Akira movie synopsis

More than two years have passed since I set about writing a scenario for the movie, and now the picture of AKIRA has finally finished.

At this present moment (June 23rd) as I write this manuscript, we are working on the sound make-up to keep pace with the final stage of the picture's production. Day after day the entire staff wholeheartedly sticks to its allnight production in order to give everyone a high-quality product at the movie's debut on July 16th.

This production is a futuristic story taking place at Neo-Tokyo in the year 2019, but the story is by no means a tale wholly departed from our present year 1988. I have composed that world with the thought that I shall construct it as one of the realities beginning from my own, that the world shall expand toward that direction, and furthermore it shall continue to progress even beyond space.

This time, in order to adopt it into animation with my own hands, before reorganizing the world described in my original work, I have been engrossed with the thought of wanting to make it a production full of speed and interesting actions.

Although I will leave the result to the judgement of all the audiences, I think it will surely become a work which will meet everyone's expectations.

Please enjoy.

Director Katsuhiro Otomo

Now, the story...

In the year 1988, Tokyo suddenly collapses under a great explosion of unknown origin ------ The story begins on a stage 31 years after that event.

Neo-Tokyo, the new capitol built over the filled-up Tokyo Bay, is full of noise and disorder even on this future date. The unemployed riot. Student demonstrators clash with police riot squads. And then the discontent of fellow hostile motorcycle gangs makes the noisy city even more noisy.

One of these motorcycle gangs is a group which KANEDA and TETSUO belong to. They are in the middle of a quarrel with their old enemy bike gang, the CLOWN, but in this scene Tetsuo understands that he is looked down upon by Kaneda and the other members. The distortion of his heart, which can be said to be the energy source of the super power Tetsuo is made aware of later on, is due to this inferiority complex.

Meanwhile, a new commotion occurs in the streets. A child is taken out from a super power research center (the lab) by a spy. Though he is called a child, his face is full of wrinkles like an old man's. There is a stamp of "26" on his hand. The people who possess super power are called "NUMBERS", and one of them, number 26, is TAKASHI. The spy is surrounded by the army and shot to death. Number 26 receives a shock from that and teleports along with a scream.

As Tetsuo pursues the Clown gang, a human form suddenly jumps in the headlight of his bike. It is Number 26 who has just teleported! Even the emergency brake will not do. However, before it hits Number 26, the bike Tetsuo is riding on shrieks a sound and explodes! Tetsuo is tossed onto the pavement, and Kaneda and others run up to him. And an army helicopter circles and lands before them, and MASARU appears from within. Aftering taking in Tetsuo and Number 26, the helicopter takes off and leaves Kaneda behind struck dumb with amazement.

The doctor at the lab knows that Tetsuo has the super-power quality, and he requests the colonel, the commanding officer, for permission to perform experiments on Tetsuo.

The next day, Kaneda is examined by the police, and, by pretending to be her companion, he helps a girl who is among a group of arrested demonstrators. She is KAY, a companion of the spy who brought Number 26 from the lab.

Unable to tolerate the pain caused by the experiments to extract his super power, (a pain which seems to be gauging out his brain) Tetsuo escapes the lab. Taking a young girl named KAORI who admires him, he steals Kaneda's bike and tries to run away from Neo-Tokyo with it. However, Tetsuo is discovered by the Clown gang hidden in the town's outskirts, and he is ganged up upon and beaten up. Just then Kaneda and others show up by following Tetsuo there.

The members of the Clown gang disperse in all directions, but one fails to escape. Tetsuo strikes this one to pieces. Kaneda tries to make him stop, but Tetsuo defies and says "don't order me!" By the strength of Tetsuo's sharp tone Kaneda is aware that something has changed inside the normally irresolute Tetsuo.

At that time, someone yells "AKIRA" and the voice peals forth at Tetsuo's head. At the same time Tetsuo's heartbeat increases, and an acute pain runs through his entire body!

In the world of AKIRA, a person with super power is one whose trievable super power is forcibly amplified through drugs; he or she is not a super-power individual who naturally and freely controls the power! Moreover, the drug is something like a narcotic. Through heightening the strength of one's power, the drug requires the next dosage to be changed to a stronger one. The scene where Tetsuo is suffering can be called a painful episode of a super-power individual who was made in such a way.

Tetsuo twists and turns in pain. And the lab staff, which closely watched Tetsuo up to that time, runs up to him and returns him back to the lab once again.

At a park in the night, Kaneda allows his thought to wonder over Tetsuo's sudden change. The sounds of explosion and gunshot can be heard by Kaneda. Kaneda, leaning forward, watches the course of events. The thing that he sees is the figure of Kay fleeing along with armed terrorists. Kay is pursued after by the army into a sewage drain, and Kaneda helps her again. Helped out of a crisis by Kaneda for the second time, Kay willingly takes Kaneda to the guerilla's hideout.

At that time, a great commotion occurs in the lab. KYOKO, Number 25 of the "Numbers", predicts that "Akira will wake up again.".

AKIRA- the ringleader who destroyed Tokyo 31 years ago with his explosive super power. A crater remains in the ground zero of the explosion, and he now continues to sleep inside a giant refrigeration capsule installed deep beneath the crater.

The colonel, who witnessed Akira's explosion when he was a young man, remembers how he shivered when he hears Kyoko's prediciton.

In the city, religous organizations that made the city their religion fuss about that they know where Akira will resurrect from. Even among the high officials of the government that controls Neo-Tokyo, that becomes a problem. The discussion which the colonel presents to get additional funds to the lab to prepare for Akira's resurrection continues, and the colonel's grave stand becomes more and more critical.

Tetsuo is again kept within the lab, and late in the night human forms and stuffed animals attack him. Kyoko and others foresees that Tetsuo will cause Akira to wake up, and that is a defense method produced by them. However that makes Tetsuo very angry, and that becomes the result in which they summon him to the bedroom where the Numbers live.

To Tetsuo, who now equips his body with the power to do damage such as destroying the door of a hospital room, something like making people explode is no problem at all. Tetsuo turns the guards into a clump of flesh slide and blood. Here the story reaches its mid-climax. Though he is frightened by his own super power that immediately heightened, Tetsuo is about to destroy everything that stands in his way.

Meanwhile, Kaneda infiltrates the lab along with the terrorist group, including Kay and others. They travel the underground sewage way, and what appear before them are the army's flying weapons, FLYING PLAT FORMS (F. P. F.). The combat action of these F. P. F.s flying about within the narrow sewage way is described well with tempo. Kaneda robs a F. P. F. and hurries to the baby room on the notice of Kay, who is controlled by Kyoko's telepathy. Kyoko tries to defeat Tetsuo with Kay's forces since she knows that he cannot be defeated by their own hands.

Tetsuo enters the baby room and tries the limit of tyranny. He knows the existence of Akira from Kyoko's telepathy. Kaneda and Kay dive into there! Tetsuo, whose personality has completely changed, plays with Kaneda with his super power and teleports him to outside the lab.

Tetsuo leaves the lab and visits the Snack bar HARUKIYA to ask for the drug the master sells in the darkness. YAMAGATA and KAI, who entered the shop after Tetsuo did, have their breathes taken away. The master is killed, and like a stranger Tetsuo greedily devoured the drug. And even Yamagata who draws closer to Tetsuo.

Imprisoned in the lab's detention room, Kaneda and Kay escape with help from Kyoko and returns to the motorcycle gang. However, Kaneda discovers that Yamagata was killed by Tetsuo, and he makes the determination to finish Tetsuo with his own hands.

Meanwhile, the colonel, fearing that Tetsuo would make Akira wake up, gives the entire army the order to attack Tetsuo. However, Tetsuo easily breaks through the army's defense lines and begins to drag the refrigeration capsule Akira sleeps in toward the ground with his super power. Tetsuo destroys the external shell of the capsule, giving rise to white cold air. Akira, which people are all making a fuss about, is supposed to be in the center of the capsule. However, the thing that is in there are "samples of Akira" stowed away in a case, including every part of his body such as brain and internal organs!

Kaneda arrives there carrying a laser cannon on his shoulder, and the fight between Kaneda and Tetsuo, a fight between dear friends and companions, begins. What becomes the nucleus of this work's drama is the friendship between these two people. In the very end Tetsuo is threatened by his own super power and begs Kaneda for help. The fight between the two people during the climax is worthy of notice.

Akira's samples become one because of the Numbers' super power, and they fuse to become the figure of a young boy. At that time, Neo-Tokyo begins to tremble once again.