To me anime is a lot different from regular cartoons you see on the disney channel. Akira pushed the envelope for what an animation could be beyond just the nice friendly family shows.

If you are looking for an animation with more mature content, this is it.

This is cyberpunk anime genre at it’s best from the late 80’s early 90’s. But don’t let the age fool you because it is done really well and people are still buying copies of this anime.

Akira defines what an anime should be about.

The story is about a bunch of street bike punks who live in tokyo japan. They get into gang fights, race their bikes because it’s only thing they have. They are dropouts and they have harsh lives.

But there is a war going on because of a revolution. There terrorists trying to get even against the corrupt government. There are all kinds of social ills and one of them is radioactive chemicals that are being used to make weapons to fuel the war.

Unfortunately the radioactive chemicals mutates some people and changes their biological nature.

The story is about how these punk kids end up getting involved with the government’s secret about the nuclear radioactive chemicals and how the protagonists of the stories lives change after some of them are exposed to the radioactive chemicals.