Then we get a shot of Tetsuo destroying everything in his path to get to Akira. At the same time, Kaneda gears up with his laser rifle he gets and his iconic red bike. Kei, however, gets taken from the espers who try to use her to stop Tetsuo. Tetsuo, however, is already too powerful and destroys the army in his way and religious people following him. To go in deeper of the holy people, they are mostly a cult based around the idea that Akira was the second coming of God and worshipped him as so. So seeing Tetsuo destroy buildings with a yell made them think their god is roaming the streets as a calling. Though they follow Tetsuo, he ends up killing everyone including the military on a bridge battle which ends with no bridge. Kaneda is too late as Tetsuo gets to Akira. The only thing is the huge twist which was that Akira is “dead.” The only things kept in the vast chamber Tetsuo destroyed was Akira’s organs for testing. When Kaneda comes, he ends up putting up a good fight with Tetsuo before getting shut down from the disadvantage of not being a telekinetic wielder. Eventually, Tetsuo gets his arm blown off from a military satellite weapon which Tetsuo ends up destroying. Then he goes on to replace his arm with a metal prosthetic one. Tetsuo who was very much confused goes to them, and the espers follow him. Tetsuo brings along all of Akira’s body parts confused about what he’s found.
Surprising the military general follows too and explains to Tetsuo Akira has been long dead. Ever since the massive explosion which wiped out Tokyo in the final battle of World War 3. Tetsuo gets distracted from his girlfriend Kaori who was barely in the movie. He sits down in a throne-like chair and has headaches beyond belief. Which is all because while Tetsuo was distracted from Kaori, the espers were awakening or calling to Akira through his organs. Oddly enough Tetsuo ends up mutating and growing in size.
Which multiplies his body mass by 100 fold
and which was quite weird as it eats Kaori and the general. Last second Kaneda comes and here is where we see their care for each other show.
Though Tetsuo has killed his friend, girlfriend, all the chaos in Neo-Tokyo and abandoned Kaneda, Kaneda still cares for him enough to help him. So to “help” Tetsuo Kaneda ends up shooting Tetsuo with his laser rifle on his red bike which I’d say the first time around this was both a the most confusing and amazing scenes I have ever seen. Akira’s organs end up emitting a white light which is not just a calm lamp. It’s the same explosion which happened at the end of WW3. This explosion ends up eating up Tetsuo and Kaneda. Takashi as his last scene goes in to retrieve Kaneda and get him to safety. The movie comes to a close with scenes of Akira and the espers pre-experiments. As it is about to fade to black, we see Kaneda riding off with Kei on his red bike with the apparent last remaining biker gang member.
That is a whole lot of summarizing of a 2-hour movie which adapted a 2000 paged manga. As an explanation, I want to say I got most of my knowledge from a Youtube video explaining the metaphors in the movies. Tetsuo first off is the living embodiment of Tokyo’s rampant mutations due to radiation poisoning. He also shows rapid change from being the runt of the gang to the worshipped unstoppable being towards the end. The explosion at the end was not just an explosion but more of a result of a transformation of a being to god. Tetsuo essentially made his universe as did Akira, which represents Japan wanting to create a world of leaving behind their terrible past of WW2. The Colosseum was a literal representation of the Olympic stadium Tokyo holds that was present for the 1964 Summer X Games. Which shows the stadium also is a representation of the fast revival of Tokyo after the war. Tetsuo’s prosthetic arm symbolizes Japan’s integration of modern technology. All and all the entire movie was very much enjoyable aside from the body horror. I’d say the film has no deep meaning and is quite confusing, taking a few watches to understand what is going on. Through all of that, I can see why this 1988 anime film is still appraised.
I’d give it a solid 9.5 out of 10.