • Action Girl: Many of the female cast, most notably Kei who is a resistance fighter and a psychic medium who can let other psychics possess her and fight through her.
  • After the End: We start with "old" Tokyo already nuked, then Neo-Tokyo gets nuked again but the story continues anyway.
  • Alternate Continuity: Though they have similar beginnings and underlying themes, the movie and the manga diverge rather early and become two different stories. Character origins, deaths, and sometimes personalities are different. And while the endings look the same, the manga implies Tetsuo is gone for good, having been consumed by Akira, while the movie leaves it open to interpretation.
  • Animal Motifs: Mr. Nezu (Japanese for "rat"), a small, greedy, cowardly man with big teeth. Miyako alternatively calls him a "mouse" in the manga.
  • Apocalypse Wow: First the prologue that depicts the destruction of "old" Tokyo. After that, the anime and manga diverge.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: It seems that every other character in Akira is a seasoned criminal on their own; the tamest example would be Kei, who has committed murder, trespassing, various degrees of assault and the hijacking of a moped.
  • Artificial Limbs: Tetsuo's right arm, molded into a highly-sophisticated looking artificial limb of complex circuit boards, nerves, and gears, all made from random junk. Impressive. In the manga, his arm eventually grows back.
  • Artistic License – Politics: The geopolitics of the world are really glossed over. It's never explained WHY Tokyo blowing up started a world war or why it didn't go nuclear.
  • Asimov's Three Kinds of Science Fiction: Its category is Adventure by virtue of being fairly character-centric and more about stopping a super-powered kid with a broken psyche and a penchant for mass destruction. How does the kid get the ability to ravage New Tokyo? He's a test subject of the eponymous project, which aims at granting Psychic Powers to humans through Goal-Oriented Evolution.
  • Big Guy Fatality Syndrome: In both versions, Yamagata challenges Tetsuo, only to get brutally killed.
  • Body Horror: Tetsuo's horrific mutation scene, which turns him into a disgusting mockery of the human body - expanding his arms, limbs, musculature, and organs to gigantic levels, constantly shifting and re-shifting until he's bursting at the seams, until he resembles a cross between a cancer patient, a car crash victim, a vivisection exhibition, an Eldritch Abomination and an amoeba.
  • Bomb-Throwing Anarchists: The government resistance group seems largely concerned with attacking government installations for some reason.
  • Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Tetsuo - who constantly angsts over the fact he's not cool, criminal, and cocky like Kaneda and the rest of his gang - and Kaori, a shy, quiet girl who stays by his side, even after he turns abusive from his burgeoning powers and growing insanity.
  • Came Back Wrong: In the manga, Tetsuo attempted to resurrect Kaori after she was shot dead. It technically does work, but she comes back blind, deaf and freezing cold. After seeing the agony she was in, he let her die again.
  • Captain Ersatz: Tetsuo gets a nice ton of shout-outs in most media. For example, Gaara and K9999 (so much so that K9999 was substituted out of continuity.)
  • Central Theme: The anger and frustration of youth, which powers both Kaneda's (eventually) heroic journey, Tetsuo's backlash at the world and powering his insane desire to rule it, and the background riots.
  • Comic-Book Time:
    • The Japanese edition of the manga had the destruction of Tokyo occurred on December 6th, 1982, which happened to be the date that Akira made its debut on Young Magazine. The English editions, which began publication in 1989, moved it to 1992. The movie has it occur on July 16th, 1988, the day that the movie had its Japanese theatrical debut.
    • Subverted quite by accident in the throwaway element of the Olympics that was meant to be happening in the stadium that has been repurposed by the military... The (Neo-)Tokyo 2020 Summer Olympic Games.
  • Coming of Age Story: Both the manga and anime, especially the manga. The main characters go through world-catastrophic events that forces them through Character Development.
  • Cool Bike: Essentially every member of the biker gangs have cool bikes but special mention has to go to Kaneda's souped-up red bike that has glowing wheels. It's suggested he stole it. It's often displayed on merchandise, and the most iconic image that isn't Tetsuo's mutation scene.
  • Corrupt Politician: The Japanese government in the movie is full of them. A lot of noise is made over the fact that the current seemingly constant civil unrest is due to the previous government messing around with taxes, causing widespread poverty and economic hardship. However, when we see a meeting of the Japanese government, they're all more concerned with yelling at one another and passing blame than attempting to fix anything.
  • Crapsack World: The original Tokyo is a nuclear wasteland while the new one has roaming biker gangs, a corrupt near-fascist government, food riots, a crumbling infrastructure where apathetic teachers teach apathetic kids, and a rebellion that isn't all that far removed from the government in terms of morality. That's just the initial setting. It gets worse. In the movie, Nezu compares the city to an "overripe fruit" while the Colonel calls it "a garbage heap made up of a bunch of hedonistic fools."
  • Creepy Child:
    • Kiyoko, Takashi and Masaru come off as this due to being Wise Beyond Their Years and how wizened they look compared to their childlike bodies.
    • Also, to some degree, Lady Miyako and her underlings Sakaki, Mozu and Miki. In the manga, Akira himself.
  • Cyberpunk: A Trope Codifier.
  • Deadly Upgrade: Tetsuo's psychic powers.
  • Delivery Guy Infiltration: The underground activists infiltrate the military research compound where Tetsuo is being held by pretending to come for cable repair service.
  • Did You Just Flip Off Cthulhu?: Kaneda shows no fear confronting a super-powered Tetsuo, even barking orders at him. Of course, from his point-of-view it's just his own childhood friend Tetsuo.
  • Drama Panes: The Colonel and Doctor Onishi are staring out the windows of the elevator they're in, looking over Neo-Tokyo. The Colonel laments the rampant hedonistic attitude of the civilian populace. Onishi wonders why he bothers, then, to protect them. The Colonel replies that it is his duty, as a soldier, and that Onishi wouldn't understand.
  • Dramatic Chase Opening: The story starts with Kaneda's gang chasing the Clown Gang through Neo-Tokyo.
  • Dreaming of Things to Come: Kiyoko and Tetsuo both have portentious dreams about the future.
  • Eldritch Transformation: Once Tetsuo's powers run out of control and beyond his own abilities, he mutates into a hideous, deformed, ever-expanding blob of flesh that causes him insane pain and turns him into nothing more than an amoeba who can only consume. In this state, he can't even deflect weaponry like he used to.
  • Energy Weapon: The SOL and Kaneda's laser cannon. The SOL is more Wave-Motion Gun, though.
  • Flashback: Tetsuo gets to experience ones from his own memory. Kaneda sees the Espers' points of view during the endings; this is the only real way we get their Backstory.
  • For Science!: The reason why the government started experimenting with psychic powers in the first place. It's also implied there was a heavy military component to it.
  • Friendly Target: After Tetsuo fully gives in to his delusions of power and escapes custody, he targets his old gang for kicks and as vengeance for what he sees as being treated as the runt of the pack. His first victim is Yamagata, and whatever happened to him was not pleasant.
  • The Glomp: Kaneda gets a big ol' glomp from Kaisuke when the latter sees that he's alive.
  • Goal-Oriented Evolution: The plot in a nutshell is pretty much mocking the idea: the government project is attempting to "accelerate evolution" I.E. produce humans with Psychic Powers. They have succeeded at this, but fail in giving those humans the Required Secondary Powers to keep them from ravaging their bodies or driving them insane. Natural evolution doesn't do dumb shit like that; that's why we don't have bats with super-hearing but without brains that can decipher sonar, or eagles with super-vision but no flash-dampening to prevent the light from ruining their eyes. As Kei puts it, it's as if they were trying to make amoebas with human strength, stamina and dexterity...
    Kei (anime): But amoebas don't build motorcycles or atomic bombs! They just eat up whatever gets in their way.
  • Government Conspiracy: The government engineers children with near-godlike psychic powers.
  • Grey-and-Gray Morality: Most characters are at least a little sympathetic, even though they are all violent gang members, psychotic monsters, or militants.
  • Harmful to Minors: The Espers and Akira were subjected to experimentation at the hands of the government that gave them Psychic Powers - possibly For Science!, possibly for Goal-Oriented Evolution, possibly for weapons, or all three. The manga stated that the experiments were so horrific that many of the child test subjects either died or survived with severe physical and/or mental handicaps. During the Espers' flashback in the anime, the Espers were shown strapped down to operating tables and hooked up to machines before the procedures started, with Kiyoko fearfully struggling against a doctor putting a breathing mask on her.
  • Informed Attractiveness: Kei. Kaneda comments how attractive she is just by seeing her picture and is so influenced by her looks he manages to weasel her out of the police station, but for the most part she doesn't really look that different from any other female.
  • Innocent Awkward Question: The military declares martial law in Neo-Tokyo just before the second awakening of the title character levels most of the city and things get really ugly. In a cut away from the main action of the comic, an anonymous family wakes up to see tanks rolling down their neighborhood street. At breakfast, one of the children asks his father to define "coup d'etat".
  • Japanese Delinquents: The biker gangs.
  • Kill Sat: SOL and Floyd. SOL in particular bears the distinction of being the first anime Kill Sat that many western anime watchers have seen (but is not the first anime Kill Sat period — that honor belongs to the one in Cat's Eye).
  • Kill the Cutie: Poor, poor Takashi and Kaori...
  • La Résistance: Kei and Ryu's rebellion.
  • Live-Action Adaptation: According to Wikipedia, in the early 1990s, Kodansha Ltd. was in negotiation with Sony Pictures to produce a live-action remake of the film. Talk circulated again a decade later, but the project has yet to materialize. Rumors circulated that the project was canceled in both instances when the projected budget for the film was upwards of $300 million. Talks began again as Warner Bros. signed on to produce the movie with Stephen Norrington (writer) and Jon Peters (producer). Akira was to be developed into two live action films; the first was to be scheduled for a summer 2009 release. Warner Brothers and Appian Way planned to adapt the two movies from the manga, with each one covering three volumes. Ruairi Robinson signed on as director, Gary Whitta wrote the script and Andrew Lazar, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Jennifer Davisson were to produce the film. As recently as 2010, Lazar was still talking about getting the film out of Development Hell—but as of January 2012 the film project was cancelled.
  • Manipulative Bastard: Nezu. This is more apparent in the manga, where he betrays both Kaneda and Co., Lady Miyako, and Ryu in order to get Akira. His plans backfire quite spectacularly in both versions, with the manga version having him unsuccessfully trying to kill Akira so no-one else can use him.
  • Meaningful Name: Nezu. It means "rat".
  • Mind over Matter: The source of Tetsuo and Akira's powers.
  • Motifs:
    • The image of a capsule is repeated throughout the story. It appears on the logo on Kaneda's jacket, the name of the gang, the drugs the gang members take, the Psycho Serum Tetsuo depends on, and, in the movie, the containers that store the remains of Akira.
    • The double helix shows up several times in the manga, such as when Akira forms a twisted ladder out of pieces of rubble.
  • New Neo City: Neo-Tokyo.
  • Nightmarish Nursery: The Espers are housed in a gigantic nursery complete with elaborate fairy-tale scenery, for though all three of them are in their forties by now, they never truly grew up thanks to the experiments performed on them. In both the manga and the film, the complex has an unearthly, dreamlike atmosphere to it - one that quickly turns downright menacing when a frenzied Tetsuo invades while in search of answers and trashes the place.
  • No Can Opener: Two soldiers eat food out of a can stash an old woman had. The old lady starved to death because she was afraid someone would steal the stash, so she wouldn't dare ask anyone for a can opener.
  • No New Fashions in the Future: It's 2019/2030, but the fashions of most people still look like they did in The '80s; the government agents with 70's-style hair (in the first volume) and girls with legwarmers come to mind in particular. Not so bad with the business suits and military outfits, as those have been relatively unchanged, as they have been for a much larger timeframe than the gap between when Akira was made and when it takes place.
  • Nostalgia Heaven: The old playground as it appears in Tetsuo's mind.
  • The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Tetsuo and Kaneda develop this attitude toward each other.
  • Parental Abandonment: Tetsuo; no doubt also Kaneda and the others.
  • The Patient Has Left the Building: Tetsuo runs away from the secret hospital with gauze still wrapped around his head.
  • Pet the Dog: The only person Tetsuo shows any kindness and tenderness to is Kaori and he is greatly saddened by her death.
  • Power Glows: Anything/anyone that makes things blow up tends to glow just before it happens.
  • The Power of Friendship: In the manga the Espers use it decisively during the final battle against Tetsuo by appealing to their reawakened friend, Akira, to use his power once more to create a new universe to contain Tetsuo's expanding power. Later, the children tell Kaneda that one of the perks of being a psychic is gaining a new circle of friends who understand each other perfectly, without words. They even name their former antagonist Tetsuo as one of their friends, leading one to think that this new universe will be a place of harmony.
  • Pstandard Psychic Pstance: The three children more than Tetsuo or Akira.
  • Psychic Powers: Akira, Tetsuo, and the Espers Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru. Kei turns out to be a medium capable of channeling the powers of other psychics through her (younger and healthier) body.
  • Really 700 Years Old: Takashi, Kiyoko, and Masaru. Closer to Never Grew Up, but with shades (wrinkles?) of this.
  • Reality Warper: Akira. Tetsuo also became one in the end.
  • Real Life Mirrors the Plot: Katsuhiro Otomo chose 2019 as a sufficiently distant time in the future, even using that Neo-Tokyo was hosting the Olympics in the following year... completely failing to expect that Tokyo WOULD get the Olympics in 2020 FOR REAL.
    • The movie and manga become a borderline Nightmare Fuel example of this in hindsight, as in the original story, Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics, an apocalyptic event breaks out months before the Olympics and the WHO advises Japan to postpone the Olympics due to a pandemic risk. Fast-forward to February 2020 in real life: Tokyo is hosting the 2020 Olympics, the much-dreaded, deadly coronavirus broke out months before the Olympics and the WHO is advising Japan to postpone the Olympics due to a pandemic risk.
  • Required Secondary Powers: Subverted. Almost all of the children given psychic powers suffered detrimental, and most often lethal, side effects due to their bodies being unable to handle their powers.
  • Say My Name: "KANEDAAAAA!" "TETSUOOOO!"
  • Scenery Gorn: Post-apocalyptic hellscapes are rarely given such attention.
  • Scenery Porn: While it's mostly Scenery Gorn, the background scenery are absolutely breathtaking. It helped that Otomo was once studied architecture.
  • Schrödinger's Cast: Takashi lives in the movie, but is shot to death in the manga. Meanwhile, Akira is alive in the manga but is dead in the movie (though he briefly gets better).
  • Science Is Bad: If it weren't for government scientists deciding to give people psychic powers, the story would not have happened.
  • Sealed Evil in a Can: The military's perception of Akira. Fairly accurate.
  • Seers: Kiyoko has precognitive abilities.
  • See No Evil, Hear No Evil: A military helicopter comes out of nowhere in an early scene and lands in the middle of the road, taking up most of the scene. The helicopter sound effect doesn't start playing until after it has been onscreen for a second or two.
  • Shout-Out: Shoutarou Kaneda's full name is the same as the Kid Hero from Gigantor. Gigantor itself was a secret military weapon, just like Akira and they were both number 28. In fact, Otomo himself stated that Akira was essentially a retelling of Gigantor.
  • Sleepy Head: Kiyoko is so physically weak that she's always confined to her bed. It's implied that the drugs the Espers have to take to limit their power, combined with the government experimenting on them, made her that way.
  • Smug Snake: Nezu and Tetsuo's Aide. It didn't end well for either of them.
  • Special Person, Normal Name: Akira is a very common given name in Japan.
  • Sphere of Destruction: The black dome that wipes out Tokyo and Neo-Tokyo. Both times, it was caused by Akira. Teleporting.
  • Strapped to an Operating Table: All of the psychics get this treatment during their experimentations.
  • Super Serum: The military uses drugs to kickstart the development of psychic powers, but they ultimately prevent the user from reaching their full potential (partly as a safety measure).
  • Technology Porn: More-so in the manga than the film, but slick technology plays a pretty big part of both stories.
  • Teens Are Monsters: Teens are depicted as volatile and dangerous, if not evil. Characters include rioting student protesters, drug-addled thugs, and terrorists. Zig-zagged in the manga in that the restlessness and energy that makes the kids so destructive also prepares them to create a new society out of the ashes of Neo-Tokyo.
  • Terrorists Without a Cause: Kei and Ryu's organization opposes the government but that's all we're told. Just why they're opposed is never revealed. It's not impossible to think it's a good reason when it's revealed all of the psychics were created through experimentation, to be used as weapons. Who knows just what else the Neo-Tokyo government might have been doing?
  • The Tokyo Fireball: Several times in the form of black domes.
    "Tetsuo's our friend. If anyone gets to kill him, it should be us!"
  • Tokyo Is the Center of the Universe: There is the destruction of Tokyo within the first few seconds of the prologue. Neo-Tokyo is constructed adjacent to the God-sized crater. By the end of the movie, Neo-Tokyo is also toast. They can't seem to catch a break.
  • Tomboy: Kei.
  • Tortured Monster: Tetsuo suffers terribly during his mutation.
  • Tron Lines: From the bikes.
  • 20 Minutes into the Future: It is set roughly in the early twenty-first century (it was made in 1988).
  • Unscrupulous Hero: Compared to the Clowns, the Capsules are practically saints. They just don't care how many rules they have to break to keep their more vicious, indiscriminately destructive rivals at bay.
  • Used Future: The decaying, rundown Neo-Tokyo.
  • Vice City: Neo-Tokyo is filled with crime and corruption.
  • Your Head A-Splode: Generally, a lot of people.
  • Zeerust: Chunky computers without touch screens are still in use in 2019. Partially justified by technology being held back by The Tokyo Fireball and subsequent conflicts. Also, no digital cameras. Ryu at one point gives Nezu a roll of film to develop.

     1988 Movie Only 
  • 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: The brainwave pattern indicator that Doctor Ōnishi uses to measure Tetsuo's abilities. It especially sticks out since it's the only thing in the entire film to use CG; the rest is regular cel animation with only minor computer enhancement at most.
  • Adaptational Alternate Ending: The original manga has Tetsuo defeated by Akira and merely killed when Akira's psychic explosion intentionally cancels out his own and absorbs Tetsuo, and Akira is still alive. In the movie adaptation, Akira is dead to begin with, and instead of killing Tetsuo when he returns in corporeal form, he seals him in another dimension where it's implied he becomes the God of it.
  • Adaptation Distillation: A two-hour film of a 2,000-page manga. The film follows the manga fairly closely up until Tetsuo gets to Akira, then jumps right over the post-apocalyptic plot arc that took up half the manga and goes straight into Testuo losing control of his power in the finale.
  • Adaptational Early Appearance:
    • In the manga, Kaori doesn't show up until halfway into the series. In the movie, however, she's there from the beginning.
    • Yamagata's death. In the manga, he gets killed at the end of the first volume. In the film, he doesn't die until more than halfway into the story.
  • Adaptational Heroism:
    • Colonel Shikishima treats the Esper children more nicely and comes across as the Only Sane Man in the government as well as the much better choice as leader of Tokyo when compared to the other guys in the same boat.
    • While Kaneda is still no perfect hero, some of his nastier traits he displayed in the manga were suspiciously cut out in the anime.
    • While Tetsuo isn't a hero by any definition in the movie either, he's significantly more sympathetic and takes much longer to take a flying leap off the slippery slope than he did in the manga.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Downplayed with Kei. In the movie, she is frozen with visible shock when she killed one of the cops chasing after her and Kaneda after a terrorist attack. In the manga, however, she isn't distraught by her kill in the least.
  • Air-Vent Passageway: Kaneda tries to escape custody through the ventilation duct. He doesn't get far though.
  • Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence: Implied to what happened to Akira, Tetsuo, and the Espers.
  • Battle Aura: Tetsuo sports a red one during his battles.
  • Berserk Button: "Grrr! Don't ever call me old man, you little punk! You listen here, kid; I'm only 25 years old, I'm not even married yet! So watch your mouth, get out of here!"
  • Blown Across the Room: Happens twice near the end when the Colonel shoots Tetsuo with a handgun and Kaneda shoots him with a laser rifle (which both have no impact at all).
  • Brick Joke: While Kaneda and his gang are at the police station, a fanatical member of La Résistance tries to bomb the place with a grenade. The grenade fizzles, and the resistance member gets beat up by police. After Kaneda leaves the station with Kei, the grenade goes off.
  • Bullet Dodges You: Tetsuo's power renders bullets useless.
  • Colorful Contrails: The Capsules' bikes have trailing red and yellow taillights as they speed across the city.
  • Combining Mecha: The psychic kids' giant killer toys are actually constructed from lots of normal-sized toys.
  • Complaining About Shows You Don't Watch: The Haruki-ya bartender accuses Yamagata of this, telling him to actually try some of his drinks before criticizing them as brutally as he does.
  • Cutting Back to Reality:
    • Tetsuo begins to hallucinate not long after escaping from the lab for the first time: first, he sees the ground beneath him beginning to crack open, sending him tumbling into the chasm below - only for a cut to reveal that the ground is still intact and he was just falling forward onto his hands and knees. Then Tetsuo's guts appear to spill out of his torso, much to his horror; another cut reveals that he's completely unharmed and frantically trying to scoop up internal organs that exist only in his mind.
    • During Tetsuo's second stay at the lab he is suddenly attacked by a trio of giant toys, and his attempts to escape his room result in the walls turning to Lego and the floor turning to milk under his feet. With nowhere to run to, he backs up, trips over his fallen glass of water - and when he hits the ground in the next cut, the room is suddenly back to normal. Turns out that the bizarre environment was just a psychic illusion created by Kiyoko, Takashi and Masaru.
  • Dead All Along: Tetsuo digs up Akira's cryogenic capsule only to find out that he's nothing but preserved organs. He doesn't take it well.
  • Death by Adaptation: In the manga, Akira is discovered to be alive beneath the Olympic Stadium and plays a pivotal role in the climax of Volume 3; he would also be a major character in the chapters written after the film's release. In the film, however, Akira was killed and dissected long ago, with Tetsuo instead finding his preserved organs under the stadium. It's Subverted, however, by the reveal that Akira didn't so much "die" as Ascend to a Higher Plane of Existence while leaving his lifeless body behind, and at the climax the other psychic children summon him back to take Tetsuo (and themselves) away.
  • Delayed Explosion: The dud grenade Brick Joke.
  • Demoted to Extra
    • Lady Miyako, a big key player in the fight against Tetsuo in the manga, gets roughly ten seconds of screen time in which she praises Tetsuo, as she believes he's the new Akira. And then she's quickly killed when Tetsuo takes out the bridge she's standing on.
    • The Joker gets this as well. Though he appears in one of the film's most memorable scenes battling Kaneda and his gang, that's the only scene he appears in, whereas in the manga he becomes a fairly major character, being forced to deal with Tetsuo's antics when the latter usurps control of the Clown gang so he can get drugs and towards the end of the series becomes a valuable ally of the heroes.
  • Department of Redundancy Department: From the Animaze dub: "Those are army helicopters! It's the army!"
  • Dies Wide Open: Nezu dies this way from a crushing heart attack. Ryu, too, after spending his last moments watching the people rioting throughout the city.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: A giant teddy bear with a snake arm that gushes milk? That can't mean anything.
  • Due to the Dead: Kaneda ritually crashes his friend Yamagata's bike, sending it to the afterlife after him, immediately after learning of his death at the hands of Tetsuo, in a possible Shout-Out to Stunts.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: Kaori shows up along with the girls dating the rest of Kaneda's Capsule gang in this version; she and Tetsuo are already together.
  • Foreshadowing: If you look carefully during the scene where Tetsuo first begins to hallucinate you can see a series of events that happen later in the movie like Tetsuo's rampage on the city, his fight with Kaneda, Tetsuo's mutation, Kaori's death, and his flashbacks to when he first met Kaneda.
  • Gainax Ending: After two fairly straightforward acts of action and exposition, the finale of the film is surreal.
  • Genre Mashup: The film's soundtrack combines ancient Buddhist chants and instrumentals, Indonesian gamelan percussion, futuristic techno, an Ominous Pipe Organ and, at the end, Ominous Latin Chanting.
  • Genre Shift: While the manga focused mainly on action and political intrigue, the movie is far more focused on psychological horror.
  • Glass-Shattering Sound: The creepy child early on, in response to the death of his companion.
  • A God Am I: Akira and Tetsuo to some degree; at the end, possibly A Universe Am I.
  • Hair-Raising Hare: A giant killer plush rabbit attacks Tetsuo while he's in the hospital. It's actually Kiyoko in disguise trying to kill Tetsuo to avert a prophecy foretelling Neo-Tokyo's destruction.
  • Headache of Doom: Not long after escaping from the hospital, Tetsuo begins suffering from crippling headaches so severe that he begins hallucinating, imagining the ground cracking open under his feet and his internal organs spilling out in front of him. Eventually, government forces recapture him and take him back to the hospital, where he spends the next few hours semi-conscious and grappling with the pain in his head. It's actually a direct symptom of his psychic powers being activated. By itself, this isn't a bad thing... up until Tetsuo figures out how to use them.
  • Ironic Nursery Tune: The jingling toy bells and squeaking as the killer toys attack.
  • Jaw Drop: Kaneda and the Colonel each start sporting noticeable, epically drawn-out ones upon witnessing Tetsuo's horrific mutation.
  • Lip Lock: The film's Mouth Flaps are unusually well animated for a Japanese cartoon, which has caused translators no shortage of grief.
  • Lovecraftian Superpower: Tetsuo manifests this trope in the Olympic Stadium when Colonel Shikishima tries to neutralize him; the flesh around the stub where Tetsuo's arm was fried off by the orbital laser shoots out in a massive bloody tentacle that attacks the Colonel. But then, later in the scene, Tetsuo gets shot by Kaneda's laser weapon. You see, Tetsuo is in so much pain that this trope suddenly combines with Superpower Meltdown. Naturally, Tetsuo's Eldritch Transformation is just as bad as you can imagine it.
  • The Men in Black: Practically the quintessential definition of this trope appears briefly to intimidate the Capsules when Tetsuo is being taken away a second time. Black suit, black tie, white shirt, black opaque glasses, mute, and seemingly 7 feet tall. Kaneda promptly snarks that the guy must've come from a funeral.
  • Mood Whiplash:
    • The juxtaposition of the happy cartoon dogs with the ravenous police dogs that get shot very messily in short order.
    • For a film with so much hard violence and horror, Kaneda has a surprising number of slapstick comedy bits. That is also common in the manga.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the end, the psychic kids summon Akira to take out Tetsuo, in the process destroying Neo-Tokyo. In the manga, Neo-Tokyo had already been destroyed by Akira at this point.
  • Non-Serial Movie: A sequel was never made even though the manga continued long after the events of the anime.
  • Obsessive-Compulsive Barkeeping: When Tetsuo goes to a bar after gaining his powers, the bartender is cleaning out a glass.
  • Ominous Latin Chanting: There are some Latin lyrics in "Requiem".
  • Ominous Pipe Organ: Tetsuo's theme features this combined with a choir. "Requiem" also features this, especially during the scene where Akira's power is almost done consuming Neo-Tokyo.
  • One-Word Title: AKIRA.
  • Papa Wolf: The Colonel to Kaori, whom he tried to protect from a mutating and rampaging Tetsuo.
  • Pillar of Light: The laser coming down from SOL (the Japanese orbital satellite).
  • Pop-Star Composer: The film's soundtrack was composed and performed by World Music collective Geinoh Yamashirogumi, which had been active for 14 years by the time the film released.
  • Pragmatic Adaptation: Due to the necessity of cutting down a 2,000-page manga into a feature length movie, the post-apocalyptic story arc that took up almost half of the manga was cut out entirely.
  • Product Placement: Ever-present. Kaneda's motorcycle has company logos plastered all over it, including Canon, Citizen, Shoei and Arai. It also sports a US Air Force roundel.
  • Real Men Wear Pink: Kaneda wears a pink polo shirt, though this wasn't quite as girly to audiences in The '80s.
  • Recurring Riff: Tetsuo's leitmotif begins with a few hard notes, and develops into something way more badass.
  • Reluctant Mad Scientist: Dr. Onishi. He ignores an order to shut down his work if Tetsuo's vital signs get out of hand. Nobody ever blames him for the outcome in the manga, but the Colonel gets angry at him in the film.
  • Reveal Shot: The police station where the biker gang is being held looks like one corridor and one questioning room. As they go to leave, the camera pans out revealing that there are dozens of interrogation rooms where suspects are being questioned or beaten.
  • Rocket Ride: The hovercrafts in the sewers.
  • R-Rated Opening: Within the first ten minutes, we get cursing, drug references, a bloody gang war between rival biker gangs made up of teenagers, and a rebel gunned down into bloody, chunky swiss-cheese by concentrated machine gun fire. In fact, Tokyo explodes before the credits are even finished. And then there's the vicious sexual assault on Kaori, where a pair of thugs forcibly bare her chest by ripping her shirt open (no Scenery Censor here) before punching her in the face; she's still swollen and bleeding minutes later.
  • Say My Name: "KANNNEEEEDDDAAA!!" and "TETTTTTSUUUUOOO!!" make up most of it, but there's plenty of name-calling in it.
  • Sealed Evil in a Six Pack: The title character was dissected and placed in a series of vials. He came back in a more ethereal form.
  • Shout-Out:
    • The jukebox Kaneda fiddles with sports advertisements for various rock bands, including Cream, Led Zeppelin and The Doors.
    • In the hospital, Tetsuo uses telekinesis to slide a glass of water into his hand, like the Stalker's daughter does at the end of Stalker (1979).
  • Silence Is Golden: The beginning of the film with the Tokyo Fireball is completely silent.
  • Sitting on the Roof: Tetsuo and Kaori share a moment like that on Kaori's dorm.
  • Sliding Scale of Adaptation Modification: Type 3 (Pragmatic Adaptation). The manga was very long and would have been unfeasable to fully adapt to a single feature film, so a good chunk of its content got the axe to keep the film at a reasonable length.
  • Snowy Screen of Death: The TV coverage of the military's takeover of Neo-Tokyo.
  • Soundtrack Dissonance: The end credits in the 2001 edition feature the song "Tokyo Shoe Shine Boy" (briefly heard in the background during one scene in the movie) over the second portion of the end credits.
  • Space Is Noisy: Zig-zagged. Tetsuo's destruction of SOL in space produces no sound (accurately), but SOL's laser makes noise (inaccurately) when it fires on Neo-Tokyo beforehand.
  • Stuff Blowing Up: The movie starts with the mother of all kabooms, and it's not the last one.
  • Tempting Fate: Lampshaded and name-dropped in the Streamline dub, at the end of a soliloquy by Colonel Shikishima in Akira's cryogenic tomb.
    Colonel Shikishima: Is this what it all comes to? Not much now. To think that it brought civilization right to the brink. A giant step backward in man's evolution toward eternity and redemption—the ultimate scientific nightmare! I can't believe the politicians would dare to tempt fate again...
  • They Call Me MISTER Tibbs!: "That's Mister Kaneda to you, punk!"
  • Took a Level in Badass: Kei, after she was taken on by the three kids, and also Kaneda in the final confrontation with Tetsuo.
  • Truth in Television: When Tetsuo falls off his bike trying to curve in the opening scene, he has a noticeably hard time trying to get back on. Motorbikes are heavy machinery, after all, even if they just look like, and are about the same size as, thicker bicycles. Joker, despite being bulkier, has only a slightly easier time picking his own, much bulkier, bike up a bit later on.
  • Wham Shot: About 3/4 of the way through the movie, Tetuso opens up the cryogenic capsule containing Akira... and only finds organs preserved in vials, revealing that Akira was Dead All Along.

    Manga Only 
  • Action Survivor: Kaisuke lacks the fighting skill and grit of most other characters, but is one of the few characters to survive the entire story.
  • America Saves the Day: Subverted. America seems to be the only country to notice the potentially world-ending events taking place in Tokyo (although an international team of scientists is also dispatched to investigate the phenomenon), as they send a carrier strike group to Tokyo Bay, but their attempts to solve the problem either have no effect or make things worse, especially the US fleet admiral's decision to first carpet-bomb Neo-Tokyo with the aircraft of his air wing, followed by his decision to deploy the United States' own orbital laser, Floyd, against Neo-Tokyo.
    • The strike team makes good progress with the team lead meeting up with the last remnants of the resistance. Ultimately though, they achieve just enough to make it possible for the physic children and Kaneda to cause Tetsuo to implode trying to control his own power. Otherwise, they make very superficial progress.
  • Angst Nuke: Happens several times. In book three, Akira's traumatized reaction to the death of Takashi sets off a massive explosion of psychic energy that levels most of the city. Later, Tetsuo rises into the sky and supernovas after enduring painful withdrawal from power-inhibiting drugs, signifying that he has awakened. May or may not have been the nature of Akira's first awakening which destroyed old Tokyo, as the circumstances were never fully explained.
  • Apologetic Attacker: Takashi, as he kills Mozu in self-defense.
    "I'm sorry, but you don't leave me another choice..."
  • The Apunkalypse
  • Attempted Rape: Kei is ambushed by Empire soldiers, who immediately try to rape her. Emphasis on attempted. It takes Kei and Chiyoko less than five minutes to take them out.
  • Beautiful Dreamer: Tetsuo teleports into Kaori's room to watch her as she sleeps.
  • The Big Damn Kiss: A hard-earned one. Kei and Kaneda finally get theirs after about 1800 pages.
  • Big Good: Lady Miyako.
  • Blind Seer: Miyako and Bird-man.
  • Braids of Action: Chiyoko sports them.
  • Bridal Carry: A sad version of this is Tetsuo carriying Kaori's lifeless body around after she's shot to death.
  • Brooding Boy, Gentle Girl: Tetsuo and Kaori end up as a rather screwed-up version of this.
  • A Child Shall Lead Them: After Neo-Tokyo is destroyed in the second awakening, Akira is dubbed Emperor and becomes the nominal ruler of half of the city. It's actually his 15-year-old "Prime Minister", Tetsuo who calls the shots.
  • Dancin' in the Ruins: One of the crazed zealots from the Empire celebrates not having to pay taxes anymore.
  • Decompressed Comic
  • Deface of the Moon: To impress his empire, Tetsuo blows a hole in the moon. Unlike most examples of this trope, this immediately begins screwing with the tides.
  • Determinator: Chiyoko. The lengths she goes to save the esper children...
  • Did You Just Punch Out Cthulhu?: In spite of the fact that Testuo shrugs off explosions and total vaporization, Kaneda manages to punch him out at one point.
  • Divided States of America: Japan, in this case. After Tetsuo takes over Neo-Tokyo, he tries to establish it as the "Great Akira Empire." At the very end, Kaneda tries to establish the city as the Great Tokyo Empire. During the course of the manga, Lieutenant Yamada also reveals to Ryu that the Soviets have occupied Hokkaido in the aftermath of Neo-Tokyo's destruction.
  • Doorstopper: Six volumes the size of phone books, a collective 2,182 pages. Because the plot is at least 50% chase scenes, however, it's a surprisingly quick read.
  • Elite Mooks: Tetsuo's telekinetic Mooks such as Birdman and Eggman.
  • Enemy Mine: Kaisuke enlists the help of Joker, the former leader of a rival gang, against Tetsuo.
  • Enlightenment Superpowers: The monks at Miyako's temple developed psychic power in a limited capacity through discipline and meditation.
  • Evil Chancellor: Tetsuo installs himself as Prime Minister of the Great Tokyo Empire.
  • Failed Future Forecast: The Soviet Union apparently exists into the 2030's in the manga's time-line. Given that the story was written before the Soviet Union collapsed, this is to be expected.
  • Fan Disservice: Few after having taken pover Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo is shown in bed with three naked and very pretty girls. But the girls are his sex slaves, drugs are involved in the foursome, Tetsuo has one HELL of a mental trip under the influence of said drugs, and once he's back... two of the girls are dead as after-effects of the drugs, and are shown naked and bleeding with terrified expressions on their faces. The Sole Survivor, Kaori, is in a Troubled Fetal Position, wrapped in a Modesty Bedsheet and clearly terrified of him.
  • Flashback: It's really scarce in the manga, as the characters are physically subjected to intentional in-universe flashbacks. Actual flashbacks include:
    • Ryu's reminiscing about his friend's early death when descending to Akira's cryogenic holdout.
    • Another flashback is presented after the moment the first Black Dome occurs (decades before the main story) showing the surviving Espers coming out of the mud from the crater.
  • Faceless Goons: The non-psychic Mooks.
  • For Science!: The Juvenile-A team study the events in Neo-Tokyo mostly out of scientific curiosity. They smarten up some after Tetsuo attacks them unprovoked, but they don't realize the necessity of killing him despite having witnessed indications that he caused a miniature Big Bang on Earth.
  • From Bad to Worse: Happens to the citizens of Neo-Tokyo in pretty much all of the second half of the manga after Akira destroys most of Neo-Tokyo. By the end of the manga, things are only looking up slightly, the general attitude being that the survivors know how much worse it could really be (and on the whole they're better people and a bunch of jerks get what they deserve).
  • Furo Scene: Kei takes a ritual bath in Miyako's temple to prepare herself to being used as a psychic medium by the Espers and Miyako.
  • Future Food Is Artificial
  • Genre Shift: The second half goes from cyberpunk to post-apocalypse.
  • Genius Bruiser: Subverted with Joker. Kaneda marvels at the bikes that Joker has restored, saying that he never expected Joker to be a mechanical whiz, but Kaisuke confides that Joker had help. Though he gerry-rigs a flying platform, it spends as much time broken down as actually flying.
  • Going Cold Turkey: Tetsuo goes through agonizing withdrawal to quit the pills the scientists gave him to keep him from losing control of the Power. He throws his stash into the sea.
  • Healing Factor: To wit, Tetsuo survives multiple shootings, an overdose of medicine, an assassination attempt by Kei, his arm blown off by a Kill Sat, gassing with a specially-engineered biological weapon, and a missile landing on him. Dr. Onishi and the Colonel discuss his remarkable resilience.
  • Jigsaw Puzzle Plot
  • Kick the Dog: Tetsuo taking young and pretty girls to be his sex slaves, and encouraging them to take drugs that will most likely kill them.
  • Malaproper: Yamagata.
    "I can't contain my indigestion!"
  • Mama Bear: Chiyoko. Start praying to God if you happen to hurt anyone in her care.
  • The Man Behind the Man: Tetsuo was really the one performing Akira's "miracles".
  • Mauve Shirt: George Yamada, leader of the U.S Marines sent to assassinate Tetsuo and Akira.
  • Mooks: The Great Tokyo Empire.
  • Mugging the Monster: A newly empowered Tetsuo is cornered by members of a rival motorcycle gang just after escaping from the hospital.
  • Must Have Nicotine: The Colonel uses cigarettes to bribe a scientist suffering from nicotine withdrawal into working for him.
  • Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Tetsuo seeks the advice of Lady Miyako, who tells him that his destiny is to become as powerful as Akira. She says that in order to do this he must stop taking the pills that awaken psychic potential and inhibit its growth. Her plan is to use Tetsuo's power to check Akira. He takes her advice to heart. What she didn't tell him was that if he quit taking the drugs and pushed himself too hard, he could lose control of it, putting himself and the rest of the world in danger. When Tetsuo learns this the hard way, he's justifiably angry at the set-up and calls her out on it.
    • Kaneda and Kai borrow a couple of motorcycles from Joker; then, Tetsuo blows up a big chunk of the moon and a tidal wave floods the underground where Kaneda and his scouting party are. Kaneda has to return the motorcycles to Joker with a severe case of saltwater damage. Joker, predictably is not too happy about the state of his machines.
    • Kiyoko, Masaru, and Takashi attempts to kill Tetsuo to avert Kiyoko's vision of Neo-Tokyo's destruction results in causing Neo Tokyo's destruction. The apocalyptic story arc was their fault as much as it was Akira's.
  • No FEMA Response: Justified as, by the time major humanitarian aid efforts are on their way to Neo-Tokyo, Tetsuo and his followers have already organized the survivors into the Great Akira Empire, a militantly isolationist cult who attack the relief workers. In the manga they come back after the Great Akira Empire collapses, and Kaneda states that they are welcome in the Great Tokyo Empire, it's the US soldiers with them and anyone trying to assert the Japanese government authority over them that they are hostile to.
  • Nothing Is the Same Anymore: The second half of the story. Ignoring the numerous changes in the individual characters, the conflict has become a post-apocalyptic showdown between the followers of Lady Miyako and Akira. Also of note is foreign involvement.
  • Occupiers Out of Our Country: Soldiers of the Great Akira Empire resist foreign intervention so effectively that they turn half of Neo-Tokyo into a hermit kingdom. Later, after the final showdown between the Akira Empire and Miyako's forces, Kaneda and his fellow survivors gather under the banner of the newly-formed Great Tokyo Empire and chase off UN peacekeepers as a threat to their country's sovereignty.
  • Orphan's Plot Trinket: As a child, Tetsuo has a locket with a woman's picture in it and he tells people it's a keepsake from his mother. He actually found it in the street and just pretends it's her in order to feel some connection with his parents.
  • Our Ghosts Are Different: Kaneda sees his own apparition which is actually an astral projection of himself from the future, when he got caught up in Akira's blast.
  • Path of Inspiration: The Akira cult. It's only there so Tetsuo can rule the city.
  • Pietà Plagiarism: Tetsuo carried Kaori's lifeless body around after she's shot to death by one of his own aides.
  • Poor Communication Kills: The three Espers attempt to kill Tetsuo almost immediately after learning about his powers, because they believe he will reawaken Akira and trigger another apocalyptic event. However, they never fully explain this to the Colonel, who spends a lot of time operating under the mistaken belief that Tetsuo can be controlled, and through him Akira. As a result, their attacks against Tetsuo result in little more than triggering Tetsuo into greater acts of violence and rage, which ultimately lead to Akira waking up and fulfilling Kiyoko's vision. Had the Colonel been made aware of the full consequences of Tetsuo's awakening, he may have gone along with a more coordinated approach to eliminate him before he could become too much of a problem.
  • Practical Currency: A tavern serving the local refugee population takes things like batteries as currency.
  • Production Throwback: When the agent is hospitalized and being debriefed, the painting of the bed deliberately mimics the cover of one of Otomo's other works, Domu, which shares themes with AKIRA and came out before Otomo started working on AKIRA.
  • Progressive Era Montage: The spread in the last two pages of the manga provides a remarkable example that can only be done in the medium of comics. Kaneda and his motorcycle gang ride through the ruined streets of Tokyo toward the horizon, and as the reader's eyes move upward on the page, the buildings metaphorically rebuild themselves until, at the top of the page, the future city in the distance has become even greater than before.
  • Psychic Link: The Espers are revealed to be connected this way when Takashi was accidentally shot dead by Nezu. The surviving Espers (and Akira) all feel their dying friend's pain and they simultaneously start screaming. Even Miyako feels the pain, too.
  • Psycho Serum: A drug that either kills or awakens psychic powers, but also holds them back from developing too far, as Miyako reveals to Tetsuo. He quits them.
  • Public Execution: A particularly gruesome one happens to an American spy.
  • Put on a Bus:
    • Kaneda after the timeskip. He is assumed to be dead after falling into Akira's psychic blast at the end of volume 3, but at the end of volume 4 he is transported back along with various other buildings (and some of the Colonel's soldiers) that had fallen into the blast as well.
    • Also happens to Tetsuo in Volume 3. After getting his arm shot off by the SOL satellite at the end of the second volume, Tetsuo flies off and is not seen again until the end of Volume 3.
  • Resist the Beast: Tetsuo attempts to get his painfully mutating body under his control again. When it doesn't work, he tells Kaori to run as far as she can.
  • Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Tetsuo's reaction when Kaori was shot by his own Mooks.
  • Seeing Through Another's Eyes: How Miyako gets around being blind.
  • Sex Slave: Kaori, at least before she was promoted to Akira's caretaker and then becomes Tetsuo's Morality Pet.
  • Shapeshifter Baggage: See Body Horror above.
  • Shout-Out: One of the citizens of the Empire screams out "Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!", a reference to King Lear while Tetsuo attacks the moon itself.
  • Sleep Cute: Subverted in one volume. Yes, Kaori looks sweet and peaceful when she sleeps with her head on Tetsuo's lap, but then we see that Tetsuo is in extreme pain and his arm is mutating again.
  • Spider Tank: The government deploy a number of small robotic spider tanks to enforce martial law after Akira is released. One of them was used to help transport the surviving Espers Kiyoko and Masaru to Miyako's temple in the second half of the manga.
  • Split-Screen Reaction
  • The Starscream: Tetsuo's Aide later stages a coup toward the end of the story, which was justified due to Tetsuo's Ax-Crazy-ness. Then he just had to shoot Kaori.
  • Team Mom:
    • Miyako is a quite dark example.
    • Kaori tries to be one after she becomes Akira's caretaker per Tetsuo's orders.
  • Technical Pacifist: Miyako and her empowered monks try to repel an invasion of the temple by Empire soldiers non-lethally.
  • Tin-Can Telephone: A character trying to describe telepathy uses it as an analogy.
  • Token Good Teammate: Kaori is this to the Empire.
  • Training from Hell: Tetsuo's psionic Elite Mooks are subjected to this, provided they survive the audition.
  • True Companions: The Espers have a special bond that surpasses mere words. It's revealed in the final volume to be the reason why all the psychic children were willing to be subjected to horrific experimentation by the government - it gave them powers that allowed them to understand their friends completely.
  • Unnervingly Heartwarming: When one of Tetsuo's soldiers enters his quarters to alert him to ongoing troubles, Tetsuo warns the man not to wake Kaori, who is still hugging him in her sleep. This might have been a genuinely touching scene... but Tetsuo is clearly in a lot of pain from withdrawal, the expression on his face indicates that his sanity is hanging by a very narrow thread, and his arm has begun to mutate into a hideous mass of tentacled flesh.
  • Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Kaneda projectile vomits after eating a meal that was poisoned.
  • Wham Episode: Volume 3 ends with Akira destroying Neo-Tokyo the same way as the original thirty years before.
  • What Happened to the Mouse?: In the first volume of the manga, Nurse Hoken tells Kaneda she might be pregnant, and then is never seen again. It's possible (if not probable) she was killed at the end of Volume 3, but it's never specified. Justified as many characters disappeared at the same time, probably being killed or teleported to another dimension.
  • Would Hurt a Child: Nezu and Ryu. The former was aiming for Akira so no one would control the boy, but wound up shooting Akira's friend Takashi instead. The latter was extremely reluctant, but it was either shoot Akira or the world will be destroyed.
  • You Can Barely Stand: Kei is taunted with this line during a brutal fight with Tetsuo.

Alternative Title(s): Akira

Top