Grant’s Reviews > Akira, Vol. 4 > Status Update

Bookended by immediate aftermaths of recurring devastation, this volume of AKIRA is pure escalation. Whether in its more meditative history or brutal violence, it's just horrifying and beautiful post-apocalyptic prophecy. Utterly riveting.

Increasingly disturbing and brutal turns, spiraling into oblivion... Tetsuo's hallucination on pgs 109-115 is especially horrifying. I don't have high hopes for Nolan's live-action adaptation at this point; I really would like to see a 13-episode series on the manga instead.

Much of volume 3 was devoted to character development of those only peripherally present in the movie, like Miyako, and that's carried into the more definitively post-post-apocalyptic environment in the final 40 pages of vol 3 into vol 4, beginning with the fanatics of the Great Tokyo Empire/Akira himself and ending (at the moment) with the depth of the bond between Kei and Ryu. Probably my favorite volume thus far.