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There was a time before, and a time after Akira. Katsuhiro Ôtomo's wildly influential adaptation of his own epic manga forever changed the perception of Japanese animation in the West – the first domino to fall in widespread cultural adoption of anime outside of Japan. Without Akira, it's possible we might never have seen Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle outgross Superman at the box office in 2025. Arguably even more impressive than this legacy: Akira has barely aged a day in almost 40 years.
Timeless is a word that gets thrown around a lot, but if Akira were released for the first time today, audiences would undoubtedly be blown away anew. In the grand tradition of 80s sci-fi (see also: Blade Runner), Akira did wildly overestimate the march of progress; it's set in 2019, and its vision of Neo-Tokyo doesn't exactly resemble the world we live in. But Akira's major thematic interests – disaffected youth, cyclical fears of destructive acts, unchecked military power – are just as relevant today as they were almost four decades ago.
Ride or die
Set 21 years after the destruction of Tokyo, Akira's Neo-Tokyo is a lawless, crepuscular mega-city rebuilt from the ashes. Hotheaded Kaneda is the leader of the Capsules, a biker gang, whose life of high-speed crime is upended when his best friend Tetsuo is captured by the militaristic Japan Self-Defense Forces.
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Probed at a secret lab, the scientists discover that Tetsuo is an extraordinarily powerful esper, with psychic capabilities equal to Akira, the young boy secretly responsible for Tokyo's destruction two decades prior. Everyone quickly realises that Tetsuo is far too dangerous to keep alive, and as his dormant powers emerge, Kaneda may be the only one who can stop Tetsuo from leveling Neo-Tokyo all over again.
That two-paragraph precis, of course, doesn't come close to doing justice to Akira's intricate grand tragedy – an elegant, multi-strand narrative that squeezes novelistic scope into a two-hour runtime. As each of Akira's layers is peeled back, the full extent of its strangeness is gradually revealed, climaxing in a mind-bending, metaphysical moment of psychedelia that makes 2001's stargate sequence look like a plug-in lava lamp.
Akira's iconography is undeniable: the legendary bike slide has been referenced in everything from Batman: The Animated Series to Jordan Peele's Nope. Its astonishingly detailed cityscapes and fluid character animation still dazzle almost four decades on.
But Akira's influence extends beyond the visual. Along with Blade Runner and Neuromancer, it established the parameters for cyberpunk worlds that are still adhered to to this day.
Welcome to Kaneda
What's always struck me watching Akira, and something that remained unchanged on this latest rewatch, is how much Kaneda and Tetsuo's friendship anchors a story with unfathomably huge scope. It's a film which opens with the annihilation of an entire city and ends with its tragic monster transcending our plain of reality and essentially becoming a deity. But it's Kaneda's half-despairing, half-furious cries of 'Tetsuo!' that ring around my head at the mere thought of Akira. Kaneda will save Tetsuo, by any means necessary.
It's redundant at this stage to point out how acclaimed Akira is. Read practically any list of the greatest animated films ever, and there's a pretty good chance you'll see Akira hovering somewhere near the top spot. Otomo would go on to direct Memories, early episodes of Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, and 2004's Steamboy, but Akira is the kind of film that stands above all. Arguably, only Ghost in the Shell could be considered a true peer.
Hollywood has tried to crack a live-action adaptation of Akira for decades at this stage. Blade's Steven Norrington, Black Adam's Jaume Collet-Serra, and Taika Waititi, of all people, have been attached at various stages across the years. In June 2025, Warner Bros. declined to renew the rights to Akira, but with the option back up for grabs, it's only a matter of time before it's snapped up again.
But Akira doesn't need an inevitably compromised Western adaptation for its legacy to be assured; it's a rare film that lives up to every bit of lofty hyperbole commentators (like me) care to throw at it. How lucky we are to live in a time after Akira.
Akira is back in UK cinemas now. For more on what to watch, check out the rest of our Big Screen Spotlight series.
