Akira poster

Akira (1988)

Film · 2h 4m · Rated R · In Japanese

Action, Animation, Anime, Foreign (non-English), Sci-Fi

Neo-Tokyo's gritty streets explode with relentless action as psychic powers create an epic, surreal nightmare.

Suspenseful. A late-night trip at full speed. Emotionally it is heavy.

Streaming on Crunchyroll.

Akira parents guide

Nothing past what an R promises: moderate sex and nudity, and brutal violence.

Scare
Mildly scary
A few tense or eerie moments.
Jump scares
A couple
One or two sudden jolts.
Gore
Graphic gore
Blood and wounds shown clearly.
Violence
Brutal violence
Our top level for violence.
Sex and nudity
Moderate
Moderate means a sex scene or nudity on screen, even brief, or sexual violence that is described or implied but never shown.
Language
Moderate
Some strong profanity, a few f-words.

How we rate: an AI reads what is known about each title and tags it 0 to 3; we check the tags against a hand-rated set and correct them by hand when readers tell us. Estimates, not a scene-by-scene review. Spot a mistake? Tell us.

Three questions

Is Akira scary?
Only a little. Akira has a few tense moments, nothing that follows you to bed.
How gory is Akira?
Graphic gore and brutal violence. If graphic gore is a dealbreaker, skip it.
What is Akira rated, and is it OK for kids?
No. It is rated R, with moderate sex and nudity, brutal violence, and some strong language.

What is Akira about?

A secret military project endangers Neo-Tokyo when it turns a biker gang member into a rampaging psychic psychopath that only two teenagers and a group of psychics can stop.

Does it have a happy ending? (spoiler-safe)

It leaves the ending open to interpretation.

Cast and crew

Directed byKatsuhiro Otomo
StarringMitsuo Iwata, Nozomu Sasaki, Mami Koyama, Taro Ishida, Mizuho Suzuki, Tessyo Genda

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Uses the TMDB API; not endorsed or certified by TMDB. Intensity, content, tone and pace tags are CouchRot's own.