In this breakthrough anime masterwork, Akira starts out in 1988, much of Tokyo is destroyed by a mysterious that spreads like a dome of energy over the city. The rest of the film is set in the year 2019, as we peek into the post-apocalyptic megalopolis that has been rebuilt as Neo-Tokyo, where the government is corrupt, civil unrest looms large, and biker gangs run the streets. One member of such a biker gang is Tetsuo Shima, who ends up seemingly running into an escapee from a government experiment who uses some sort of powers to protect himself from getting run over. The escapee is taken back into custody, as is Tetsuo, who also becomes part of the experiment to bring out his dormant psychic abilities, trying to give their subject the ability to read minds and perform telekinesis. However, due to Tetsuo's difficult life, the powers he attains becomes more than the less-than-grounded lad can handle emotionally, so he springs himself from the lab and begins to wreak havoc on the streets of Neo-Tokyo, on a search for the powerful but absent entity known as Akira, who is seen as the person responsible for causing the explosion in 1988.  Tetsuo's emergence raises the specter of Akira anew, as the protestors in the city see him as a force to stem the tide of a military takeover, with all of the tension threatening to destroy the city all over again if his friends can't stop the rampage.  As the city seeks to rebuild, especially in the wake of the upcoming 2020 Olympic Games, the problems that once plagued the city have continued to manifest, with history doomed to repeat itself for never addressing the woes the first time around.