Movies Like Akira

Frequently asked about Akira

Common questions people search for, with answers written by us at MoviesPack.

• What actually is Akira in the film?▾

  Akira was a young boy whose psychic powers grew so vast and uncontrollable that they triggered the explosion which destroyed Tokyo in 1988, setting off World War III. By the time of the film, his physical body has been dissected and cryogenically preserved in jars beneath the Olympic stadium, while his consciousness exists as a kind of latent absolute power. He represents the endpoint of the government's espers project: a being who evolved beyond human form into something closer to a god.

• Why does Tetsuo's body mutate at the end?▾

  Tetsuo's psychic powers awaken faster than his mind can control them, and when he stops taking the medication that suppresses them his body begins to expand uncontrollably to match the scale of his energy. The grotesque flesh-and-machine mass that engulfs Kaori is his power outrunning his identity, his ego literally unable to contain what he has become. Akira's intervention finally collapses him into a new singularity, suggesting birth into a new universe rather than death.

• Who are the three wrinkled children and why do they look old?▾

  Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru are Numbers 25, 26, and 27 in the same secret esper program that created Akira (Number 28). The accelerated development of their psychic abilities aged their bodies prematurely while leaving them childlike in size and mind, which is why they have blue-tinted, wrinkled faces. They fear Tetsuo because they sense his power is rising toward Akira's level and they know what that scale of power did to Neo-Tokyo once before.

• What does Tetsuo's final line 'I am Tetsuo' mean?▾

  After being pulled into the new dimension created by Akira's released power, Tetsuo's voice declares 'I am Tetsuo' as a new big bang unfolds. It implies he has been reborn as the consciousness or god of a fresh universe, finally in control of the power that was destroying him. The line resolves his arc from an insecure follower in Kaneda's shadow to an entity that defines its own existence.

• What is the Colonel actually trying to do, and is he the villain?▾

  Colonel Shikishima is in charge of containing the esper project and is one of the few people who remembers what Akira's power did to Tokyo. His coup, his pursuit of Tetsuo, and his willingness to use military force are all aimed at preventing a second cataclysm, not at seizing power for himself. The film frames him as harsh but ultimately the only adult acting with real responsibility, in contrast to the corrupt politicians and reckless scientists around him.