Wow! Akira's animation is spectacular even now! its mind blowing they did this before digital technology was introduced. The plot is a little hard to grasp, but that was the only bad thing about it. Oh yeah, the new voiceovers in english are way better than the old ones.

You forgot to mention that the Japanese dub is unwatchable because some A$$ at Manga Entertainment forgot to put english subtitles on it. Well they put hearing impaired subtitles on, but for anyone with an ounce of inteligence this simply won't do at all and being forced to watch the English dub shouldn't either.

Also the dvd for disk one is simply the disk from the special edition repackaged with links to redundant features still intact. I wouldn't recomend this dvd at all, infact I would boycot Manga Entertainment until they fix this travasty. Is this what goes as acceptable for films of this stature today. Makes me weap.

I Rather the Japanese dub, even if it is on Hearing Impaired, Since Akira's lip syncing was done after the recording; something a bit of a oddity for anime, it means that each word matches the Japanese language perfectly, and therefore looks quite horrible when matched up to the english language.

The film is still brilliant, A lot of Manga covered; Emotion and thought is bought accross extremely well.

There are close too Zero anime fans who haven't seen this anime.

The story begins with just another Bike gang going out for a stroll and oddly enough get into a fight with another Biker gang. The Clowns. Tetsuo; best friend of Kanada, The leader of the gang. Had chased a few Clown members. Tetsuo finds a strange kid, apparently escaped from the Goverment.
Goverment helicopters soon arrive with spot lights shining everywhere, and climb down and and take Tetsuo with them, just before Kanada could stop them.

Kanada's and his gang get punished by the police and then by the school.

Shortly after Tetsuo finds time to escape from begin seriously examined at the Hospital and meet up with his girlfriend and run away, That didn't work out well because a few miles down the road the Clown's attacked them. Kanada arrives in the nick of time and Tetsuo gets annoyed Kanada's oh so great Leader status. Tetsuo begins to have Visions and painful headaches.

Back at the hospital and Tetsuo and having Visions of when he and Kanada was little kids playing together.

Kanada unsuccesfully tries to get to see Tetsuo in the hospital but gets found out; and explain to the people there that he wanted to see Tetsuo because of the friendship.

Kiyoko, The young boy met at the beginning of the movie visits Tetsuo and beforehand learned about Akira. Tetsuo is able to read Kiyoko's mind and find out that Akira is underneath the Olympic Stadium being built.

A flash of light appears in the nursery and when a few of the gang members arrive notice that the Bartender dead. Tetsuo harshly kills Yamagata because he thinks he is all powerful.

Tetsuo is now destoying Neo-Tokyo with his deep mind powers getting ever closer to the Olympic Stadium.

Kaneda, wielding a laser canon confronts Tetsuo and begin a fight of epic proportions. A powerful beam hits Tetsuo's arm. Now Tetsuo's imensely angry and flies into space and smashes down a Laser satallite.

Later that evening Tetsuo stays at the Stadium and his girlfriend finds him; by this time he has scrambled around and built himself a new arm; except it seems to be alive.

This so-called Colonel turns up asking Tetsuo if he wanted to go back to the hospital, but Tetsuo throws a few thousand rocks towards him in spite, The Colonel fires back and Tetsuo's arm starts thumping and turn into a massive blob wanting to destroy the Colonel.

Kaneda finds that he has a near perfect shot of Tetsuo but notices the Blob thats gotten so big it almost the size of the Olympic Stadium, By this time it has already consumed Tetsuo's girlfriend and is about to go for Kaneda.

The canisters break and Akira appears, starting another massive explosion. Kiyoto transports himself a long with the colonel far away.

Tetsuo starts to panic and screams for Tetsuo whilst being absorbed by himself. This time Kaneda allows to be consumed by Tetsuo.

Tetsuo gets bigger and bigger than finally destorys Neo Toyko.

Kaneda and the other members of the Gang survive; They drive past the Stadium on their stylised bikes pondering the question to themselves 'Is Tetsuo Truly Dead?' Then they continue though the city, in and out of the run down streets.

In the middle of absolutely no where a Big Bang explodes and a voice is heard saying "I am Tetsuo"

See if you can Truly understand the Legend of Akira now.

Akira was the first "grown up" anime movie that I ever saw, and it was a perfect introduction to anime! Easily one of my favorite movies of all time (if not my absolute favorite!)