She was the fourth and final vessel to be completed in the four-vessel Maya class[1] and was named after Mount Akagi in Gunma Prefecture.

Akagi was the last in a series of 600-ton gunboats, which included the Maya, Chōkai, and Atago, built from 1885–1886 under the supervisor of the French naval architect, Bellard.

[2] Akagi was designed with a horizontal double expansion reciprocating steam engine with two cylindrical boilers driving two screws.

Well-armed for her size, she was soon rendered obsolete with the introduction of larger protected cruisers into the Imperial Japanese Navy inventory.

Command of the vessel was transferred to her navigator, Lieutenant Satō Tetsutarō, but Akagi continued to be pounded by the Chinese ship, with damage to her lower deck housing, and severing a steam line.

Hot steam cut off access to her magazine, and shells had to be hand-fed through a broken vent to reach her guns.

She was raised, and placed into service again, only to be sunk by a naval mine in the Seto Inland Sea off of Okayama Prefecture in January 1946.