Considered a watershed title for the medium,[7] the manga is also famous for spawning the seminal 1988 cyberpunk anime film adaptation of the same name and the greater franchise.

Set in a post-apocalyptic and futuristic "Neo-Tokyo", more than three decades after a mysterious explosion destroyed the city, the story centers on teenage biker gang leader Shotaro Kaneda, militant revolutionary Kei, a trio of Espers, and Neo-Tokyo military leader Colonel Shikishima, who attempt to prevent Tetsuo Shima, Kaneda's mentally unbalanced childhood friend, from using his unstable and destructive telekinetic abilities to ravage the city and awaken a mysterious entity with powerful psychic abilities named "Akira".

While exploring the ruins of old Tokyo, Tetsuo Shima, a member of the bōsōzoku gang led by Shōtarō Kaneda, is accidentally injured when his bike crashes after Takashi — a child Esper with wizened features — blocks his path.

These increasing powers unhinge Tetsuo's mind, exacerbating his inferiority complex about Kaneda and leading him to assume leadership of the rival Clown Gang through violence.

After rapidly healing from his wounds, Tetsuo inquires about Akira and forces Doctor Onishi, a project scientist, to take him to the other espers: Takashi, Kiyoko, and Masaru.

The Colonel, desperate to find Akira and fed up with the government's tepid response to the crisis, mounts a coup d'état and puts the city under martial law.

Yamada learns that the city has been divided into two factions: the cult of Lady Miyako, which provides food and medicine for the destitute refugees, and the Great Tokyo Empire, a group of zealots led by Tetsuo with Akira as a figurehead; both worshiped as deities for performing "miracles."

Kiyoko and Masaru become targets for the Empire's fanatical soldiers: Kei, Chiyoko, the Colonel, and Kai, a former member of Kaneda's gang, ally themselves with Lady Miyako to protect them.

Yamada eventually becomes affiliated with Ryu and updates him on how the world has reacted to the events in Neo-Tokyo; they later learn that an American naval fleet lingers nearby.

After the Colonel uses SOL to attack the Empire's army, a mysterious event opens a rift in the sky, dumping Kaneda and massive debris from Akira's second explosion.

Otomo was often drawing Art Deco-styled skyscrapers on the title pages at this time, but that stopped when Neo Tokyo is destroyed in the story, at which point the logo changed again and he removed the "H" from his surname.

Otomo felt the sixth cover had to be cool because it was the final one, and as a result it went through the most number of rough designs as he had to really work to get Kaneda's line of sight towards the reader without it feeling forced.

For the back cover photograph, a life-size kiosk featuring numerous Akira goods was constructed in Kodansha's studio with cooperation from Sudo Art Workshop and a stage manager from Nikkatsu.

[6] Motifs common in the manga include youth alienation, government corruption and inefficiency, and a military grounded in old-fashioned Japanese honor, displeased with the compromises of modern society.

[22] According to Dolores P. Martinez, the serial nature of the work influenced the storyline structure, allowing for numerous sub-plots, a large cast, and an extended middle sequence.

[17] A five-volume anime comic version created using scenes from the film adaptation was published between August 29 and December 6, 1988, with newly painted covers by Otomo.

Otomo and Kodansha's Yasumasa Shimizu visited New York City in 1983 to meet with Archie Goodwin of Marvel Comics, who had seen Akira and wanted to publish it in America.

[25] Otomo did not want Akira to be seen as some "strange thing from Japan," leading to a meticulous and now-"unimaginable" process of altering the art and coloring to make it accessible to American audiences.

But the process was not as simple as mirroring, backgrounds had to be redone in order to remove the Japanese sound effects and reshape the word balloons to fit the Roman alphabet.

[25] Japanese manga is largely in black and white, but it was decided to fully color the artwork in the English version of Akira to match most American and European comics.

[35][36] In honor of the 35th anniversary of the manga, Kodansha released a box set in late October 2017, containing hardcover editions of all six volumes, as well as the Akira Club art book, and an exclusive patch featuring the iconic pill design.

"[73] The imagery in Akira, together with that of Blade Runner, formed the blueprint for similar Japanese works of a dystopian nature of the late 1990s, such as Ghost in the Shell and Armitage III.

[24] Yamada also said that "Otomo jacked into his generation's frustration with society, in the wake of the defeat of Japan's liberal student movement, and created an epic that, in true Japanese fashion, processed societal trauma through cataclysmic visual symbolism.

[75] In his reviews of the first three volumes of Akira, Mark Pellegrini of AIPT Comics strongly praised Otomo's art as "simple, but very lively" and called him a master at drawing architecture.

However, she called the characterizations weak and concluded that although Akira "does little to appeal to those who aren't interested in sci-fi, paranormal, or dystopian tales [...] manga fans owe it to themselves to at least check it out.

[78] While most of the character designs and basic settings were directly adapted from the original manga, the restructured plot of the movie differs considerably from the print version, changing much of the second half of the series.

These include test designs of the paperback volume covers, title pages as they appeared in Young Magazine, images of various related merchandise and commentary by Otomo.

[90] Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk-infused manga and anime works, including Ghost in the Shell, Battle Angel Alita, Cowboy Bebop, and Serial Experiments Lain.

[94] Bartkira, a fan-made web comic parody of Akira created by Ryan Humphrey, is a panel-for-panel retelling of all six volumes of the manga illustrated by numerous artists contributing several pages each, with Otomo's characters being portrayed by members of the cast of The Simpsons: for example, Kaneda is represented by Bart Simpson, Milhouse Van Houten replaces Tetsuo, and Kei and Colonel Shikishima are portrayed by Laura Powers and Principal Skinner respectively.

[105] In the original plans for the 2020 Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics Opening Ceremony, Akira was to be featured in order to appeal to Japan's "soft power" among youth.