# Akira Review: The Cyberpunk Landmark Anime Is Still Chasing

Some films you watch; Akira you survive. Katsuhiro Otomo's adaptation of his own sprawling manga hurls you into Neo-Tokyo, a neon megacity rebuilt on the ashes of a war that erased the old one, and never slows down to hold your hand. A biker gang, a runaway psychic child, and one furious teenager who stumbles onto power vast enough to level a city: that's the engine. What hits hardest isn't the plot but the sheer physical density of it, every frame crammed, every explosion earned, every rain-slicked street alive with detail. As a late-80s landmark it didn't just raise anime's ceiling; for a generation of Western viewers it was the ceiling, proof that hand-drawn animation could be this adult, this apocalyptic, this uncompromising.

## Story & Premise

The story opens on a Neo-Tokyo humming with rot beneath the neon: corrupt politicians, seething protesters, and street gangs carving up the ruins three decades after a blast leveled the original city. Kaneda leads a pack of motorcycle-riding delinquents; his oldest friend Tetsuo, forever the runt of the group, is badly hurt in a crash with an eerie, wizened child. That collision wakes something dormant in Tetsuo, and the military, which has been quietly running experiments on psychic children, hauls him in. What they unlock is beyond their control, and it points straight back toward the buried secret the whole city is built on: Akira. Otomo compresses a long manga into a single feature, so the plot moves like an avalanche, cutting between the gang, the resistance, the Colonel's project, and the awakening. It's less a tidy narrative than a city-wide chain reaction, thrilling, occasionally bewildering, and impossible to look away from.

![Kaneda standing at a chain-link fence above the vast crater at the centre of Neo-Tokyo.](https://hozuna.com/blog/art/review/akira-review--crater.2ac1b222.webp)

*Neo-Tokyo is built on the hole left by the last catastrophe, and the film never lets you forget it.*

## Characters

At its core, Akira is a friendship that curdles into tragedy. Kaneda is all swagger, a cocky, loyal gang leader who charges into danger on his iconic red bike with a grin. Tetsuo is his shadow: the perpetual little brother, tired of being protected, who finally gets the strength to stop being weak and is devoured by it. Their bond, and the way power poisons it, is the beating heart the spectacle hangs on. Around them orbit Kei, the resistance fighter who pulls Kaneda into the wider conspiracy; Colonel Shikishima, a soldier clear-eyed enough to fear what his own side has made; and the Espers, Takashi, Masaru, and Kiyoko, uncanny wrinkled children whose calm hides enormous force. Because so much manga is crushed into one film, some figures get shortchanged: Kei, Kaori, and the political players can feel like sketches. But Kaneda and Tetsuo are so vividly drawn that the emotional spine holds even when the supporting cast thins.

## Animation & Sound

This is where Akira becomes untouchable. Made when hand-drawn animation was the only game, it was lavished with a reported 160,000-plus painted cels and a stack of custom color shades mixed specially for the production, and the result is a Neo-Tokyo that feels physically real, its rain, neon, and crumbling concrete rendered with obsessive, almost fanatical care. Motion is weighty and fluid where most films of its moment cut corners: Kaneda's bike leaves that endlessly-copied light trail, and the climactic mutations churn with grotesque, fully-animated body horror. Just as historic is the sound. Akira was among the first anime to use prescored dialogue, voices recorded first and mouths animated to match, which is why the lip-sync lands with uncanny precision. And the score, by Geinoh Yamashirogumi under Shoji Yamashiro, is like nothing else: Balinese gamelan, Noh chanting, and thunderous taiko drums building that unforgettable ritual cry of 'Kaneda!' It's music that turns spectacle into something sacred and terrifying.

![Kaneda's red bike streaking through a dense neon Neo-Tokyo street, light trailing behind.](https://hozuna.com/blog/art/review/akira-review--megacity.907d20c4.webp)

*The frame count is legendary, and it shows - every background is drawn like it matters.*

## Themes & What Sets It Apart

Beneath the fireworks, Akira is obsessed with power: who holds it, who craves it, and what happens when it lands in hands too young or too wounded to bear it. Tetsuo's arc is the whole thesis; give a hurting kid godlike strength and you don't get a hero, you get a catastrophe. Around that sits a distinctly post-war, post-nuclear dread, a nation already unmade once that keeps racing toward the next detonation, plus sharp jabs at corrupt government, reckless science, and human experimentation. What truly sets it apart is its refusal to explain itself or slow down. Where lesser films would pause to lecture, Otomo trusts the imagery: swelling, blooming, apocalyptic transformation as pure sensation. It treats animation not as a children's medium dressed up, but as a vehicle for genuine awe and horror. Decades of cyberpunk, from live-action blockbusters to countless anime, are still visibly cribbing from its neon streets and its sense of dread.

## Strengths & Shortcomings

The strengths are obvious and enormous: the animation remains a high-water mark, the atmosphere is total, and the momentum never flags. As spectacle and mood, almost nothing touches it. The honest caveat is the flip side of that ambition. Otomo poured a long, dense manga into one feature, and the seams show. The mythology of Akira, the Espers, and the government project arrives fast and stays deliberately opaque; the cosmic swerve of the finale can leave first-timers blinking, unsure what they just witnessed. Subplots that breathe over hundreds of manga pages, Kei and the resistance, Nezu's scheming, the wider politics, get clipped to the bone. This isn't a film that rewards a distracted, second-screen watch; look away and you'll lose the thread. None of it sinks the picture, but temper your expectations: Akira delivers overwhelming experience more reliably than tidy storytelling, and it asks you to meet it on its terms. A rewatch clarifies enormously.

## The Verdict

Akira is essential, not comfort viewing, but a genuine landmark that everyone serious about the medium should experience at least once. Come for the spectacle and you'll get the greatest hand-drawn action of its era; stay and you'll find a bleak, brilliant fable about power, friendship, and a civilization sprinting toward its own destruction. Yes, it's dense, and yes, the plot can outrun you on a first pass, but its images burn themselves into memory in a way tidier films never manage. It earns its reputation frame by frame. Watch it big, watch it loud, and give it your full attention; then watch it again, because it opens up on the second pass. A towering, uncompromising achievement, and one of the strongest arguments ever made that animation is an art form for adults. Score: 92/100, a flawed masterpiece that still sets the ceiling.

## FAQ

### Is Akira worth watching?

Absolutely. It's one of the defining achievements of hand-drawn animation and a cornerstone of cyberpunk. It's intense and demanding rather than easy-going, but if you care about anime as an art form, it sits close to required viewing.

### Is Akira good for newcomers to anime films?

It's a spectacular showcase of what animation can do, but it isn't a gentle on-ramp. Between its dense plot, mature themes, and graphic body horror, first-timers should come ready for something heavy and demanding rather than breezy.

### Where can I watch Akira legally?

Depending on your region, Akira streams on Netflix, Crunchyroll, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, and Tubi TV (which is free and ad-supported). Availability shifts over time and by country, so check which of those carries it where you are.

### Is Akira a standalone film?

Yes. It's a single, self-contained feature, not a series, and not part of a franchise you need to follow. There are no prior entries to watch first; you can start and finish the whole story in one sitting.

### Do I need to read the manga to follow Akira?

No, the film stands completely on its own. That said, Otomo's original manga is far longer and fleshes out the characters, politics, and mythology the movie compresses, so it makes a rewarding follow-up if the film leaves you wanting more.

### What should I watch next if I loved Akira?

Ghost in the Shell is the natural next stop for philosophical cyberpunk, Perfect Blue for psychological dread, and Otomo's own Steamboy if you want more of his meticulous, machine-obsessed world-building. All three share Akira's ambition and craft.

## Related

- [Where to watch Akira](https://hozuna.com/anime/akira)