[Anime] Katsuhiro Otomo's "AKIRA" — Why does the boy who gains power finally state his own name?
[From the YouTube "TMS Anime Official Channel"]
/ ©1988 MASH•ROOM / AKIRA COMMITTEE
Introduction: What lies beneath the "film of destruction"
In 1988, Tokyo is swallowed by a massive light swelling from its center. Thirty-one years later, Kaneda's red motorcycle races through Neo-Tokyo, covered in the lights of skyscrapers and advertisements. When thinking of director Katsuhiro Otomo's film "AKIRA," what might first come to mind is this overwhelming sense of speed and destruction. Streets shatter, armies are pushed back, and even human bodies lose their form. Cities, nations, and science all collapse one after another in the face of a power that cannot be controlled.
However,the person at the center of that massive destruction is not someone who was special from the beginning.It is Tetsuo Shima, a boy who ran behind Kaneda, admired his motorcycle, and was always helped by his friends. After gaining an unknown power due to an accident, Tetsuo repels the military, destroys the city, and overwhelms even Kaneda, who once protected him.The weak become the strong, reversing the fixed relationships. However,rather than setting him free, that power eventually causes his body itself to collapse from within.
And at the end of the story, Tetsuo's voice rings out.
"I am... Tetsuo."
The title of the work is "AKIRA," and Tetsuo himself moves forward in search of Akira. Even so,the name he finally states is not Akira, but his own. When re-examining the story leading up to this single line, from deep within the massive destruction, there emergesthe figure of a boy who wished to be recognized by others, yet could not bear to have his identity defined by the gaze of others.
The manga version of "AKIRA" began serialization in "Young Magazine" in 1982. In 1988, when the film was released, the manga version had not yet concluded. Katsuhiro Otomo used characters and settings that were still in the middle of serialization to restructure the story as a single film, giving it a different ending than the manga. Therefore, the theatrical version is not a short re-edit of the completed original work. It is another "AKIRA" that branched off in a different direction from the manga version, which continued to be drawn until 1990. In this article, while reading the film version as an independent work, we will also look at the meaning born from that divergence.
Chapter 1: Neo-Tokyo has already lost control
Neo-Tokyo in 2019 is a reconstruction city built on the ruins of the previously destroyed Tokyo. Skyscrapers line the streets, and the Olympics are scheduled for the following year. However, beneath that brilliance, biker gangs race on the roads, protesters and security forces clash, and politicians are caught up in power struggles. The military continues secret psychic research, and scientists observe dangerous rises in readings. Neo-Tokyo is not a city that has regained order, but a city that is barely performing a daily routine while covering up its collapse.
Symbolizing this structure is the Olympic stadium under construction. Beneath the place meant to celebrate the future,the body of Akira, who was involved in the collapse of Tokyo thirty-one years ago, is preserved. Neo-Tokyo has not understood or overcome the past.It has merely sealed away a catastrophe it could not accept underground and built a new city on top of it.The spectacle of reconstruction is built upon oblivion.
Under military control, there are also three psychics who were once subjects of the same research as Akira:Kiyoko,Takashi, andMasaru. Their bodies, which have aged strangely while retaining the appearance of children, show both the power granted by the research and its price. Takashi, whom Tetsuo first encounters, was one of those taken out of the facility by an anti-government organization. The three had their power etched into their bodies before Tetsuo, and they are beings who have lived in a place where the boundary between protection and surveillance is ambiguous.
The military believes it can manage the power, science believes it can understand it through numbers, and politics thinks it can utilize it. The religious crowd gives Akira the name of salvation, and the anti-government organization sees the possibility of overturning the regime. However, no one understands the entirety of that power.
Even so,people try to replace what they cannot understand with manageable objects. They restrain bodies, administer drugs, measure values, and assign names. However, classifying and understanding are not the same thing.What Neo-Tokyo has been sealing away may not have been just dangerous power, but the very fact that there are limits to their own understanding.
Tetsuo's appearance is not an event where a foreign object entered a stable city.It is an event where the contradictions of a city that was already broken from within were exposed through the body of a single boy.
Chapter 2: Kaneda who helps, and Tetsuo who is helped
Tetsuo's fate was changed by his collision with Takashi, who appeared in the old city during a conflict between biker gangs. After the accident, the military takes Tetsuo away along with Takashi and begins examinations and medication. However, to understand Tetsuo's change, it is not enough to look only at what happened after he gained his ability.There is something within him that had been suppressed even before the accident.
Kanedais a person who always protects his friends and is the first to rush to help if there is danger. He has no malice toward Tetsuo; rather, he feels a strong sense of closeness. However,the relationship where Kaneda is the one who helps and Tetsuo is the one who is helpedhas been fixed for a long time.While being protected provides peace of mind, it is also a repeated reminder of one's own weakness.
Early in the film, Tetsuo straddles Kaneda's red motorcycle. Kaneda tells him he cannot handle it. That is a fact, and not a remark intended to hurt his friend. Even so, it must have sounded to Tetsuo as if his position had been pointed out to him once again. What he desires is not just the motorcycle itself.It is to stand beside Kaneda rather than behind him, and to become someone who can move forward under their own power rather than someone who is protected.
There is a troublesome twist here regarding recognition. We confirm who we are by being recognized by others. However, we cannot decide for ourselves what kind of existence we are recognized as. Tetsuo wants to be recognized by Kaneda. Yet, he cannot bear to be recognized as a 'younger brother figure who must be protected.'While needing Kaneda, he tries to destroy the version of himself placed within Kaneda's gaze..
Perhaps what Tetsuo wanted was not simply to be stronger than Kaneda, but a relationship that could not be reduced to either protection or domination. However, he does not have the words for that. If he speaks of his weakness, he will be returned to the side of being helped once again. Even if he pleads to be treated as an equal, that desperation does not fully reach Kaneda. Therefore, instead of reshaping the relationship, Tetsuo tries to invert the hierarchy through power.
Having gained psychic powers, Tetsuo possesses strength that surpasses Kaneda for the first time. Neither guns nor the military can stop him, and he can even make the motorcycle he once admired his own. However,the more he tries to reject Kaneda, the more it becomes clear how much Tetsuo has shaped himself through comparison with Kaneda. If he can only prove himself by defeating Kaneda, then that self is still not free from Kaneda.
Simply inverting the hierarchy does not change the nature of the relationship. The power that was supposed to liberate the boy eventually becomes something he himself cannot handle, and it begins a new form of domination.
Chapter 3: What does 'Akira' refer to?
Having gained power, Tetsuo eventually begins to seek the existence known as Akira. To him, having learned the name at a military facility,Akira is both a power that surpasses his own and a clue to understanding the true nature of his abilities. In order to overturn the position defined by Kaneda and become an existence that obeys no one, Tetsuo heads to the Olympic stadium where Akira sleeps.
However,the name Akira does not settle into a single meaning within the film. To the military, it is a state secret that devastated Tokyo, and to scientists, it is a research subject demonstrating human evolution. The religious masses wait for him as a savior, and anti-government organizations look to him as a force to shake the regime. People speak the same name while projecting their own fears and wishes onto it.
Akira is already moving people even before he shows his face. In that sense, before he is a character, he is a name where the desires of the city gather. The state needs the name to manage a threat, religion needs it to wait for salvation, and Tetsuo needs it to deny the weak version of himself.
Here, the divergence between the film version and the manga version becomes important. In the manga version, which continued to be drawn until after the film's release, Akira appears as a living boy. After the collapse of Neo-Tokyo, a new order called the 'Great Tokyo Empire' is formed with his existence at the center, and the story continues to depict the process by which communities and power structures are born around a massive force.
On the other hand, what Tetsuo discovers underground in the film version is not a living boy. What is there are specimens of a body that has been divided and preserved at cryogenic temperatures. Even though the military and science can place Akira's body into a container, they do not understand what that power was.What is preserved is not so much the managed Akira himself, but the traces of a catastrophe that could not be understood.
Akira in the film version is absent as a personality who speaks for himself. That is precisely why everyone can project their own desires into that void. Akira continues to drive the story as a 'center of absence' that is given every meaning while being reclaimed by none.
Above ground, a crowd appears that worships Tetsuo as the new Akira. However, that title does not set Tetsuo free either. After rejecting the position of a boy protected by Kaneda, he is now given another position as a savior or a monster. The more power Tetsuo gains, the more his identity is determined by the expectations of others.
The closer he gets to the massive name of 'Akira,' the harder it becomes to see Tetsuo's own name.
Chapter 4: From a body that uses power to a body used by power
At first, Tetsuo's power appears to follow his will. He repels the soldiers who restrain him, overwhelms those who once looked down on him, and gains the upper hand even before Kaneda. Power is something that grants him the confidence and freedom he could never obtain before, all at once.
However, that power begins to destroy not only the relationships that bound Tetsuo, but also the relationships that supported him. With the death of Yamagata, a companion who had been running alongside Kaneda and the others, killed by Tetsuo, the confrontation between the two becomes definitive. For Kaneda, Tetsuo is still a friend he wants to save, but at the same time, he is the one who took his companions away. Saving him and stopping him can no longer be separated.
Having lost his right arm to the military's orbital weapon, Tetsuo draws in surrounding machinery and recreates his arm with his own power. His form, capable of compensating even for a missing body, appears to have transcended human limits. It is as if Tetsuo's wish to stand on his own, without being helped by anyone, has finally been realized.
However, the regenerated arm does not stop in the necessary form. The power incorporates machinery and rubble, causing his body to expand without limit. The boundary that separated Tetsuo from the outside world collapses, and it becomes impossible to tell where he ends and the surrounding matter begins.
What collapses here is not just the shape of his body. The very premise that we tend to take for granted—that our body is our own and follows our own will—is crumbling. Flowing into Tetsuo's body are military experiments, drugs, memories from his childhood, feelings for Kaneda, and a power that even he cannot understand. The body is not a closed vessel completely owned by an independent individual, but also a place where institutions, the past, and relationships with others are inscribed.
Tetsuo intended to possess the power. However, he gradually becomes a conduit for the power itself. The boy who was supposed to be using his power is inverted into an existence whose body is used by the power.
The same mistake can be seen in the military and the scientists. The military monitors the espers and suppresses them with drugs, while the scientists try to understand them by replacing them with numerical values. However, managing life and understanding its meaning are not the same thing. The more precise the numbers become, the more one might feel they have understood the subject. Yet, what spills out from the measurements continues to remain.
The expanding body even swallows up his lover, Kaori, who was nearby. She is one of the few people who knew Tetsuo from before he gained his power. When he hurts Kaori with his own body, the power is no longer something that protects Tetsuo, but something that takes away the very possibility of touching others.
And then, Tetsuo calls out Kaneda's name. The boy who refused to be the one being saved seeks the friend who once saved him from within his out-of-control body. This does not mean that the two have returned to their original relationship. Even so, the connection he tried to sever with power reappears the moment he can no longer possess that power.
Chapter 5: The Memory Kaneda Saw
When Tetsuo's body loses control, the three—Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru—call back Akira's power. Like Tetsuo, they are people whose bodies had power inscribed into them by state research. However, while Tetsuo jumped outside of management and went out of control, the three have survived for a long time within the confines of management.
The three are not superhumans who freely possess power. In their bodies, the time lost in exchange for their abilities is inscribed. What they choose at the end is not to defeat Tetsuo from the outside, but to enter the light themselves and take him to another place. That is also a response that can only be made by those who have been burdened with the same power.
Caught in the massive light, Kaneda touches fragments of the time that Tetsuo and the three have spent. The image of young Tetsuo, the children in the experimental facility, the loneliness left in their bodies. What is shown is not an answer explaining the mechanism of the power, but the memories of those who were made to carry that power.
Until then, for Kaneda, Tetsuo was a companion running behind him, and someone to protect when in danger. Eventually, he also became a monster that had to be stopped. However, both of these are images of Tetsuo captured with Kaneda at the center. Even though Kaneda thought he knew Tetsuo well, he did not know the inside—how much being protected had hurt him.
The feeling of 'knowing' a close person often arises from capturing that person only in relation to oneself. Friend, lover, family, someone to protect. While such labels support the relationship, they can sometimes make it difficult to see that the other person is an individual who has lived a time unknown to oneself.
Just because they touched memories does not mean the two understand each other completely. Yamagata's death and Kaori's death do not disappear, and the time that has passed does not return. Rather, what Kaneda is made to realize is that even a close person has a past and loneliness that he cannot reach.
What Kaneda encounters at the end is not the 'true Tetsuo' hidden inside the monster. Tetsuo as an individual other who cannot be fully captured as part of his own story. It is an encounter that arrived far too late. Even so, the film refuses to erase the time Tetsuo has lived, even in a place where the contours of his body have vanished.
Chapter 6: Stating 'I am Tetsuo'
At the end of the film, Tetsuo's voice echoes in the darkness.
"I am... Tetsuo."
It is a short phrase, but this self-identification encapsulates the entire story up to that point.Tetsuo has repeatedly had his position defined by others. As a companion protected by Kaneda, as a test subject managed by the military, as a numerical value observed by scientists, and as the new Akira worshipped by the masses. While each of these labels captures one facet of Tetsuo, none of them represent his entirety.
Tetsuo also tried to prove himself by being stronger than Kaneda. However, as long as he tries to become himself by surpassing Kaneda, his self-image cannot be free from comparison with Kaneda. The same applies when he tries to surpass Akira. The more he tries to gain his own outline by being stronger than others, the more Tetsuo needs those he compares himself to.
While aiming to be a subject that relies on no one, that subject was only ever established within relationships from the very beginning.
A name, too, is not something one possesses entirely alone. The name "Tetsuo" is a name that has been called by Kaneda and his friends.A name begins to function when it is called by others and one responds to it.A name is inscribed with past relationships that cannot be determined by one's own will alone.
Therefore, the words "I am Tetsuo" are likely not a declaration of a self-sufficient self that has severed all ties with others. Rather, it is a voice that has beenwounded by relationships, broken by relationships, and yet, in the end, attempts to accept the name by which one has been called within those relationships.
Moreover, Tetsuo does not state his name after regaining his body. It is after the boundaries of his body, the place where he exists, and even life and death have become unclear. He is not recovering a stable self and declaring it. In a place where all outlines have been lost, only his proper name remains as a single trace.
In that sense, this may be closer to a final response resisting annihilation rather than reclaiming a "true self." He is neither a savior, nor a monster, nor a replacement for Akira.Without being reclaimed by all the roles that have been assigned to him, the uniqueness of the individual named "Tetsuo" remains as a faint voice.
The film does not clarify where that voice is coming from. Whether Tetsuo has been reborn as another existence, moved to a new space, or if it is the consciousness left at the end that has spoken his name. A scene reminiscent of the birth of the universe is shown, but its meaning is not fixed to one thing.
However,after the massive name "Akira" that covered the entire story, the last thing that echoes is the name of one individual, "Tetsuo". It is not the name of a power that changes the world, but the name of the boy who was about to be swallowed by that power that remains.
Conclusion: What Begins After Destruction
After the massive light vanishes, ruins spread across Neo-Tokyo once again. The fact that the military and science could not control the power, and the conflicts the city harbored, have not been resolved. The ending of "AKIRA" is not a story where order is restored after destruction and life returns to the previous daily routine.
Even so, Kaneda begins to run through the collapsed city withKei, who was involved in anti-government activities, and Kai, his fellow biker gang member. Kiyoko and the others announce that something has already begun. Whether that beginning is hope or something leading to another catastrophe is unknown. The film does not depict the form of a new society, leaving only the signs of a beginning.
In this respect, the difference from the manga version is striking. The manga version, which continued until after the film's release, depicts the story even after the collapse of Neo-Tokyo, following the process by which power, faith, and conflict are reshaped within the community born around Akira. Society continues even after the catastrophe, and people try to create a new order around a massive power.
On the other hand, the film version closes the story before that order takes shape. The difference between the two is not the difference between a version that tells the same story at length and one that tells it briefly. The path of continuing to depict society after a catastrophe and the path of stopping just before something begins. The story of "AKIRA" branches into these two.
Neo-Tokyo tried to build a future by sealing past catastrophes underground. Tetsuo tried to become free by denying his weak self and surpassing others. However,neither the past nor weakness can be completely separated.One cannot possess one's body, power, or others exactly as one wishes. The existence of the self itself is likely not something that can be completed by one's own hands alone.
That does not mean, however, that we have no choice but to give up on everything.How do we respond when faced with something we cannot fully understand or control? That question connects not only to the state and science, but also to the relationship between Kaneda and Tetsuo, and to our own lives.
When we help others, are we not trying to force them back to a position we deem correct without ever listening to their voices? When we try to become free from weakness, are we not also trying to erase the past that includes that very weakness? While wishing to be acknowledged by others, we fear being defined by them. That contradiction is not Tetsuo's alone.
At the end of the destruction, what Tetsuo spoke was not a word of strength, but his own name. While depicting the collapse of the city and the body, 'AKIRA' leaves behind, at the very end, the name of one person who was hurt and lost within their relationships with others..
Perhaps a new beginning is not about remaking everything exactly as we wish.It is about responding again through one's own name, while still carrying a past we cannot fully accept and others we cannot fully understand. I believe 'AKIRA' leaves that faint beginning behind, beyond the massive light.