As influential anime go, especially in the west, Akira is at least in the top five of that list, if not at the very top. But it was at an extreme disadvantage in the west when it was first released in 1988. Back then, there was no internet to explain what was going on during its very surreal ending, never mind much of what was going on with the story at large. That the manga it was based on wasn't available was certainly no help either. The latter was at least within the realm of possibility compared to the former. Given the ending, it could be argued that no matter how much time the anime adaptation had, there'd be no making sense of it. But much like Evangelion, this is one of those films best experienced emotionally, rather than logically.

In Akira's dystopic, cyberpunk city of Neo-Tokyo, science is pioneering, but that pioneering doesn't appear to reach those who have fallen through society's cracks. And those cracks have been getting bigger. Motorbike gangs running amok in the streets, their disaffected teenage members beating on each other with pipes and throwing each other through restaurant windows, all appears to be par for the course in the inner city. The education system seems to be failing as well, with equally crumbling school infrastructure. Meanwhile, as far as pioneering science goes, it's joined hands with a corrupt government that, while not entirely explained, is at least shown to be worth reforming considering they can get away with their scientists scraping up random boys like biker gang member Tetsuo off the road and subject him to psychological experiments without suffering any legal repercussions.

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Experiments Gone Wrong

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Not unsurprisingly, the research these scientists have been doing has been going on for years. There are three children left of a previous experimental project that went awry, resulting in a fourth child, Akira, mysteriously disappearing into the ether, the collateral of which was an explosion that blasted a crater into Tokyo years and years prior. The three children who remain have undergone strange physical changes, growing old in appearance, yet at the same time still remaining in child-like bodies. That and they've all developed wild psychic powers same as Akira did, and now Tetsuo is being subjected to the next phase in this series of experiments.

As a result, he too starts developing psychic powers, but at an alarmingly accelerating rate that affects him mentally as well as physically. Given he was already a troubled youth, the fact that he's growing in his psychic powers that affects him mentally means that now acting out his worst impulses results in things like him murdering one of his fellow gang members. His gang's leader and childhood best friend, Kaneda, plans to take responsibility for his actions. Unfortunately, it quickly becomes clear that putting Tetsuo down might be the only way to stop him, as he goes from murdering one person to murdering hundreds en masse in a destructive rampage throughout Neo-Tokyo after escaping the research facility.

Finding Akira

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The name "Akira" keeps echoing in his head, as the changes in him due to the experiments cause him pain and deteriorate his mental health further. He comes to the conclusion that he needs to "find Akira" and destroy him to make the pain stop. With the expanse of his psychic powers transcending his mind into his physical being, he's able to do everything from fly, to fuse the metal parts of a space satellite to himself to create a replacement arm when he loses his flesh-and-blood one.

After finally making it to the old Olympic stadium, where he learned from reading the minds of the three other psychic children was where he could "find Akira", he's confused instead to just find Akira's physical body parts, separately stored away in jars under lock and key. He's unsure what he's supposed to do with this to make what horrible things are happening to him stop, but he doesn't have to worry about that for much longer as things go from bad to worse. The growing power inside him now transcends the limits of his physical body too, to the point that he can't control its functions. Freed from physical limitations, his body simply starts to grow and morph and mutate, as though something inside him was breaking free and spreading, his body having to race to catch up with being large enough to keep containing it. In the folds of his flesh, he accidentally crushes his girlfriend, and nearly crushes Kaneda as well.

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But the three psychic children, who have also followed him to the stadium, kneel before Akira's jarred remains and pray to him, in a way, to reach out to Akira on the ethereal plane. Presumably, Akira's powers still linger in his physical body, and serve as a conduit to make contact with his consciousness. In answer to their pleas to rejoin him, Akira reaches back to them from this higher plane, and brings their consciousnesses in with his. He also brings Tetsuo's, as it's the only way to save him, given his physical body is beyond saving.

Kaneda gets partially sucked into it as the same light that took a chunk out of Tokyo when Akira "ascended" years ago appears again. In this midway between the physical world and the ethereal, he experiences memories of the three children, and the ones of him and Tetsuo, as abandoned kids who only had each other to rely on in face of the harshness of the world. The three children reassure him that Tetsuo is with them and Akira now, and that he shouldn't worry. This new sphere of light craters yet another chunk of Neo-Tokyo, and in the deathly quiet of the aftermath, Kaneda is left alive and in awe of what he's experienced. The end of Akira gives a brief glimpse inside Tetsuo's mind, now existing in the ethereal plane, and with his proclamation, "I...am Tetsuo," he affirms his new existence.

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