Film

Akira

Name: Akira
Genre: Animation, Science Fiction, Action
Released: 1988
Cast: Mitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Taro Ishida, Mizuho Suzuki

Other titles called Akira: the 2016 film.

Cyberpunk
Action
Very dark

Akira is the anime that proved animation could out-spectacle live action, then buried that spectacle under grief, rage, and body horror. A biker gang, a psychic teenager, and a city eating itself alive — it's dense, loud, gorgeous, and genuinely upsetting in places. Best for anyone who wants their science fiction to hurt a little on the way to the fireworks.

TMDb rating

4.0

Should you watch it?

Watch it if you want a dense, hand-drawn sci-fi epic where the world-building is as thrilling as the motorbike chases, and you don't mind piecing together the politics yourself.

Skip it if you need every scene to explain itself, since the plot is sprawling and the dialogue often rushes past exposition, and two hours of dense mood can feel long.

What it asks of you: It runs just over two hours and rewards patience, with long stretches of quiet build-up and a crowded, fast-cutting visual style that demands your full attention.

Not sure? Find tonight's pick in a minute.

If you liked this

Ghost in the Shell1995

Another Japanese cyberpunk landmark, quieter and more philosophical, asking what a mind even is once technology can rewrite the body. If Akira's chaos hooked you, this is the meditative comedown, and it's just as gorgeous.

But It trades Akira's kinetic fury for long philosophical monologues; patience required, action is sparser.

Blade Runner1982

The Western cyberpunk touchstone Akira's designers were clearly staring at — same neon rain, same corroded megacity, same question of what's still human underneath the hardware. Ridley Scott's original cut is slow, moody, unforgettable.

But Glacially paced by comparison; if you came for Akira's velocity, this will test you.

Neon Genesis Evangelion1995

Giant biomechanical monsters, teenage pilots, and a government hiding the real plan — Evangelion takes Akira's fusion of trauma and apocalypse and stretches it across a series, ending in one of anime's most notorious meltdowns.

But The finale is deliberately, famously frustrating; expect philosophy and psychological collapse over closure.

Not sure tonight? Get a pick in a minute, starting from Akira

The wildcard

Something you would not have found on your own.

Carrie1976

Both are stories about a bullied teenager whose psychic rage, once triggered, becomes an uncontrollable force that destroys everything around them — Tetsuo and Carrie White are the same character wearing different decades' clothes.

Brian De Palma's prom-night horror classic is Akira's psychic-meltdown climax compressed into one girl, one gymnasium, and one bucket of pig's blood — and it's just as devastating.

But Small-scale and intimate where Akira is epic; the horror is domestic, not city-levelling.

Paprika2006

Satoshi Kon's fever dream about dreams leaking into reality has the same hallucinatory, city-warping visual imagination as Akira's climax, just funnier and stranger, with parades of appliances instead of tanks.

But Structurally looser and more playful than Akira; if you want stakes and dread, it's gentler.

Metropolis2001

A gorgeous, retro-futurist anime from Akira's own screenwriter, Katsuhiro Otomo, about a robot girl and a collapsing utopia — same DNA, same eye for disaster, filtered through 1920s deco instead of neon sprawl.

But Softer and more melancholic than Akira; the action is sparser and the tone more wistful.

Cowboy Bebop1998

Different genre entirely — space bounty hunters, jazz soundtrack — but the same generation of animators chasing that fluid, cinematic action and existential loneliness. Essential if Akira convinced you anime could be this cool.

But Episodic and moodier than plot-driven; some episodes are filler before the arcs click into place.

Chronicle2012

A found-footage American take on Akira's core idea: ordinary teenagers given power they can't handle, and one of them tipping into something monstrous. Cheap, sharp, and surprisingly moving.

But Much smaller in scale and budget; don't expect Akira's operatic city-wide devastation.

The Matrix1999

Akira's fingerprints are all over this — the trench coats, the slow-motion carnage, the sense that reality itself is corroding. If you want the Western blockbuster that took Akira's grammar mainstream, start here.

But More action-hero triumphant than Akira's bleak, bodily horror; the tone is fundamentally more hopeful.

Tetsuo: The Iron Man1989

Cheaper, nastier, and even weirder — a Japanese cult classic about a man's body turning into scrap metal, made the same year as Akira and sharing its obsession with flesh losing control of itself.

But No budget, no plot to speak of, just grainy 16mm industrial nightmare; not for the squeamish.

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki2007

Akira's Neo-Tokyo is haunted by an unnamed blast that flattened the old city — this documentary is the real history that myth is built on, told by the last survivors.

Steven Okazaki's documentary lets Hiroshima and Nagasaki survivors describe the bombings in their own words. Quiet, devastating, and the unspoken historical wound underneath every ruined city in Japanese science fiction.

But No spectacle, no story, just testimony; this is a genuinely heavy watch, not entertainment in any usual sense.

White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki poster

Sense82015

Swap Akira's psychic biker gang for eight strangers scattered across the globe, suddenly sharing each other's minds and hunted by a shadowy organisation — same premise, wildly different temperature.

The Wachowskis' sprawling series takes Akira's telepathic-network idea and turns it warm, global, and hopeful instead of apocalyptic, following people learning to trust a power they didn't ask for.

But Two seasons of slow-building melodrama before the plot really tightens; needs patience Akira never asks for.