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Akira [アキラ] #5
Akira, Book 5
This post-apocalyptic saga charts the coming of the creature known only as 'Akira', a power both feared and prized for its potential to shake the recovering world. The Great Tokyo Empire rises, but with technology's most advanced weaponry to hand, the planet is not taking the threat lying down.
416 pages, Paperback
First published December 11, 1990
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 380 reviews
December 14, 2020
As Tetsuo continues to morph into something more powerful and less human, the opposing forces begin to work their way to his and Akira's base of operations. Kay, with her true abilities now revealed may finally have to get involved personally! And Yamada's primary mission's is finally revealed when the Americans really join the fray!
Plus marks for the artwork and constructed reality, minus marks for the almost adolescent male dialogue and scripting! 6 out of 12. This (colour) volume collects Akira #25 - 30.
Plus marks for the artwork and constructed reality, minus marks for the almost adolescent male dialogue and scripting! 6 out of 12. This (colour) volume collects Akira #25 - 30.
August 23, 2018
2.9 stars.
More of the same. Ho hum.
More of the same. Ho hum.
February 15, 2021
"For my dead friends, and for myself."
***If you don't like plot spoilers for the previous volumes, don't read!***
Outline of the story: After another world-end-level of disaster (explosion, earthquake, tsunami, you name it) hitting Neo-Tokyo, survivors were pretty much abandoned by the Japanese government and a group calling themselves the Great Tokyo Empire is raising to power, who is calling the shot? Tetsuo, a teenager who had just found himself with overwhelming superhuman power, and Akira, a mysterious entity who outwardly looks like a 5 to 7 years old boy, who also has psychic power strong enough to destroy the whole world with a thought.
On the other hand, a small group of people vow to seek revenge against Tetsuo: Kaneda and the survivors from the biker gang.
My thoughts
I'm glad that supporting characters such as Kei (okay she is practically the female lead), Joker (leader of the Clowns biker gang) and Kaisuke have more roles to play in this volume.
I also like how Tetsuo's relationship with Kaori is written, and Akira! He is so emotionless yet childlike it's chilling.
As for the adults, the Colonel, Ryu and Lady Miyako are still trying their hardest to direct the events and the future to the direction they want. Plus the USA army is also sending in their own people? Oh wow, things are gonna to be spiced up a lot.
Looking back at this works from the late 1980s, it's still stunning to see author Katsuhiro Otomo puts his hope of both destruction and rebirth on the youngsters and the next generation. Somehow it feels like a protest against the corrupted older generation.
The youths in the story are mostly ruthless, reckless, raw and emotional while they hold power strong enough to destroy the world, but for some reason, it's beautiful to see them in motion.
As to the fact that the most destructively powerful being in the series has the appearance of a 5 years old boy, it just reminds me of the fact that the atomic bomb that destructed Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 is also called "Little Boy".
Review for vol. 1 https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
September 29, 2021
I am sad as this is going into the opposite direction of what I hoped for. To sum it up - most of Vol.5 is meaningless filler. First he builds up (starting in Vol: 4) side characters of the previous books, as the center characters take a step back or completely disappear. Now I assume after he realised that this is not going anywhere without the main character, otomo just cheaply inserts/writes him back in including his symbolic motorcycle, like nothing ever happened. I was applauding the choice to make us feel the impact of those “death’s” in the first place but hey.. lets just fuck the continuity.
Don’t get me wrong I love the world he created and also the originality but he made some big blunders here with the story and the plot. And to top it off, everything devolves into mindless action again…
I was glad to see other reviewers notice the same problems, as they are glaring and the rating here doesn’t reflect that at all. The changes the Anime adaptation has made, were not only needed but necessary and one of the rare cases that a movie adaptation outshines the Source material!
2.5 out of 5 stars
Don’t get me wrong I love the world he created and also the originality but he made some big blunders here with the story and the plot. And to top it off, everything devolves into mindless action again…
I was glad to see other reviewers notice the same problems, as they are glaring and the rating here doesn’t reflect that at all. The changes the Anime adaptation has made, were not only needed but necessary and one of the rare cases that a movie adaptation outshines the Source material!
2.5 out of 5 stars
September 9, 2018
BEST GIRL CHIYOKO IS BACK.
The situation is getting worse by minute and even an international conclave of scientists isn’t helping to solve the problem.
The military is in the way, as always.
Kaneda/Kay ship sails. What a beautiful scene.
Tetsuo is on the verge of losing it yet again, looking uglier than ever.
Akira takes a nap.
The situation is getting worse by minute and even an international conclave of scientists isn’t helping to solve the problem.
The military is in the way, as always.
Kaneda/Kay ship sails. What a beautiful scene.
Tetsuo is on the verge of losing it yet again, looking uglier than ever.
Akira takes a nap.
March 11, 2019
"We could collapse at any time during the battle...and to start all over then will be too late. If that moment comes, her youth and willpower will be our last fortress and redoubt."
The entire novel encompasses spoilers. I'll blow this one first. See the pic above? Surprise!
The novel has several elements and multiple action scenes. The American military drops special forces into Neo-Tokyo to meet up with their Commander already on the ground. Ryu has tried to resist them but they become allies.
A Russian ship hosts scientists involved in the experiments responsible for the incident. They gather to develop solutions. They reside under the efforts of the American Military.
Kei, Kaneda and Tetsuo all take part in the novel, so it heightened my interest. Kaneda, as usual, remains a comic relief in his bad-boy way. His first words to Lady Miyako, this highly revered and benevolent spiritual leader:
"So what's up, Granny? What brought you out of your hole?"
The Colonel reaches Miyako's temple with little Kiyoko, but he requires medical attention. He goes off again with Kei to retrieve a wounded and unconscious Chiyoko. They fight many crazy and intense battles to get there and bring her to Miyako.
I realized the shades Lady Miyako wears fit the cyberpunk template.
Kaneda and Keisuki run into The Joker, the former leader of a motorcycle gang and rival of Kaneda and his group. They become allies in the cause against Testsuo. Joker fixes up bikes and flying platforms, a valuable asset. Of course, Kaneda and Keisuki steal bikes from him to go after Tetsuo, against his firm wishes.
In the subway, as they ride through, Kaneda and Keisuki see Kei in a ghost of flame. She says nothing, only disappears when she walks through him. No explanation has yet been given after several incidents of this occurrence.
The Colonel meets up with Kaneda and Keisuki to continue the journey after retrieving Chiyoko and now carrying a wounded and unconscious Kei, both in a caretaker robot.
Tetsuo.
Oh my. Tetsuo.
He teleports to the ship after seeing an American fighter jet, storms into the chambers housing the scientists and the Commander. He speaks rationally and calmly and trashes the place after getting information, causing harm but no deaths. The little laboratory created demi-gods and Lady Miyako feel deep concern about Tetsuo's power taking over him and turning him into another Akira.
Tetsuo's manager suggests he manifest his power to claim the allegiance of the group in competition with Lady Miyako. He agrees. He flies to the moon and creates a crater that cause disasters all over the earth: floods and bombs falling from satellites.
Turns out Kei takes a center place in the hall of fictional heroes. She has the ability of the medium. Other people can use her to control and flow their power through her. Miyako needs her. The whole world needs her. They plan to send her to Tetsuo for what they hope will be a last battle to destroy him, taking over her with their supernatural abilities, but leaving her conscious and allowing her to flow in her own will and mind.
That's some pretty cool stuff right there!
As you already know, Kei reveals she has feelings for Kaneda. As you might guess, Kaneda flips out with flattery, at first, but then another side of him surfaces, showing a change in him, a strengthening of his character through the difficulties of the novel. I thought Otomo did well with this characterization technique.
Tetsuo tries to hide a secret. He has been deforming, becoming a sort of "freak," one could say. Perhaps that is what he believes. He keeps growing things on his arm. Sometimes his body disintegrates into other things, the mechanical objects around him. He teleports himself back to the ship and to find out what has been happening to him. They tell him his body can't hold the fullness of the power and grows into objects around him to sustain it.
Now he gets it.
Not a freak.
A superbeing.
So he becomes the ship, takes it over, blows up another ship, transports onto a fighter jet in the air, becomes one with the jet. Bye-bye jet.
When he comes onto the runway Kei stands waiting for him. She fights him as Miyako, Kiyoko, and Masaru speak to her mind, teaching her how to channel their powers while in the battle. The moment before Tetsuo throws a plane into her by telepathy, she opens her eyes in Miyako's chamber. The four of them sit in meditation. She had been there only in spirit.
Kei: I'm sorry...I let it all get to me...So many things happening all at once...
Lady Miyako: I understand completely, my child...but the next one will be for real...there's no time for rehearsals. You must learn as you go.
The entire novel encompasses spoilers. I'll blow this one first. See the pic above? Surprise!
The novel has several elements and multiple action scenes. The American military drops special forces into Neo-Tokyo to meet up with their Commander already on the ground. Ryu has tried to resist them but they become allies.
A Russian ship hosts scientists involved in the experiments responsible for the incident. They gather to develop solutions. They reside under the efforts of the American Military.
Kei, Kaneda and Tetsuo all take part in the novel, so it heightened my interest. Kaneda, as usual, remains a comic relief in his bad-boy way. His first words to Lady Miyako, this highly revered and benevolent spiritual leader:
"So what's up, Granny? What brought you out of your hole?"
The Colonel reaches Miyako's temple with little Kiyoko, but he requires medical attention. He goes off again with Kei to retrieve a wounded and unconscious Chiyoko. They fight many crazy and intense battles to get there and bring her to Miyako.
I realized the shades Lady Miyako wears fit the cyberpunk template.
Kaneda and Keisuki run into The Joker, the former leader of a motorcycle gang and rival of Kaneda and his group. They become allies in the cause against Testsuo. Joker fixes up bikes and flying platforms, a valuable asset. Of course, Kaneda and Keisuki steal bikes from him to go after Tetsuo, against his firm wishes.
In the subway, as they ride through, Kaneda and Keisuki see Kei in a ghost of flame. She says nothing, only disappears when she walks through him. No explanation has yet been given after several incidents of this occurrence.
The Colonel meets up with Kaneda and Keisuki to continue the journey after retrieving Chiyoko and now carrying a wounded and unconscious Kei, both in a caretaker robot.
Tetsuo.
Oh my. Tetsuo.
He teleports to the ship after seeing an American fighter jet, storms into the chambers housing the scientists and the Commander. He speaks rationally and calmly and trashes the place after getting information, causing harm but no deaths. The little laboratory created demi-gods and Lady Miyako feel deep concern about Tetsuo's power taking over him and turning him into another Akira.
Tetsuo's manager suggests he manifest his power to claim the allegiance of the group in competition with Lady Miyako. He agrees. He flies to the moon and creates a crater that cause disasters all over the earth: floods and bombs falling from satellites.
Turns out Kei takes a center place in the hall of fictional heroes. She has the ability of the medium. Other people can use her to control and flow their power through her. Miyako needs her. The whole world needs her. They plan to send her to Tetsuo for what they hope will be a last battle to destroy him, taking over her with their supernatural abilities, but leaving her conscious and allowing her to flow in her own will and mind.
That's some pretty cool stuff right there!
As you already know, Kei reveals she has feelings for Kaneda. As you might guess, Kaneda flips out with flattery, at first, but then another side of him surfaces, showing a change in him, a strengthening of his character through the difficulties of the novel. I thought Otomo did well with this characterization technique.
Tetsuo tries to hide a secret. He has been deforming, becoming a sort of "freak," one could say. Perhaps that is what he believes. He keeps growing things on his arm. Sometimes his body disintegrates into other things, the mechanical objects around him. He teleports himself back to the ship and to find out what has been happening to him. They tell him his body can't hold the fullness of the power and grows into objects around him to sustain it.
Now he gets it.
Not a freak.
A superbeing.
So he becomes the ship, takes it over, blows up another ship, transports onto a fighter jet in the air, becomes one with the jet. Bye-bye jet.
When he comes onto the runway Kei stands waiting for him. She fights him as Miyako, Kiyoko, and Masaru speak to her mind, teaching her how to channel their powers while in the battle. The moment before Tetsuo throws a plane into her by telepathy, she opens her eyes in Miyako's chamber. The four of them sit in meditation. She had been there only in spirit.
Kei: I'm sorry...I let it all get to me...So many things happening all at once...
Lady Miyako: I understand completely, my child...but the next one will be for real...there's no time for rehearsals. You must learn as you go.
October 10, 2017
This is an awesome volume five. Things are shaping up for a definitely explosive concluding volume. Now, for those who are wondering how much the book differs from the movie, my answer they are similar at some key plot points with a lot of differences. The manga definitely covers way more than the movie. Like, the movie happened for just days, while the comics spans for months. The scope is also larger in the comics .
I have read enough manga to see where this is going.
Yet without having read volume six yet and having watched the movie, it seems that both of them give a similar conclusion. I don't mind it really. Akira does not rely heavily on the reader's pay-off at the end, but really on each of its pages.
I have read enough manga to see where this is going.
Yet without having read volume six yet and having watched the movie, it seems that both of them give a similar conclusion. I don't mind it really. Akira does not rely heavily on the reader's pay-off at the end, but really on each of its pages.
September 26, 2020
Shit hits the fan. Some of the manga's best action sequences are condensed to the latter half of this volume.
May 23, 2019
I'm still ecstatic about what Otomo has decided to go for with this series. With the tone having suddenly changed last volume, this one combines the more in-depth storytelling of that one with the fast-paced action of earlier bits. It's creating a story worth calling epic.
Things get bigger, more dangerous and more dramatic. You can start to feel that we're heading towards a conclusion that is probably going to be explosive - and I am absolutely here for it. I am particularly enjoying Tetsuo's development here. His powers are becoming too much for his body to handle and its now trying to incorporate his surroundings to host it. It's creepy when he's accidentally starting to absorb a ship and he makes a great antagonist, because not only is he powerful, impulsive (never a good combination) and scary, he is also scared of himself.
Kaneda is back and he's less of a prick than he was in the beginning of the story. But maybe that's just because he gets a little less screen time than he used to. Works for me. Meanwhile I like to focus on how important Kei is, as a medium she has the ability to serve as a vessel for other people's powers which comes in handy for Miyako and her crew. I'm always happy about a strong female character, so I am absolutely here for it.
Kaneda and Kei having feelings for each other is also somehow sweetly conveyed, it's hinted at here and there, but since they are so busy fighting for the world's survival it hasn't been directly addressed yet. It feels organic and makes sense - just think of everything they have been through together up until now.
The only thing I feel is unnecessary is bringing other countries like Russia and America in. I guess it's to underline the grand scope of things, but to me personally these international relations are a bit to connected to actual historical events for me to not just feel stereotyped here. But it's a minor flaw that is also highly subjective.
Let's head for the finale. I am ready.
Things get bigger, more dangerous and more dramatic. You can start to feel that we're heading towards a conclusion that is probably going to be explosive - and I am absolutely here for it. I am particularly enjoying Tetsuo's development here. His powers are becoming too much for his body to handle and its now trying to incorporate his surroundings to host it. It's creepy when he's accidentally starting to absorb a ship and he makes a great antagonist, because not only is he powerful, impulsive (never a good combination) and scary, he is also scared of himself.
Kaneda is back and he's less of a prick than he was in the beginning of the story. But maybe that's just because he gets a little less screen time than he used to. Works for me. Meanwhile I like to focus on how important Kei is, as a medium she has the ability to serve as a vessel for other people's powers which comes in handy for Miyako and her crew. I'm always happy about a strong female character, so I am absolutely here for it.
Kaneda and Kei having feelings for each other is also somehow sweetly conveyed, it's hinted at here and there, but since they are so busy fighting for the world's survival it hasn't been directly addressed yet. It feels organic and makes sense - just think of everything they have been through together up until now.
The only thing I feel is unnecessary is bringing other countries like Russia and America in. I guess it's to underline the grand scope of things, but to me personally these international relations are a bit to connected to actual historical events for me to not just feel stereotyped here. But it's a minor flaw that is also highly subjective.
Let's head for the finale. I am ready.
March 22, 2023
4.5 Stars. Akira was originally published in the US in 38 chapters, later collected into 6 volumes. Vol. 5 is chapters 24-30.
What happens in this volume:
The Good:
- Kei and Kaneda: It's been a hard sell to convince me that these two should be together given how their relationship started but I've finally come around to it. Over the course of this volume it has become clear that Kaneda and Kei care deeply for and want to protect each other.
- Tetsuo's demonstration of power: Tetsuo certainly is a showman. Since weaning himself from drugs, Tetsuo's power is developing so fast that his power now rivals that of Akira. The artwork in this particular section was also really beautiful.
The Bad:
- Akira: This volume revealed that Akira's personality was obliterated when his power was unlocked and that he only exists as a vessel for the power at this point. While it's an interesting and tragic reveal, it doesn't align with Akira's reaction to Takashi's death. If Akira's is only a vessel why would he care that Takashi died? I'm not sure if I've missed or misunderstood something but this seems to be a plot hole.
- The Americans: What is even the point of these guys? The American military has been a presence in the story since Vol. 4 but they have yet to play any significant role. It's not their presence that bothers me, it's that they have so far been totally inconsequential to the plot so I'm not sure why they are even part of the storyline at this point. I don't believe for a second that they will be the ones to defeat Akira or Tetsuo. That likely rests with Kei, the Espers, and possibly Kaneda. I hope that there is something that happens in the next volume to justify their presence in the story.
As an aside, the recaps of the story so far that appear before each volume have been really helpful in keeping the details straight.
What happens in this volume:
The Good:
- Kei and Kaneda: It's been a hard sell to convince me that these two should be together given how their relationship started but I've finally come around to it. Over the course of this volume it has become clear that Kaneda and Kei care deeply for and want to protect each other.
- Tetsuo's demonstration of power: Tetsuo certainly is a showman. Since weaning himself from drugs, Tetsuo's power is developing so fast that his power now rivals that of Akira. The artwork in this particular section was also really beautiful.
The Bad:
- Akira: This volume revealed that Akira's personality was obliterated when his power was unlocked and that he only exists as a vessel for the power at this point. While it's an interesting and tragic reveal, it doesn't align with Akira's reaction to Takashi's death. If Akira's is only a vessel why would he care that Takashi died? I'm not sure if I've missed or misunderstood something but this seems to be a plot hole.
- The Americans: What is even the point of these guys? The American military has been a presence in the story since Vol. 4 but they have yet to play any significant role. It's not their presence that bothers me, it's that they have so far been totally inconsequential to the plot so I'm not sure why they are even part of the storyline at this point. I don't believe for a second that they will be the ones to defeat Akira or Tetsuo. That likely rests with Kei, the Espers, and possibly Kaneda. I hope that there is something that happens in the next volume to justify their presence in the story.
As an aside, the recaps of the story so far that appear before each volume have been really helpful in keeping the details straight.
October 3, 2025
To read *Akira, Vol. 5* is to stand in the heart of a storm that has no centre. By the time we reach this penultimate stage of Otomo’s six-volume saga, Neo-Tokyo has ceased to be a city in any recognizable sense. It is now a theatre of myth, a cratered stage where gods and monsters do battle, while the remnants of humanity either cling desperately to survival or surrender themselves to new cultic faiths.
If Vol. 3 was the moment of catastrophe, and Vol. 4 the eerie aftermath where ruins birthed strange allegiances and twisted faiths, then Vol. 5 is the escalation into something almost cosmic: here, chaos takes form, cults crystallize into movements, and the clash between power and humanity grows sharper than ever.
The story pivots increasingly around four poles: Akira, the silent boy-god whose very existence distorts reality; Tetsuo, the unstable prophet whose growing psychic power devours his body and mind; Kaneda, the irreverent punk who refuses to bow to gods; and the Colonel, the paternal soldier whose authoritarianism masks a desperate, even human, commitment to saving what can be saved. Around them orbit satellites of faith, violence, and betrayal — the children, the cults, the gangs, the scientists, and the ordinary survivors who will, as always in history, be the trampled grass when elephants fight.
Otomo stages this escalation not only narratively but visually. Vol. 5 brims with sprawling double-page spreads of ruins, cult processions, and psychic battles that resemble natural disasters more than mere fights. The architecture of Neo-Tokyo has all but disintegrated, yet Otomo’s draftsmanship remains precise, rendering every shattered wall, every fragment of wreckage, as if documenting archaeology. The effect is not simply spectacle but a visual rhythm: destruction as monumental art, chaos as geometry. Reading these panels, one senses Otomo is no longer only telling a story—he is staging a myth about the modern apocalypse.
Akira himself remains almost unbearably enigmatic. In earlier volumes, his silence was unsettling; here, it becomes weaponized. Akira does nothing, says nothing, and yet everything happens because of him. He becomes a god not by will but by vacancy. His muteness allows every desperate faction to project onto him what they crave—hope, transcendence, vengeance, salvation. The cult that blossoms around him is both terrifying and utterly believable. In ruins, people want certainty, and certainty often takes the form of worship.
Otomo’s critique of mass psychology burns sharp here. The Akira cult is not a caricature but an uncanny mirror of human history: the way religions are born in the ashes of despair, the way charisma (or in this case, sheer unknowability) can transform into divinity. Akira is a blank page on which the apocalypse writes its scripture. He becomes, in the truest sense, a symbol: of nuclear terror, of divine silence, of the void at the centre of power.
If Akira is the void, then Tetsuo is the fire. Vol. 5 charts his transformation into something both magnificent and grotesque. Already unstable from the psychic force coursing through him, Tetsuo’s body mutates in ways that are horrifying to witness. Otomo leans into body horror here—arms elongate, flesh swells, forms twist—and the effect is visceral. You can almost feel the pain of a body that cannot contain what it has become.
Yet Tetsuo remains achingly human. His addiction to power, his arrogance, his bursts of cruelty all mask the wounded boy still lurking beneath. He is tragic not because he becomes a monster but because he never stops being a boy while doing so. His bond with Akira deepens into something uncanny: not friendship, not rivalry, but a recognition between two beings who share godlike force but process it differently. If Akira embodies silence, Tetsuo embodies noise—chaotic, agonized, self-consuming noise.
In mythic terms, Tetsuo is the fallen angel, the Lucifer who flies too close to the divine and is destroyed by it. In modern terms, he is the revolutionary whose ambition devours him, the addict who cannot stop reaching for the next high even as it kills him. Otomo captures both at once, crafting a character who is as much symbol as he is story.
Against these godlike figures, Kaneda might seem almost laughably small. He has no psychic power, no cult, no aura of transcendence. And yet he remains indispensable, the irreverent heart of the saga. His recklessness, his humor, his sheer refusal to bow mark him as the series’ counterweight to deification. In a world where people are kneeling to gods, Kaneda stands, shouts, and fights.
His confrontations with Tetsuo are no longer merely personal but mythic. They become the clash of humanity against corruption, willpower against mutation. Kaneda represents the stubborn endurance of the human spirit, unenhanced, untranscendent, messy, flawed, and therefore real. That Otomo keeps him at the center reminds us that *Akira* is not about gods but about humans struggling under the shadow of gods.
The Colonel, too, deepens in complexity. His authoritarian instincts remain intact—his willingness to use force, to impose order—but they now feel less tyrannical and more desperate. In a landscape overrun by cults and psychic monsters, his insistence on structure reads almost as compassion. He cares for the children, even as he disciplines them. He clings to order not out of lust for power but out of fear of what chaos unleashes.
Otomo renders him a tragic figure, caught between necessity and tyranny. His paternalism is both his virtue and his flaw. He wants to save humanity, but he cannot imagine salvation without control. In him, Otomo stages the eternal paradox of authority in crisis: that the same hand that steadies can also strangle.
What elevates Vol. 5 beyond plot is its allegorical force. The ruined Neo-Tokyo is no longer just a setting; it is a symbol of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of Japan’s trauma with nuclear devastation, of the precariousness of civilization in the atomic age. The cult of Akira mirrors the way humans respond to trauma by creating faiths, systems, and mythologies that promise transcendence even as they demand submission. Tetsuo embodies the dangers of unchecked ambition and addiction to power. Kaneda embodies the refusal to bow. The Colonel embodies the temptation of order amid collapse.
It is here, more than in any earlier volume, that *Akira* becomes a story not just of Japan but of the modern world. The Cold War hangs heavily in the subtext: Akira as the nuclear bomb, Akira as the arms race, Akira as the silent force that nations worship, fear, and attempt to control. The body horror of Tetsuo recalls the mutation anxieties of radiation, while the ruins recall both Hiroshima’s ground zero and the fears of Tokyo’s vulnerability during the Cold War. Otomo universalizes Japan’s trauma, turning it into a myth for the late 20th century, a myth of humanity in the nuclear shadow.
None of this would matter without Otomo’s visuals, and in Vol. 5 they are operatic. The psychic battles are vast, rendered with kinetic precision that makes each explosion feel like an earthquake. The cult processions evoke medieval religiosity while looking entirely futuristic. The grotesque mutations of Tetsuo’s body are rendered in excruciating detail, making you recoil even as you stare.
Otomo’s mastery lies in rhythm: the way he alternates silence and chaos, emptiness and density, wide still panels and claustrophobic battle sequences. Reading Vol. 5 feels like being pulled through music: crescendos of destruction, pauses of dread, climaxes of grotesque revelation. It is not only a story—it is a symphony of apocalypse.
By the conclusion of Vol. 5, one feels that the series has transcended even its genre. It is no longer just cyberpunk, or dystopia, or manga. It has become a myth about civilization’s fragility, about how humans cope with devastation, about the dangers of worshiping either gods or power. It prepares us for the endgame of Vol. 6 not by tidying threads but by unraveling them further, leaving us with a sense that the world itself is mutating, and that the story has ceased to be about who wins and has become about whether humanity can survive at all.
To read *Akira, Vol. 5* is to stand at the threshold of apocalypse and glimpse both horror and transcendence. It is to feel the weight of history—Japan’s nuclear trauma, the Cold War’s shadow, humanity’s cycles of destruction and belief—channeled into the form of a manga epic. It is to witness characters who are both human and archetypal: Akira as void-god, Tetsuo as prophet-monster, Kaneda as punk defiance, the Colonel as tragic authority.
Otomo’s genius lies not in giving us answers but in plunging us into the ambiguity of power, faith, and survival. The cult is terrifying but understandable. Tetsuo is monstrous but pitiable. The Colonel is authoritarian but sympathetic. Kaneda is reckless but vital. Everything resists simplification, because everything is human.
At nearly 2400 pages across six volumes, *Akira* is a monumental achievement. But Vol. 5 may be its purest distillation of mythic force: the moment when destruction becomes allegory, when a ruined city becomes scripture, when manga becomes modern epic.
And when you close its final page, you do not feel resolution—you feel suspended in dread, awe, and anticipation. You feel the apocalypse breathing, waiting, about to spill into the final volume.
If Vol. 3 was the moment of catastrophe, and Vol. 4 the eerie aftermath where ruins birthed strange allegiances and twisted faiths, then Vol. 5 is the escalation into something almost cosmic: here, chaos takes form, cults crystallize into movements, and the clash between power and humanity grows sharper than ever.
The story pivots increasingly around four poles: Akira, the silent boy-god whose very existence distorts reality; Tetsuo, the unstable prophet whose growing psychic power devours his body and mind; Kaneda, the irreverent punk who refuses to bow to gods; and the Colonel, the paternal soldier whose authoritarianism masks a desperate, even human, commitment to saving what can be saved. Around them orbit satellites of faith, violence, and betrayal — the children, the cults, the gangs, the scientists, and the ordinary survivors who will, as always in history, be the trampled grass when elephants fight.
Otomo stages this escalation not only narratively but visually. Vol. 5 brims with sprawling double-page spreads of ruins, cult processions, and psychic battles that resemble natural disasters more than mere fights. The architecture of Neo-Tokyo has all but disintegrated, yet Otomo’s draftsmanship remains precise, rendering every shattered wall, every fragment of wreckage, as if documenting archaeology. The effect is not simply spectacle but a visual rhythm: destruction as monumental art, chaos as geometry. Reading these panels, one senses Otomo is no longer only telling a story—he is staging a myth about the modern apocalypse.
Akira himself remains almost unbearably enigmatic. In earlier volumes, his silence was unsettling; here, it becomes weaponized. Akira does nothing, says nothing, and yet everything happens because of him. He becomes a god not by will but by vacancy. His muteness allows every desperate faction to project onto him what they crave—hope, transcendence, vengeance, salvation. The cult that blossoms around him is both terrifying and utterly believable. In ruins, people want certainty, and certainty often takes the form of worship.
Otomo’s critique of mass psychology burns sharp here. The Akira cult is not a caricature but an uncanny mirror of human history: the way religions are born in the ashes of despair, the way charisma (or in this case, sheer unknowability) can transform into divinity. Akira is a blank page on which the apocalypse writes its scripture. He becomes, in the truest sense, a symbol: of nuclear terror, of divine silence, of the void at the centre of power.
If Akira is the void, then Tetsuo is the fire. Vol. 5 charts his transformation into something both magnificent and grotesque. Already unstable from the psychic force coursing through him, Tetsuo’s body mutates in ways that are horrifying to witness. Otomo leans into body horror here—arms elongate, flesh swells, forms twist—and the effect is visceral. You can almost feel the pain of a body that cannot contain what it has become.
Yet Tetsuo remains achingly human. His addiction to power, his arrogance, his bursts of cruelty all mask the wounded boy still lurking beneath. He is tragic not because he becomes a monster but because he never stops being a boy while doing so. His bond with Akira deepens into something uncanny: not friendship, not rivalry, but a recognition between two beings who share godlike force but process it differently. If Akira embodies silence, Tetsuo embodies noise—chaotic, agonized, self-consuming noise.
In mythic terms, Tetsuo is the fallen angel, the Lucifer who flies too close to the divine and is destroyed by it. In modern terms, he is the revolutionary whose ambition devours him, the addict who cannot stop reaching for the next high even as it kills him. Otomo captures both at once, crafting a character who is as much symbol as he is story.
Against these godlike figures, Kaneda might seem almost laughably small. He has no psychic power, no cult, no aura of transcendence. And yet he remains indispensable, the irreverent heart of the saga. His recklessness, his humor, his sheer refusal to bow mark him as the series’ counterweight to deification. In a world where people are kneeling to gods, Kaneda stands, shouts, and fights.
His confrontations with Tetsuo are no longer merely personal but mythic. They become the clash of humanity against corruption, willpower against mutation. Kaneda represents the stubborn endurance of the human spirit, unenhanced, untranscendent, messy, flawed, and therefore real. That Otomo keeps him at the center reminds us that *Akira* is not about gods but about humans struggling under the shadow of gods.
The Colonel, too, deepens in complexity. His authoritarian instincts remain intact—his willingness to use force, to impose order—but they now feel less tyrannical and more desperate. In a landscape overrun by cults and psychic monsters, his insistence on structure reads almost as compassion. He cares for the children, even as he disciplines them. He clings to order not out of lust for power but out of fear of what chaos unleashes.
Otomo renders him a tragic figure, caught between necessity and tyranny. His paternalism is both his virtue and his flaw. He wants to save humanity, but he cannot imagine salvation without control. In him, Otomo stages the eternal paradox of authority in crisis: that the same hand that steadies can also strangle.
What elevates Vol. 5 beyond plot is its allegorical force. The ruined Neo-Tokyo is no longer just a setting; it is a symbol of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, of Japan’s trauma with nuclear devastation, of the precariousness of civilization in the atomic age. The cult of Akira mirrors the way humans respond to trauma by creating faiths, systems, and mythologies that promise transcendence even as they demand submission. Tetsuo embodies the dangers of unchecked ambition and addiction to power. Kaneda embodies the refusal to bow. The Colonel embodies the temptation of order amid collapse.
It is here, more than in any earlier volume, that *Akira* becomes a story not just of Japan but of the modern world. The Cold War hangs heavily in the subtext: Akira as the nuclear bomb, Akira as the arms race, Akira as the silent force that nations worship, fear, and attempt to control. The body horror of Tetsuo recalls the mutation anxieties of radiation, while the ruins recall both Hiroshima’s ground zero and the fears of Tokyo’s vulnerability during the Cold War. Otomo universalizes Japan’s trauma, turning it into a myth for the late 20th century, a myth of humanity in the nuclear shadow.
None of this would matter without Otomo’s visuals, and in Vol. 5 they are operatic. The psychic battles are vast, rendered with kinetic precision that makes each explosion feel like an earthquake. The cult processions evoke medieval religiosity while looking entirely futuristic. The grotesque mutations of Tetsuo’s body are rendered in excruciating detail, making you recoil even as you stare.
Otomo’s mastery lies in rhythm: the way he alternates silence and chaos, emptiness and density, wide still panels and claustrophobic battle sequences. Reading Vol. 5 feels like being pulled through music: crescendos of destruction, pauses of dread, climaxes of grotesque revelation. It is not only a story—it is a symphony of apocalypse.
By the conclusion of Vol. 5, one feels that the series has transcended even its genre. It is no longer just cyberpunk, or dystopia, or manga. It has become a myth about civilization’s fragility, about how humans cope with devastation, about the dangers of worshiping either gods or power. It prepares us for the endgame of Vol. 6 not by tidying threads but by unraveling them further, leaving us with a sense that the world itself is mutating, and that the story has ceased to be about who wins and has become about whether humanity can survive at all.
To read *Akira, Vol. 5* is to stand at the threshold of apocalypse and glimpse both horror and transcendence. It is to feel the weight of history—Japan’s nuclear trauma, the Cold War’s shadow, humanity’s cycles of destruction and belief—channeled into the form of a manga epic. It is to witness characters who are both human and archetypal: Akira as void-god, Tetsuo as prophet-monster, Kaneda as punk defiance, the Colonel as tragic authority.
Otomo’s genius lies not in giving us answers but in plunging us into the ambiguity of power, faith, and survival. The cult is terrifying but understandable. Tetsuo is monstrous but pitiable. The Colonel is authoritarian but sympathetic. Kaneda is reckless but vital. Everything resists simplification, because everything is human.
At nearly 2400 pages across six volumes, *Akira* is a monumental achievement. But Vol. 5 may be its purest distillation of mythic force: the moment when destruction becomes allegory, when a ruined city becomes scripture, when manga becomes modern epic.
And when you close its final page, you do not feel resolution—you feel suspended in dread, awe, and anticipation. You feel the apocalypse breathing, waiting, about to spill into the final volume.
December 3, 2019
You can find my review on my blog by clicking here.
There aren’t many mangas that successfully changed the game as Akira did. This Japanese cyberpunk series written and illustrated by mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo from 1982 to 1990 has managed to open the eyes of many creators on the ways that a story could be told through this particular medium. With the release of the 1988 anime movie based on Akira, the visionary direction of mangaka Katshurio Otomo allowed his franchise to reach fans all around the world as they welcomed this masterpiece into their lives and allowed it to change their perception of visual storytelling. So far in the manga, the story has brilliantly evolved into a symbolic exploration of life through pain, destruction, and rebirth. While touching upon various ideologies, the story depicts a tragedy unfolding in the hands of children condemned to carry around a tremendous burden as they try to survive a fateful calamity.
What is Akira (Vol. 5) about? Following the catastrophic events that occurred in the previous volume, the story continues with the reemergence of the Great Tokyo Empire filled with insane zealots worshipping through fear Akira and Tetsuo, two of the most powerful beings with godlike telekinetic powers. On the horizon, other countries attempt to study the psychic chaos and destruction through scientific lenses, trying to figure out a military and technological approach that could stop this anarchy from expanding and growing with unbelievable consequences that could cause their world to see its end far sooner than expected. On the grounds, rebel legions look into their last resort, the ultimate key to defeating Akira and Tetsuo once and for all. If nothing is done in time, then the end is nigh.
It was hard to imagine where the story will go next, having explored religion and philosophy through the rise of a civilization and its pending implosion. However, mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo provides fans with a thought-provoking analysis of international warfare as it pits the American military and international scientific forces against the spiritual and occult forces of the Great Tokyo Empire. Inevitably, this leads us to discover the abnormal transformation of young Tetsuo who now embraces his abilities with open arms—pun intended—and quickly learns the intricacies of what he can now do to any material object around him. To complement this battle, the story also regroups several past characters together in an attempt to destroy Akira and Tetsuo by utilizing secret weapons with incredible implications. It’s once these characters made peace with what they had to do for one another that the volume ends on a cliffhanger where all hell will undoubtedly break loose in the final volume of Katsuhiro Otomo’s classic manga.
There’s no surprise when it comes to the artwork as mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo continues a phenomenal job in drawing with meticulous detail the characters and setting in this volume. From giant aircraft carriers to an Olympic Stadium, his visual style is a testament of his unmatched talents as a visionary creator. Through the art, he was able to highlight the epic scale of his story as he attempts to not only draw ground, sea, and air combat but to also go beyond the planet’s atmosphere and illustrate an impending majestic cataclysm. The emotions in this story are also cranked up as several characters realize the tight and unbreakable bond that they now have between each other, developed since the beginning of this wild adventure. Through the artwork, mangaka Katsuhiro Otomo was also able to showcase these emotions and emphasize on the power of friendship and love while reminding everyone that the greater good remains in saving the world from its end.
Akira (Vol. 5) is a thrilling and inspiring chapter in the chaotic and paranormal exploits of telekinetic superhuman children as science goes up against divinity.
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
_______________________
As thrilling as ever. Epic from cover to cover.
Yours truly,
Lashaan | Blogger and Book Reviewer
Official blog: https://bookidote.com/
July 1, 2024
Mais um volume absurdo de Akira, em que novamente, sou surpreendido e fico sem saber como os poderes do Tetsuo funcionam, cara hora ele surta e começa a fazer coisas diferentes. No momento, ele está perdendo o controle do seus poderes e está se fundindo as coisas, está bizarro.
Além disso, temos mais uma vez Otomo nos mostrando as questões políticas envolvidas por trás de uma bomba atômica, as richas de países, e como os imperialistas sempre tentam participar como forma de "ajudar" outro pais, mas na verdade está interessado na guerra e no lucro que o cenário de devastação gera.
Fiquei feliz que o Kaneda voltou e consigo trouxe um pouco de alegria e comédia para a trama, que estava bem tensa com todo o estado de devastação de Neo Tokyo e as suas facções.
Estou ansioso pelo confronto final no próximo volume.
Além disso, temos mais uma vez Otomo nos mostrando as questões políticas envolvidas por trás de uma bomba atômica, as richas de países, e como os imperialistas sempre tentam participar como forma de "ajudar" outro pais, mas na verdade está interessado na guerra e no lucro que o cenário de devastação gera.
Fiquei feliz que o Kaneda voltou e consigo trouxe um pouco de alegria e comédia para a trama, que estava bem tensa com todo o estado de devastação de Neo Tokyo e as suas facções.
Estou ansioso pelo confronto final no próximo volume.
September 22, 2022
Continuación directa del tomo 4 con algunos personajes clave volviendo a la acción después de desaparecer durante toda una parte de la aventura. En este tomo 5, Otomo se centra en la naturaleza del poder de Akira y lo que es capaz de desatar en el mundo.
Finalmente llegamos al final del camino y el enfrentamiento entre Tetsuo y Kaneda parece inevitable.
Finalmente llegamos al final del camino y el enfrentamiento entre Tetsuo y Kaneda parece inevitable.
December 9, 2019
[Comics Canon Review]
Before the saga reaches its finale in the next volume, the major players must all take their places for the big confrontations to come. This penultimate volume follows the different journeys the main characters take on their way to the climax.
It’s incredibly challenging to write interesting and engaging preliminary battles and conflicts like this, but Otomo accomplishes it all brilliantly. This volume also ties together most of the hanging story threads and fills in the remaining gaps in exposition. Kei has firmly and confidently taken center stage as the book’s actual protagonist (Kaneda is just a predictable, if charismatic, hot-head). Otomo also juggles the many different forces in play, keeping them urgent and mutually menacing while also orchestrating the complex plotting and characterization of a long and detailed story.
Sure, he’s had 1500 pages of practice with his ensemble cast, but wow, it’s really impressive to watch this symphonic “counterpoint” of complex characters and intricate subplots as they play out over and against one another. I expect the final volume will again show Otomo going full blast with nonstop action—for better or for worse. But in the meantime, this volume shows him at his most thoughtful, precise, and imaginative.
Before the saga reaches its finale in the next volume, the major players must all take their places for the big confrontations to come. This penultimate volume follows the different journeys the main characters take on their way to the climax.
It’s incredibly challenging to write interesting and engaging preliminary battles and conflicts like this, but Otomo accomplishes it all brilliantly. This volume also ties together most of the hanging story threads and fills in the remaining gaps in exposition. Kei has firmly and confidently taken center stage as the book’s actual protagonist (Kaneda is just a predictable, if charismatic, hot-head). Otomo also juggles the many different forces in play, keeping them urgent and mutually menacing while also orchestrating the complex plotting and characterization of a long and detailed story.
Sure, he’s had 1500 pages of practice with his ensemble cast, but wow, it’s really impressive to watch this symphonic “counterpoint” of complex characters and intricate subplots as they play out over and against one another. I expect the final volume will again show Otomo going full blast with nonstop action—for better or for worse. But in the meantime, this volume shows him at his most thoughtful, precise, and imaginative.
January 19, 2019
It finally all comes nicely together in this volume.
The cinematic style of the earlier volumes makes a comeback. The narrative flows smoothly and at a very nice clip.
The story is told coherently and is actually going somewhere now. Otomo also got rid of all the annoying stuff of the previous volume.
Kaneda is back and a little less annoying than before. Fortunately his reappearance doesn’t force Kei into the background. She’s still my favorite. But several other characters are finally starting to grow on me.
This volume clearly sets course for the final showdown. And there were some pretty cool scenes here.
The best of the bunch so far. And now I’m actually looking forward to the conclusion of this story.
I have a feeling it won’t be the Olympics though.
The cinematic style of the earlier volumes makes a comeback. The narrative flows smoothly and at a very nice clip.
The story is told coherently and is actually going somewhere now. Otomo also got rid of all the annoying stuff of the previous volume.
Kaneda is back and a little less annoying than before. Fortunately his reappearance doesn’t force Kei into the background. She’s still my favorite. But several other characters are finally starting to grow on me.
This volume clearly sets course for the final showdown. And there were some pretty cool scenes here.
The best of the bunch so far. And now I’m actually looking forward to the conclusion of this story.
I have a feeling it won’t be the Olympics though.
August 16, 2025
Che tavole pazzesche.
Pensavo di pubblicare una recensione riassuntiva al termine della lettura di tutti i volumi, ma non so se riuscirò mai a chiuderne la lettura. Non leggo mai fumetti per il costo proibitivo e per la difficoltà di reperirli tramite la biblioteca civica – mi pento di non essere mai riuscita a recuperare Akira prima d'ora.
Fantastica l'ambientazione post-apocalittica, tavole meravigliose e personaggi generati con una cura per l'individualità che non è semplice da incontrare, specie tra mangaka e tra la misoginia aberrante che parrebbe essere la prassi tra illustratori e scrittori – è presente, per chi avesse bisogno di trigger warning, un tentato stupro rivestito d'ironia, ma i livelli restano (per le mie sensibilità, sia chiaro) sostenibili.
È assurdo come il ritmo della narrazione scenda raramente, la tensione si mantiene costante e caricata, sequenze d'azione e guerra che, solamente negli ultimi due volumi, si spezzano per via delle molteplici fila d'intreccio, da recuperare necessariamente entro movimenti di cesura repentina, che forse rendono questo penultimo volume un poco meno elevato rispetto ai precedenti – nonostante ciò, davvero pazzesco.
Pensavo di pubblicare una recensione riassuntiva al termine della lettura di tutti i volumi, ma non so se riuscirò mai a chiuderne la lettura. Non leggo mai fumetti per il costo proibitivo e per la difficoltà di reperirli tramite la biblioteca civica – mi pento di non essere mai riuscita a recuperare Akira prima d'ora.
Fantastica l'ambientazione post-apocalittica, tavole meravigliose e personaggi generati con una cura per l'individualità che non è semplice da incontrare, specie tra mangaka e tra la misoginia aberrante che parrebbe essere la prassi tra illustratori e scrittori – è presente, per chi avesse bisogno di trigger warning, un tentato stupro rivestito d'ironia, ma i livelli restano (per le mie sensibilità, sia chiaro) sostenibili.
È assurdo come il ritmo della narrazione scenda raramente, la tensione si mantiene costante e caricata, sequenze d'azione e guerra che, solamente negli ultimi due volumi, si spezzano per via delle molteplici fila d'intreccio, da recuperare necessariamente entro movimenti di cesura repentina, che forse rendono questo penultimo volume un poco meno elevato rispetto ai precedenti – nonostante ciò, davvero pazzesco.
June 10, 2020
É duro ir no quinto volume de uma série em que só se aprecia uma personagem ultra secundária, abominando-se todas as principais.
July 25, 2019
Penultimate volume has lots to like. Good action and a solid setup for what looks like it will be an epic conclulsion. Setting us up for the Tetsuo/Kaneda showdown.
September 15, 2018
Some pretty flashy action in this one, but more of the same nonetheless. The romance between Kei and the protagonist seems forced and undeveloped. The conflict feels somewhat meaningless since we still don’t really know much about the world, the setting or have much reason to care about the characters.
So far, the action is the only thing that has kept my attention throughout the series, everything else is just kind of meh. The next volume is also the last which is disappointing. It doesn’t really feel like much progress has been made. Everything is still so vague to the point I really don’t care what happens. Maybe the finale will have a major turn around. Here’s hoping.
So far, the action is the only thing that has kept my attention throughout the series, everything else is just kind of meh. The next volume is also the last which is disappointing. It doesn’t really feel like much progress has been made. Everything is still so vague to the point I really don’t care what happens. Maybe the finale will have a major turn around. Here’s hoping.
February 12, 2019
¿Estaba preparada para esto? No. ¿Estoy preparada para lo que sea que esté por venir? Definitivamente no. ¿Estoy flipando? Sin duda alguna. Señor Otomo, de verdad que ya no sé cómo puede acabar esto, pero bien, seguramente no.
December 2, 2021
Mon personnage préféré c'est le soldat sans nom qui apparaît juste dans une case pendant que Tetsuo massacre le porte-avion et qui dit à son supérieur de pas lui crier après. Fucking légende ce gars-là.
March 6, 2021
1.5? I like that Kaneda is back but I don't like anything else?
March 11, 2022
Volumen de transición donde las piezas empiezan a encajar para afrontar el final de esta historia. Que me parece a mi que bien no puede acabar.
Un poco menos de acción que en los volúmenes anteriores, vemos a un Tetsuo debatiéndose entre mantenerse humano o ceder a un poder que poco a poco lo va engullendo. Los personajes evolucionan y entran en juego más variantes, los militares americanos, pero no sé que recorrido puede tener esa subtrama, si simplemente es un relleno para darle algo de acción a la historia.
Hay cosas poco explicadas aun, el origen del poder de Kei, donde estuvo Kaneda mientras estaba desaparecido y que consecuencias tendrá.
Deseando leer el sexto y último volumen para saber como termina todo esto.
Como siempre el nivel gráfico es insuperable, el nivel de detalle de todas las viñetas hace que puedas releer varias veces el libro y descubrir a cada paso algo nuevo.
Un poco menos de acción que en los volúmenes anteriores, vemos a un Tetsuo debatiéndose entre mantenerse humano o ceder a un poder que poco a poco lo va engullendo. Los personajes evolucionan y entran en juego más variantes, los militares americanos, pero no sé que recorrido puede tener esa subtrama, si simplemente es un relleno para darle algo de acción a la historia.
Hay cosas poco explicadas aun, el origen del poder de Kei, donde estuvo Kaneda mientras estaba desaparecido y que consecuencias tendrá.
Deseando leer el sexto y último volumen para saber como termina todo esto.
Como siempre el nivel gráfico es insuperable, el nivel de detalle de todas las viñetas hace que puedas releer varias veces el libro y descubrir a cada paso algo nuevo.
December 26, 2020
No estoy segura de si Kay sobreviva, pero al menos regresa alguien importante.
June 9, 2024
Yep. Still a masterpiece.
April 1, 2024
This is my review of the entirety of the Akira manga.
The classic film Akira has been uttered by the lips of most every anime fan. However those who have read the manga are in a shrinking minority. With any adaptation (especially if you consider yourself a writer) it’s really important to absorb both and look at what was selected and condensed for the adaptation. The manga of Akira has an intense, gripping and action-heavy plot, and much of the movie summarizes the comic very well. However the movie is condensed for characterization’s sake, and leaves out certain details that made the plot make more sense in the manga.
Otomo loves both setting and action, as both are illustrated throughout the manga with care and prowess. All of the praise that this manga has received since it was published is well deserved. Setting the standard isn’t easy, and I would argue that Otomo not only builds to the art style of older manga but also takes on a unique style of his own (foreheads and all). He displays the chaos of Neo-Tokyo so well and even when the action calms down or speeds up you still know exactly where you are. Nothing is spared and every panel is filled as it needs to be. The art never looks to bedazzle you, but when Otomo wants to express the hugeness of a scene and the breadth of every event, it pulls off a sense of colossal dread that makes the story altogether incredibly memorable, terrifying, and human.
The plot of the manga is a deeply engaging stream of events that grabs you by the shirt collar and never really lets go. It takes enough twists and turns to keep the tension high but still stays linear and focused in every volume despite the chaos. The sequence of events in the manga is exactly that, while the movie’s plot is much more all over the place. You always know where you are and why you’re there with the characters in the manga, and it remains exciting because they’re always subjected to the whim of this unknown power.
The characters in the manga are more catalysts for moving setpieces than they are invested back stories and experiences. One thing that I mentioned in my film review is that Kaneda and Tetsuo’s relationship is the primary focus of the movie, and it made the two of them the most interesting part of the story due to their entwined pasts. The bike scene and the buildup given to Tetsuo throughout the film make him a much more compelling character to watch then read. His inferiority complex is his ignition switch in the manga too, but his intent is all over the place to the point where he is rabid with power and exists to move the plot rather than be analyzed.
The other children subjected to the experiments are important but particularly underwhelming, especially Akira himself. They always felt like the reason why the events effect the main characters like Kei, Kaneda and the Colonel instead of unique individuals. However, I would say the parts of the story involving Kei, Chihiro and Lady Miyako were the most compelling character moments in the series. Their intertwined stories show care and revolution for the future along with a mild journey of self-discovery for Kei, and I found that subplot to be the most interesting.
Overall, read it! Experience it knowing that your viewing of the movie will be a different story entirely. It’s really difficult to adapt a manga of this length into anything shorter than a 26-episode show, so the fact that many of the important images and ideas from the manga were adapted to the film is impressive. Both are impressive and impactful stories although I will say I like what the music and the characterization do for the movie more than the manga. But the printed story clears up so many details that the movie lacks. Both experiences are deeply moving and terrifying stories of human potential and impactful works of sequential art important to pop culture.
The classic film Akira has been uttered by the lips of most every anime fan. However those who have read the manga are in a shrinking minority. With any adaptation (especially if you consider yourself a writer) it’s really important to absorb both and look at what was selected and condensed for the adaptation. The manga of Akira has an intense, gripping and action-heavy plot, and much of the movie summarizes the comic very well. However the movie is condensed for characterization’s sake, and leaves out certain details that made the plot make more sense in the manga.
Otomo loves both setting and action, as both are illustrated throughout the manga with care and prowess. All of the praise that this manga has received since it was published is well deserved. Setting the standard isn’t easy, and I would argue that Otomo not only builds to the art style of older manga but also takes on a unique style of his own (foreheads and all). He displays the chaos of Neo-Tokyo so well and even when the action calms down or speeds up you still know exactly where you are. Nothing is spared and every panel is filled as it needs to be. The art never looks to bedazzle you, but when Otomo wants to express the hugeness of a scene and the breadth of every event, it pulls off a sense of colossal dread that makes the story altogether incredibly memorable, terrifying, and human.
The plot of the manga is a deeply engaging stream of events that grabs you by the shirt collar and never really lets go. It takes enough twists and turns to keep the tension high but still stays linear and focused in every volume despite the chaos. The sequence of events in the manga is exactly that, while the movie’s plot is much more all over the place. You always know where you are and why you’re there with the characters in the manga, and it remains exciting because they’re always subjected to the whim of this unknown power.
The characters in the manga are more catalysts for moving setpieces than they are invested back stories and experiences. One thing that I mentioned in my film review is that Kaneda and Tetsuo’s relationship is the primary focus of the movie, and it made the two of them the most interesting part of the story due to their entwined pasts. The bike scene and the buildup given to Tetsuo throughout the film make him a much more compelling character to watch then read. His inferiority complex is his ignition switch in the manga too, but his intent is all over the place to the point where he is rabid with power and exists to move the plot rather than be analyzed.
The other children subjected to the experiments are important but particularly underwhelming, especially Akira himself. They always felt like the reason why the events effect the main characters like Kei, Kaneda and the Colonel instead of unique individuals. However, I would say the parts of the story involving Kei, Chihiro and Lady Miyako were the most compelling character moments in the series. Their intertwined stories show care and revolution for the future along with a mild journey of self-discovery for Kei, and I found that subplot to be the most interesting.
Overall, read it! Experience it knowing that your viewing of the movie will be a different story entirely. It’s really difficult to adapt a manga of this length into anything shorter than a 26-episode show, so the fact that many of the important images and ideas from the manga were adapted to the film is impressive. Both are impressive and impactful stories although I will say I like what the music and the characterization do for the movie more than the manga. But the printed story clears up so many details that the movie lacks. Both experiences are deeply moving and terrifying stories of human potential and impactful works of sequential art important to pop culture.
April 22, 2021
Should be called "Where's Akira?" instead.
So we have a plot progressing at a snails pace, gazillion pointless side characters, stretched out shootouts between those characters and hordes of same looking underlings, a forced romance out of the blue and two actual panels of Akira looking sleepy or actually sleeping.
If I understood this correctly the plot now is that Lady Miyako advises Tetsuo, an unstable psychopath from the start, how to reach his full psychic potential (stop using literally tons of drugs, btw who and how makes these super-drugs after the collapse of society, destruction of military labs that produced them and complete lack of supplies?) and then in the next few volumes we have Lady Miyako actively working to stop Tetsuo before he reaches his full potential, because he's dangerously unstable.
They want to stop Tetsuo and at the same time use Tetsuo against Akira, who was released by Tetsuo who already wants to surpass Akira and I guess kill him himself. And there's at least 10 other groups out there who want to use Akira, stop Tetsuo, stop Akira and use Tetsuo and so on. My head hurts.
Also the drugs that made Tetsuo become psychic and develop his abilities somehow stunt his full psychic potential. Nothing makes sense.
This would be all explained better if any of the ever increasing pages of each volume were actually used for meaningful dialogue but all we get are angry grunts and platitudes from the protagonists instead.
It's exhausting and I feel like I need a little break to summon stamina for tackling the last volume.
So we have a plot progressing at a snails pace, gazillion pointless side characters, stretched out shootouts between those characters and hordes of same looking underlings, a forced romance out of the blue and two actual panels of Akira looking sleepy or actually sleeping.
If I understood this correctly the plot now is that Lady Miyako advises Tetsuo, an unstable psychopath from the start, how to reach his full psychic potential (stop using literally tons of drugs, btw who and how makes these super-drugs after the collapse of society, destruction of military labs that produced them and complete lack of supplies?) and then in the next few volumes we have Lady Miyako actively working to stop Tetsuo before he reaches his full potential, because he's dangerously unstable.
They want to stop Tetsuo and at the same time use Tetsuo against Akira, who was released by Tetsuo who already wants to surpass Akira and I guess kill him himself. And there's at least 10 other groups out there who want to use Akira, stop Tetsuo, stop Akira and use Tetsuo and so on. My head hurts.
Also the drugs that made Tetsuo become psychic and develop his abilities somehow stunt his full psychic potential. Nothing makes sense.
This would be all explained better if any of the ever increasing pages of each volume were actually used for meaningful dialogue but all we get are angry grunts and platitudes from the protagonists instead.
It's exhausting and I feel like I need a little break to summon stamina for tackling the last volume.
March 24, 2008
(I read Akira in one huge go over a weekend, so I will be cutting and pasting this review for all 6 volumes)
Akira is an epic work of science fiction sequential art. The storyline is complex and consistent. There is social commentary, ethical musing, and morality woven through an action packed storyline of science gone wrong. The "romance" portion of the story is believable as well. The two characters are drawn to one another over time, and the world doesn't stop for them to wallow in their newfound twitterpatedness.
The art is beautiful, especially the detailed cityscapes and technical drawings. The main characters were easy to recognize, regardless of their circumstances or outfits, which is not true of many manga.
My complaints about the work are small. The placement of speech bubbles, particularly when characters are shouting, was not always clear. The foreign characters were really just Japanese with funny hats on. The difference between Akira and Tetsuo at the height of their powers is never really explained.
I first became aware of the manga because I was a fan of the anime. The manga is far more complex and satisfying.
Akira is an epic work of science fiction sequential art. The storyline is complex and consistent. There is social commentary, ethical musing, and morality woven through an action packed storyline of science gone wrong. The "romance" portion of the story is believable as well. The two characters are drawn to one another over time, and the world doesn't stop for them to wallow in their newfound twitterpatedness.
The art is beautiful, especially the detailed cityscapes and technical drawings. The main characters were easy to recognize, regardless of their circumstances or outfits, which is not true of many manga.
My complaints about the work are small. The placement of speech bubbles, particularly when characters are shouting, was not always clear. The foreign characters were really just Japanese with funny hats on. The difference between Akira and Tetsuo at the height of their powers is never really explained.
I first became aware of the manga because I was a fan of the anime. The manga is far more complex and satisfying.
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