Katsuhiro Otomo's core lies in the way he express and articulate. His delicate Mise-en-Scène is awesome as well, but 'how things are shown' are really important in manga and anime. It's usually called directing, and he showed innovation in this field. When you look at Otomo's works, it feels real. The liveliness feels different, and the character's facial expression moves away from being simply cartoon-like, and transitions into a more realistic facial expression. Akira is a work full of Katsuhiro's sophisticated direction.

Akira's irony of the silence during the huge explosion scene at the start stands out. There are several reasons to this, first of it being that it shows that sound arrives after the explosion can be seen, and at the same time if there was such an explosion that no one would have heard it anyways. I also think it's really great that it focuses on the result where everything is gone, rather than just a huge explosion.

The scene where Shotaro Kaneda stops his bike has inspired a lot of animators since then. He is showing exuberance with his directing. When Kaneda left the scene with his bike, the trail of light left by the bike again shocked people. The trail of light of a moving object can describe a sense of speed, and this was the first time this has ever been done.

The message presented in this work is destruction to start everything anew. Simply called creative destruction.
We anticipate new hope to bloom in the ruins after the destruction of Neo Tokyo, its society, and Tetsuo Shimata with Akira's power, which all had imperfections. After Tetsuo's death, the "white light" falling on Shotaro Kaneda's hand, and the professor's quote during the explosion of Neo Tokyo, "is this the birth of a universe?" shows that this work suggests to destroy the imperfect beings and start anew. Which at the time was very radical.

The work is set as in future, but it was Japan at the time that Katsuhiro criticized. He scoffs at the appearance of trying to pursue power once again without showing signs of change in Japan, as there was a precedent of failing in pursuit of power. That is why the main character is Shotaro Kaneda, a rebel in Neo Tokyo, and Kei, a member of the resistance. They are rebelling against the imperfect society.

Japanese Sci-Fi implies the perception that destruction and reconstruction circulate to some extent, but it is hard to understand why Neo Tokyo, a corrupt and slobby city, has to disappear, while it looked so beautiful. Of course if you look closely at it, it is more like a dystopia, but why would they make the city so appetizing with the lights and delicate descriptions? Because he draws imperfections so beautifully, Akira is hard to understand when trying to find the allegory of this work until the story structures and symbols are analyzed.

It is difficult to see what Katsuhiro sees positively and negatively, what kind of world he aims for and avoids. The protagonists look ugly and disgusting while the villains look and feel beautiful, so it is understandable why people see this work very avant-garde