Akira takes place in Neo-Tokyo during the far future year of 2019, ravaged by gangs the government is struggling to control what remains of humanity, resorting to authoritarian methods and clandestine experiments. Pockets of resistance fighters are striking back, and the groups collide when Shotaro Kaneda and his best friend, Tetsuo Shima, lead their gang into combat and accidentally get wrapped up in a government plot centered on psychic powers.
Tetsuo is captured and experimented on, unleashing his latent psychic abilities that have the power to destroy what remains of Neo-Tokyo. 30 years earlier, Akira, with similar powers, destroyed Tokyo, prompting the resistance and the escaped psychics to try and prevent history from repeating.