Akira returns to cinemas – why the legendary anime demands a rewatch

The classic 1988 anime Akira returns to cinema screens on April 17. Set in a dystopian neo-Tokyo, it is one of the few pieces of cyberpunk manga which has translated well onto the screen. Its ultimate message is disturbing: we are no better or worse than the elites who are using technology to dominate us. All of us are just part of a bigger game. A game involving power and our limited ability to wield it.

Directed by the original manga creator, Katsuhiro Otomo, the hand-drawn animation is incredible, the storyline complex and the violence relentless. Along with Blade Runner (1982) and William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer (1984), Akira is considered one of the big-three classics of cyberpunk – a genre defined by high tech and low life. They’re all centered around rogue loners who investigate mysteries, only to be accidentally drawn into conflict with powerful elites. And they’re each set in an imagined near future where bodies are replicated, modified and occasionally rendered monstrous.

Akira goes for the monstrous option, driven by a relentless pursuit of power which is simultaneously natural to humans and destructive of our humanity. Otomo’s anti-hero, Kaneda, is a biker drawn from the subculture of real tribal bōzōzuku biker gangs which had tens of thousands of members in early 1980s Japan.

Otomo’s tale shows a deep familiarity with Japanese sub-cultures and societal unease about the legacy of the atomic bomb and aversion to mutation.

In the film, Kaneda tries to rescue his friend Tetsuo but stumbles into a conflict between hardened idealistic terrorists and a top-secret military project. The latter is trying to accelerate the drug-induced development of telepathic powers that are wielded by a group of captive children. Tetsuo has become part of the program and shows incredible power, but he cannot contain it within his body.

The emphasis on power is welcome. Tetsuo has always been relegated to second place in the biker gang to Kaneda and cannot bear it. The other effects are less welcome. As with the faltering Japanese economy, artificially accelerated development spirals out of control, eventually forcing military forces and terrorists to collaborate to contain Tetsuo and the mysterious Akira. Much of neo-Tokyo is destroyed in the process. Once again, the narrative strongly echoes the legacy of the atomic bomb.

Akira and cyberpunk

Akira is a good watch and, if you have the patience, a good read. Patience is certainly a important virtue for Akira fans. They have been waiting decades to see a live action version. The latest collapse of attempts to bring it to the screen in 2025 helped to prompt this year’s return of the anime.

But how accurately does cyberpunk’s vision of the future align with the real history that unfolded after the genre’s golden age in film and literature? Though it got plenty wrong, cyberpunk did anticipate some defining features of contemporary life – most notably anti-elite populism and political protest. Cyberpunk, including Akira, is broadly anti-authoritarian, yet it is often set in worlds where no viable alternative appears to exist. As a result, dissent in cyberpunk tends to be more expressive than goal-oriented, with violence frequently emerging as one of its most potent forms of articulation.

This is, arguably, a reasonable anticipation of a long-term trend within political dissent. Particularly where (as in cyberpunk) an association is drawn between technology and elite control. It is worth noting that driverless Waymo taxis were a popular target for protesters during the 2025 riots in Los Angeles.

So there is a similarity up to a point. But cyberpunks like Kaneda and Tetsuo, and their counterparts in the other genre classics, faced off against power more than wealth. Today’s left and left-right crossover dissent focuses upon bankers and it trades upon an idea of finance capital in which banking dominates industry. Cyberpunk was anti-authority, but had a better idea of who was actually in charge – elites for whom wealth was primarily corporate and only a means to advancing power.

In our world – the actual world of advancing technology – nobody really knows how much is owned by the wealthiest corporate tech figures such as Elon Musk (Tesla and Space-X), Larry Ellison (Oracle), Mark Zuckerberg (Meta) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon). But we do know that none of them are bankers. Their wealth underpins their power, and as in cyberpunk they seek broader forms of social and political influence.

Unlike cyberpunk elites, they face limits to their ability to wield such influence. The brief Musk team-up with Donald Trump was a marriage made in the divorce courts, with little prospect of lasting the course. In Akira, elites are far less constrained, particularly in the military.

Akira focuses upon power, as opposed to mere wealth, by using a secretive military program as the driver of the plot. But it does so with moral ambiguity. There are no monsters in charge. The military is under the command of The Colonel, who is not a particularly bad or unsympathetic character. He just happens to be someone on a different side from Kaneda and the terrorist underground that Kaneda has fallen in with for reasons more to do with assertive sexual attraction rather than politics.

Ultimately, Tetsuo and Kaneda cannot come up against The Colonel as good guys versus the bad guy, or as friends to the many set against the enemy elite. Kaneda wields power ruthlessly within his biker gang and Tetsuo desperately wants power. Both are constrained only by their attraction to the (secondary) female characters. The desire for power is represented as natural and, by the end, as a cosmic urge which is slowly making its way into consciousness through humans. Albeit at the expense of our small and vulnerable bodies.

Within this narrative there is a longing for power inside all of humanity. A longing which is both constructive and destructive. To renounce it would be to renounce our humanity. To imagine that we can wield it indefinitely is the great illusion. Eventually the temple bell rings and it is over. This makes power-wielding elites no better or worse than the rest of us. The distinction between the experimenters and those of us experimented upon ceases to matter.

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Tony Milligan does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.