Kaneda, our “hero” is probably one of the most despicable protagonists I’ve read since “Message to Adolf Part One”, a book by another acclaimed manga artist, Osamu Tezuka. I’d forgotten the character flaws that were probably in the film but are shown here in all their disgrace. I really wanted Akira to live up to the hype but unfortunately it doesn’t. When he re-emerges, Tetsuo has blinding migraines but possesses incredible psychic powers – what is this secret organisation, who are these weird-looking kids, and what is Akira? Tetsuo crashes his bike and is abducted by this secret army force. During a late-night race they encounter a weird young boy with the face of an old man being chased by shady government types. Neo-Tokyo is populated with drug-fuelled biker gangs battling each other over turf, one of which our protagonists Kaneda and Tetsuo, two best friends, belong to.
First published in 1982, the comic predates the film by 6 years though interestingly both were created by one man, the visionary artist Katsuhiro Otomo, who was an astoundingly young 28 years old when this book was first published, meaning he’d written/drawn this epic story at an even younger age! It’s astounding because of how accomplished the style here is and how well Otomo understands the language of comics - but I’ll come back to that in a moment.Īkira is set in 2030, a decade after a powerful new bomb destroyed Tokyo completely, leading to World War 3. So I was interested to learn that it’s also a critically acclaimed comic that’s hailed as one of the finest the medium has ever created. That’s basically the extent of my memory of Akira, an anime movie I watched when I was 9.
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