The saga of AKIRA keeps marching on in this, the second volume of the series.
After the battle between the unified motorcycle gangs and the Clown gang led by the super powered Tetsuo, the military shows up to find Tetsuo being overwhelmed by his growing powers. In exchange for drugs that will help control his powers, Tetsuo agrees to go with the military so that they can study him. Also taken by the military back to their headquarters as prisoners are gang leader (and Tetsuo's ex-best friend) Kaneda, as well as Kei, a member of an underground resistance force and the love interest of Kaneda.
Once Tetsuo is at the military headquarters, there are fears that even though he is complying with orders given to him now, he is actually quite mentally unstable and won't be so compliant for long. To complicate matters further, the three children who were already part of the governments project to study the development of psychic abilities fear that Tetsuo's power is so great that he will eventually replace them so they decide that they have to kill Tetsuo. To do this, they help Kei escape her guards then they take over her mind and use her as a vessel through which they can project their powers when they battle Tetsuo.
After an initial battle between Kei and Tetsuo, Tetsuo figures out that he is actually being attacked by the three children and he sets off with the doctor in charge of research to confront them. Meanwhile, as Kaneda is being escorted by armed guards to the office of the Colonel, who is in charge of the military and the project to study psychic abilities, Kaneda runs into Kei battling security guards. The two of them somehow get teleported to the building's armory where they find the only weapon that can harm Tetsuo, a laser rifle.
All this leads to a battle between Tetsuo, Kaneda and the three children in the nursery where the children live. During this confrontation, Tetsuo learns from the doctor the location of Akira (whose mere name is an obsession for him). After the battle, Tetsuo teleports out of the building and heads off to confront Akira, who is frozen and buried underneath a waste treatment plant near the site for the upcoming Olympic games. As the military rushes to the site of Akira's burial, they find out that Tetsuo has already beaten them there and Tetsuo's mere presence is enough to awaken Akira from his hibernation.
I have to say that so far I haven't been terribly impressed by AKIRA. It's not that it's bad, it's actually quite good, but it's not great. From all the awards it has won and rave endorsements it has received from around the world, I was expecting something a little bit better.
This volume of AKIRA is essentially a transition volume as well as a prelude to the eventual awakening of Akira. We are already finished with the first third of this saga and the two major questions I have about this series, which is why Akira caused the big explosion in Tokyo in the year 1992 and how did it lead to World War Three, haven't been answered yet. I'm assuming they will answered in a future volume... actually I'm hoping that they will be answered because that information wasn't in the movie and these are fairly big questions.
So, ultimately not much happened in this volume except for a fair amount of action and Tetsuo making contact with Akira. Also, there was one sub-plot that was concluded in this volume and the reason I bring it up is because it was a fairly insignificant one. In Volume 1 there was this brief fight between an agent working for the military and one of the members of the resistance force that ended in a draw, and in this volume they conclude their rivalry. What I found pointless about this was that even though the military agent helped Kaneda and Kei escape from the military headquarters, both the agent and the resistance member end up dying. It was just really odd to see actual page space devoted to this sub-plot between two characters that can't even be considered secondary characters because only one of them actually had a name and neither one had much character depth.
The only other real flaw I saw was that Kaneda, who can probably be called the hero of this series, has had almost no character development. Even characters that go by title of Doctor and the Colonel have more character depth. It was established pretty clearly in the first volume that Kaneda is a jerk, but with all that has happened to him and the people around him, you would think that his character would have grown a little bit. Kaneda has only two things on his mind: killing Tetsuo and getting into Kei's pants.
With all the problems I have with AKIRA is there anything I like about it? Well, it certainly isn't boring. This volume devotes most of its time to action and certainly keeps the series moving on. Also, it isn't bad to look at.
As I stated in my review of Volume 1 it's too early to judge how the whole series is going to be just from reading the beginning volumes. But as things are going, it looks like it's going to be a good series and only time will tell if it will be a true masterpiece. Also if you can't find Volume 1 and you still want to read AKIRA, at the beginning of this second volume there is a fairly lengthy and detailed rundown of the first volume
