On July 16th, 1988, Tokyo gets engulfed in a massive explosion that obliterates Tokyo, and starts World War III. In 2019, 31 years after the explosion, Tokyo gets rebuilt as Neo-Tokyo to recover. In Neo-Tokyo, Shotaro Kaneda leads the Capsules, his bōsōzoku gang, to fight against the rival gang known as the Clowns. However, Kaneda's best friend Tetsuo Shima is injured when he almost crashes his motorcycle into Takashi, a small esper sprung from a secret government laboratory by a dissident underground revolutionary organization. Takashi is captured by armed soldiers and Tetsuo is hospitalized. When Kaneda and his gang are interrogated, he encounters Kei, a member of the revolutionary group, and arranges her release along with his own gang.

Neo-Tokyo, a booming, industrial city with the ambiance of a society on the edge of collapse

Meanwhile, Colonel Shikishima and Doctor Onishi discover that Tetsuo possesses psychic capabilities similar to Akira, a young esper who caused Tokyo's destruction 31 years earlier. Kiyoko, another esper, has visions of Neo-Tokyo's destruction, and the Colonel tells Onishi to kill Tetsuo if he thinks the power may get out of control. Tetsuo flees from the hospital and meets up with his girlfriend, Kaori, and they steal Kaneda's motorcycle. When Tetsuo and Kaori are confronted by the Clowns, Kaneda and the Capsules save them both. Tetsuo begins to suffer a psychic migraine, and Doctor Onishi has Tetsuo taken back to the hospital.

Saving Kei from being captured after a guerrilla attack, Kaneda is led to the rebels' headquarters and cooperates with them after overhearing their plans to kidnap Tetsuo. Meanwhile, Takashi, Kiyoko and Masaru — another Esper — unsuccessfully attempt to kill Tetsuo. Tetsuo eventually goes on a violent rampage through the hospital, intent on killing the espers. Kaneda, Kei, and the Colonel unsuccessfully try to stop Tetsuo's rampage. Discovering that Akira is in cryonic storage below Neo-Tokyo's new Olympic Stadium, Tetsuo flees.

Kei and Kaneda are detained, but Kiyoko — using Kei as a medium — explains that Tetsuo must be stopped, and facilitates the youths' escape before taking the girl away to combat Tetsuo. Desperate to find Tetsuo, the Colonel places Neo-Tokyo under martial law. Tetsuo confronts and kills Yamagata, a member of the Capsules. He then proceeds to destroy the city as he makes his way to the Stadium, brutally dispatching the military forces who attempt to stand in his way. Upon learning of Yamagata's death from his friend Kai, Kaneda follows Tetsuo to the stadium, seeking revenge. When Tetsuo arrives at Akira's cryonic dewar flask, he defeats Kei and exhumes the Akira vault from the ground, but discovers all that is left of Akira are glass canisters filled with his remains, his body having been subjected to numerous scientific experiments.

Kaneda confronts and unsuccessfully tries to defeat Tetsuo with an experimental laser weapon, while the Colonel uses an orbital laser to sever Tetsuo's right arm. Tetsuo pulls the orbital weapon into the atmosphere and synthesizes an artificial arm from the remains while studying Akira's organs. When Kaori arrives, Tetsuo's psychokinetic powers have begun to cause him immense pain. The Colonel explains that the espers' migraine-controlling drugs administered to Tetsuo are to stunt the evolution of uncontrollable abilities. Despite the Colonel's pleas for Tetsuo to return to the hospital, Tetsuo nearly kills the Colonel, but Kaneda confronts him. Unable to control his powers, Tetsuo's body begins to transform into a giant mass, engulfing Kaneda and crushing Kaori to death.

The espers awaken Akira, who had merely grown beyond the requirement of a coherent biological form. Manifesting himself from the canisters, Akira reunites with his friends. Akira uses his psychic powers to create a blinding ball of light that engulfs the city, which he uses to contain Tetsuo. As Akira confronts Tetsuo, the espers hurry to teleport the Colonel to safety and — over Masaru and Kiyoko's objections — Takashi jumps into the light to rescue Kaneda. The other espers join Takashi, deciding that it will take all three of them to save Kaneda, aware they likely will not be able to return. Kaneda experiences Tetsuo's and the espers' childhood memories, including how much Tetsuo trusted Kaneda as a friend and how the children were first studied before Tokyo's destruction.

The espers remove Kaneda from the destruction and tell him that Akira will be taking Tetsuo to safety; Kiyoko implies that Kei is beginning to develop her own psychic powers, and this is confirmed when Kei calls Kaneda out telepathically. Akira's psychic power destroys most of Neo-Tokyo, and — after disappearing — leaves a void that is quickly filled by the ocean. Doctor Onishi is killed when his research laboratory is crushed. Kaneda awakens to discover that Kei and Kai have survived, and they drive away into the city. The Colonel walks out of the tunnel that the espers teleported him to and watches the sun rising over the destroyed city. Tetsuo comes into full control of his powers as he initiates a Big Bang in another dimension, uttering the words: "I am Tetsuo".

Characters[edit]

• Shotaro Kaneda (金田 正太郎 Kaneda Shōtarō^?) – A carefree gang leader who has a custom-modified motorcycle. Kaneda and Tetsuo have been best friends since early childhood. He is brash and not above teasing Tetsuo despite feeling affection for him as a younger brother. Upon rescuing Kei, Kaneda becomes involved in the activities of her group of anti-government guerrillas in hopes of locating Tetsuo.
• Tetsuo Shima (島 鉄雄 Shima Tetsuo^?) – Kaneda's best friend since preschool and the second principal subject of the story's theme. Tetsuo is shown as a black sheep in the gang that he is part of and quietly suffers from a deeply rooted inferiority complex. Tetsuo admires Kaneda yet at the same time strongly resents his own reliance upon him. After his psychokinetic abilities manifest, Tetsuo quickly becomes Kaneda's nemesis; he desires Kaneda's motorcycle (a symbol of status and power) and seeks to prove himself supremely powerful, without need of protection. Eventually, his power overwhelms him.
• Kei (ケイ^?) – A young revolutionary whom Kaneda meets and becomes enamored with on his quest to find Tetsuo. She is a member of an anti-government faction that Ryusaku and Nezu are also involved in. Initially, she does not possess any preternatural abilities, being manipulated by the Espers as a type of medium on several occasions, but upon coming in contact with the Espers' powers, due to their power constantly being channeled through her, she gains powers of her own.
• Colonel Shikishima (敷島大佐 Shikishima-taisa^?) or simply known as The Colonel – The current head of the ongoing government project which was responsible for inadvertently unleashing Akira's power thirty years earlier. Appearing tough and ruthless, he is nevertheless pragmatic enough to recognize the danger Tetsuo's fledgling powers pose and cares genuinely for the three Espers under his supervision. Amongst the other government figures depicted in the film, he is shown to be the most principled, eschewing the corruption and hedonism that typifies Neo-Tokyo, adhering instead to a strict code of soldierly honour.
• The Espers – Masaru (マサル^?, codename #27), Takashi (タカシ^?, codename #26) and Kiyoko (キヨコ^?, codename #25) – Akira's fellow psychic test subjects. They exhibit a variety of paranormal powers which they use to influence the course of events to the best of their ability. While individually of lesser strength than Akira or Tetsuo, their combined effort proves decisive in the story's final confrontation. Physically, they resemble children with wrinkled faces, white hair and blue-green skin.
• Akira (アキラ^?, codename #28) – The titular character. Akira was a young boy who developed transcendent psionic, god-like abilities when serving as a test subject for secret government ESP experiments in the 1980s. He subsequently lost control of this power and the ensuing blast completely annihilated Tokyo in a horrifying explosion in 1988. After the apocalyptic event, Akira was recovered and subjected to every test known to modern science, which proved unable to solve the mystery. He was dissected and placed within a cryonic chamber underneath the Neo-Tokyo Olympic Stadium.
• Nezu (根津^?) – A government mole for the resistance movement, and member of Neo-Tokyo's parliamentary executive council. Responsible for Takashi's abduction by the resistance and supplying intelligence to the underground, he is nevertheless corrupt and unprincipled, and quickly turns against his erstwhile revolutionary allies in a fit of paranoia during the Colonel's coup.
• Yamagata (山形^?) – One of the most prominent members of Kaneda's gang. He often chides Tetsuo playfully, resulting in his death when Tetsuo's powers begin to emerge.
• Kai (甲斐^?) – Another member of Kaneda's gang, Kai plays a minor supporting role in the eventual battle against Tetsuo. He is close friends with Yamagata and they remain together when the gang breaks up, being one of the only members to survive.
• Kaori (カオリ^?) – Tetsuo's girlfriend. She stands by Tetsuo even though he treats her abusively in the hopes of appearing tough to his friends. When Tetsuo begins his rampage through Neo-Tokyo, she follows him, and when his powers manifest and cause his body to warp and expand to grotesque proportions, she is engulfed in his flesh and crushed by his organs.
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