Akira

In 2019, Tokyo has been rebuilt after World War III. As the city prepares to host the Olympics, it is rocked by anti-government terrorism secretly organ-ized by power-brokering politician Nezu. Juvenile delinquent Tetsuo is out racing against a rival gang when he crashes his bike into a child with the face of an old man. He is swiftly taken away by the military, while his friend Kaneda allies with a cell of the terrorists to track him down. Tetsuo begins to develop psychic powers and discovers that he is just one of many experimental subjects in a secret government program to replicate Akira, the human bioweapon that obliterated Tokyo in 1988. Tetsuo escapes to the Olympic stadium, where the remains of Akira are kept in a hidden chamber. Losing control of his powers and absorbing several of his colleagues, Tetsuo causes the return of Akira and a second destruction of Tokyo. Kaneda is one of the survivors, while Tetsuo absconds to create his own universe.

Adapted from the early part of the long-running manga by director Otomo, Akira is almost singlehandedly responsible for the early 1990s boom in anime in the English language. Echoes of the seminal Blade Runner are undeniable (the film is even set in the same year), but Akira owes less to an alleged "cyberpunk" sensibility than it does to the young Otomo's perspective on 1960s counterculture-rioting students, crazed biker gangs, and corporate intrigue. The military conspiracy in Akira carries elements of the 1963 live-action film Japan's Longest Day, while other themes include the wartime Unit 731 human guinea pigs and nuclear contamination covered more directly in Barefoot Gen. Even the Olympic stadium is a historical marker-Tokyo was due to host the games in 1940 but only got to do so after postwar reconstruction in 1964. In many ways, Akira is also a retelling of Otomo's Fireball, an unfinished 1979 story about scientists fighting terrorists for control of an apocalyptic energy source.

Akira was a visual tour-de-force, including experiments in digital and analog animation that were to stun audiences worldwide, enjoying greater success abroad than in its country of origin. With a production budget that ran wildly out of control, it was defeated by its very success-few of its lower-budget imitators compare favorably and Western distributors have difficulty replicating its success. In 2001, Akira was re-released with a new dub, closer in meaning and tone to the original Japanese version.