Akira
Directed by Katsuhiro Otomo8.091%90%7.9
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a teenage biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by his best friend.
- soylentmattMarch 21, 2026This movie is gorgeous and is dripping with style, and clearly earns its status as one of the most important movies ever made. It's also dark and sort of oppressively melancholy. Obviously you should know that going in, but the movie opens with an violent fight between biker gangs in a cyberpunk cityscape that is SO phenomenal it is impossible not to feel some degree of joy watching it, but then the rest of the movie... As gorgeously animated as it may be... Labors as hard as it can to crush the joy out of you. The movie isn't paced with the sort of rising tension / heroes journey / whatever that I think most audiences expect. Instead it's kind of holding your head down underwater while watching the light blink out of your eyes like Shamu drowning his trainer by her ponytail. If that's what your into .. or, you know, you're interested in watching one of the greatest feats of filmmaking ever performed... Then this is for you.
- Peter BickfordAugust 17, 2025Groundbreaking Anime and hugely influential for sure. Definitely worth a close watch or two. That said, this American for one, would argue that it would be much improved by trimming about 30 minutes from the theatrical cut. Heck, were it possible, put together a 3.5 hour version for manga/anime completists; the current cut suffers pacing-wise from half-movie and half manga series.
Akira Trivia
Akira was released on July 16, 1988.
Akira was directed by Katsuhiro Otomo.
Akira has a runtime of 2h 4m.
Akira was produced by Shunzo Kato, Ryohei Suzuki.
A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a teenage biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath who can only be stopped by his best friend.
The key characters in Akira are Shotaro Kaneda (voice) (Mitsuo Iwata), Tetsuo Shima (voice) (Nozomu Sasaki), Kei (voice) (Mami Koyama).
Akira is rated R.
Akira is a Science Fiction, Animation, Action film.
Akira has an audience rating of 9 out of 10.
Akira had a budget of $5.7M.
Akira has made $49M at the box office.