37 years of Akira and its lasting influence on contemporary pop culture

Since its release in 1988, Akira continues to stun global audiences with its themes, and here's why its impact and relevance remain undimmed.

Katsuhiro Otomo’s Akira, in its time, was a cultural detonation, a cyberpunk prophecy that still has a lasting impact on global pop culture. Set in a dystopian 2019, Akira follows Kaneda, a teenage biker gang leader, and his friend Tetsuo, whose accidental exposure to a secret government experiment unleashes catastrophic psychic powers. As Neo-Tokyo crumbles under Tetsuo’s uncontrollable abilities, the film deals with themes of rebellion, the dangers of technology, and humanity’s fragile balance between creation and destruction. The film's elements, from youthful defiance, consequences of unchecked power, and societal collapse, mirror the contradictions of our world even today. Even after 37 years, Akira continues to be a blueprint for numerous films, games, music, and inspiring pop culture that continue to wrestle with society’s fault lines. 

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Here's why the film continues to stay relevant even today:

A benchmark for the artistic potential of animation

The making of Akira is just as iconic as the film itself. With it being one of the most expensive animated films of its time, it reflects the ambition and forward-thinking vision of its creators. More than 160,000 hand-drawn animation cells were used to bring Neo-Tokyo to life, with the city’s design inspired by real architectural data to give it a gritty, lived-in realism. One of the film’s most impressive innovations was how it handled its nighttime scenes, making them seem like something that had always been difficult in traditional animation. During the film’s production, the team utilized 50 entirely new colors, expanding the palette to 327 shades, which allowed them to depict neon-lit darkness with surreal clarity and depth. This innovation didn’t just give us Akira’s iconic neon-drenched visuals, but also provided future animators with more tools and reference to deal with complex lighting, shading, and atmosphere, which can highlight urban and sci-fi settings. 

Apart from the animation, the score by Geinoh Yamashirogumi fused elements of Indonesian gamelan, Japanese noh, Buddhist chanting, and synthesizers to create a soundscape as intense and unearthly as the visuals. When it premiered in 1988, audiences were stunned by its technical and artistic scale, and decades later, the film continues to remain a benchmark for what animation could achieve, both visually and sonically.

The film's enduring relevance

While the production was groundbreaking, the real impact of Akira lies in its unflinching portrayal of power and its consequences. The film's narrative became a cornerstone for the cyberpunk genre and a template for storytellers exploring the deeper contradictions within society.

Neo-Tokyo, rebuilt after a mysterious explosion, later revealed to be caused by the psychic entity Akira, is a glittering metropolis masking corruption, inequality, and military overreach. The government’s experiments to harness psychic abilities reflect humanity’s reckless pursuit of progress, while Tetsuo’s transformation from a marginalized teen to a godlike force embodies the rage of the disenfranchised. At the same time, the elements of tension in Neo-Tokyo reveal a society so broken that some people turn to blind faith, praying for salvation and hoping that a higher power might end their suffering.

These plot elements resonate with us because of how they expose contradictions we continue to face even today. The promise of technology clashing with its potential for destruction, the empowerment of youth juxtaposed with their alienation, and the allure of rebellion against oppressive systems that often spiral into violence continue to sound similar. Akira forces us to confront these paradoxes, a quality that has kept its narrative alive and widely discussed in pop culture, becoming a template for films grappling with societal tensions.

A lasting imprint on contemporary pop culture

The film also marked a turning point in the global perception of Japanese pop culture, engaging Western audiences with anime on a massive scale. The impact was nothing short of transformative. While science fiction had already been a prominent genre in the West throughout the 1980s, Akira introduced a darker, more complex approach to animation and storytelling, bringing together dystopian themes with beautiful visuals and philosophical undertones. Its release in cinemas not only stunned viewers with its artistic ambition but also proved commercially successful, earning $49 million worldwide, which was an extraordinary feat for a foreign-language animated film at the time.

Not only that, time and again, it has been cited as a major inspiration behind iconic works like The Matrix. Its impact can also be seen in Cyberpunk 2077, Metal Gear Solid, South Park, Stranger Things, Rick and Morty, and even in the visuals of Kanye West’s music. Kanye West, in particular, paid direct visual homage to Akira in his music video for “Stronger,” recreating several of the film’s iconic scenes. Each of these has either referenced Akira directly or acknowledged its creative influence.

And of course, the iconic bike slide

This influence has extended to practically every crevice of modern culture. Few images in cinema are as instantly recognizable as Kaneda’s red motorcycle skidding to a halt against the neon-lit backdrop of Neo-Tokyo. That one scene single-handedly has built a cult following of its own. When talking about Akira's massive influence on pop culture, it feels wrong not to discuss the iconic bike slide, which has been referenced, reimagined, and paid tribute to numerous times ever since. 

What makes Akira endure isn’t just what the movie conveyed, but how loudly the world continues to echo it. In a time overflowing with content, Akira remains curiously untouchable and its relevance undimmed by time. With a story that was really ahead of its time, it always resurfaces in our conversations, often with more urgency. Us continuing to grapple with the questions raised by the film and it holding cultural weight even after 37 years, speaks of its lasting brilliance.

What makes Akira stand out to you among other anime classics? Tell us in the comments below! 

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