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| “ | Kaneda, you've always been a pain in the ass, y'know. You've been telling me what to do since we were kids. You always treat me like a kid. You always show up and start bossing me around, and don't you deny it! | „ |
| ~ Tetsuo Shima to Kaneda. |
| “ | Tetsuo: KANEDAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Kaneda: That's "Mister" Kaneda to you, punk! |
„ |
| ~ Tetsuo Shima and Kaneda's iconic confrontation. |
Tetsuo Shima is the main antagonist of the 1982 manga Akira and the deuteragonist of its 1988 anime film adaption.
He is an emotionally unstable teenager who, after a bike accident, is kidnapped by the military and experimented on, developing psychic powers as a consequence, and getting corrupted by said powers.
He was voiced by Nozomu Sasaki (who later voiced K9999 in The King of Fighters) in Japanese, the late Jan Rabson in the Streamline dub and Joshua Seth in the Pioneer dub in English.
Personality[]
In the beginning of the story, Tetsuo was one of the youngest members of a motorcycle gang led by his lifelong best friend, Shotaro Kaneda, and was constantly frustrated with being seen as little more than an inexperienced "junior" member, weak and introverted. He was enthusiastic and rapturous about motorbiking, despite the frustration of not being able to "catch up" to his friends most of the time.
He is perceived both by himself and others, somewhat, as a runt, though this is not necessarily a correct assessment of his character. Tetsuo is also very stubborn and naive about the consequences of his actions, two traits that often lead him into unnecessary trouble with others.
Tetsuo was abandoned by his parents as a young child, this fact led to him developing an inferiority complex that was aggravated by his position as the "younger brother" of the group and Kaneda's bossy, albeit well-meaning attitude.
After being incarcerated by the government and developing psychic powers, Tetsuo begins to take on an extremely corrupt, arrogant, and degenerate attitude as he becomes more and more accustomed to his new found powers, seeing them as a tool to finally achieve the validation and authority that he always sought for himself.
In the manga, he seems to display a need for maternal figures, since he often forced his sex slaves to act as his mother, comforting him like he were still a small child. He later develops romantic feelings for one of his sex slaves named Kaori, who reciprocates his feelings and serves as one of the few ties to his wavering humanity.
Biography[]
Film[]
One night, during a gang war with the Clowns gang, Tetsuo suffers an accident after almost hitting a young boy named Takashi. While the gang was arrested, Col. Shikishima took Tetsuo to a lab. They saw during this time, that Tetsuo was beginning to have intense powers.
After Tetsuo awoke, he ran out of his hospital bed and told his girlfriend Kaori to leave town with him. They unsuccessfully stole Kaneda's motorbike and are intercepted by Clowns members. When Kaneda arrives, Tetsuo goes nuts and admits that he won't always be on the receiving end. He then suffers extremely violent hallucinations about someone named "Akira" and is taken away by the government scientists. That night, Tetsuo was attacked and tortured telepathically by the Esper children, who used models and toys to try and kill Tetsuo.
Tetsuo's power greatly overtaking him, transforming his body drastically.
He then used his new powers to kill security guards, and staff trying to keep him from the Baby Room. After battling with the Espers and discovering the insanely powerful Akira, responsable for the destruction of old Tokyo, is kept under the city's Olympic Stadium, Tetsuo flies out of the building to find him. At the Harukiya bar, he kills the barkeep and then Yamagata. Tetsuo then began a rampage to find Akira as he kills soldiers, and destroys army vehicles, with many citizens of Neo-Tokyo believing Tetsuo to be Akira. Upon realizing Akira was dead, Shikishima decided to use the SOL satellite laser to kill him. With his right arm severed after a fight with Kaneda, Tetsuo sends the SOL out of orbit. He then retreats to the Olympic Stadium but begins losing his control over his powers. Eventually after Kaneda's arrival, Tetsuo mutates into a monstrous ever changing mass that slowly kills Kaori and almost kills the Colonel and Kaneda. Akira is then resurrected by the Espers so they can take Tetsuo with him in a massive singularity, annihilating Neo-Tokyo in the process, only leaving Kaneda, Kei, Shikishima and Kaisuke(a member of Kaneda's gang). Before the credits, you can hear Tetsuo saying "I am... Tetsuo.", as he ascended to a higher plain of existence.
Manga[]
Tetsuo's background is largely the same although unlike the anime after Akira destroys Neo-Tokyo out of a massive emotional trauma he founds the Great Tokyo Empire, a violent isolationist cult who uses psychic shock troops to kill external agents. Also Kaori is introduced as a sex slave brought to the now GTE's Prime Minister Tetsuo by his aide, The Captain. After experiencing a violent hallucination caused by telepathic contact with Akira's mind, Tetsuo decides to visit Lady Miyako for more explanation on the nature of his power; here Miyako gives him a detailed backstory for the government project that created the Espers and tell Tetsuo his substance abuse is restraining his power from fully developing. At the same time the Captain, fed up with Tetsuo's arrogance, takes full control of the Empire army and stages an unsuccessful attack on Miyako's temple, an attack in which Tetsuo opens a mysterious rift in the sky as he lets go of his addiction and unleashes his full power.
After this event, he attacks the American battleship housing a group of scientists tasked with investigating Akira's power, and stages a compulsory meeting at the Olympic Stadium to demonstrate his and Akira's power; the rally culminates with Tetsuo blowing a massive crater in the Moon, flooding parts of Neo-Tokyo. However Tetsuo's body cannot withstand such a huge amount of power being released in one instance, and starts mutating and fusing with various objects around him. After another attack on the American fleet, he returns to the Stadium to fight Kaneda's rebellion and the US reconnaissance team: at this point his body is switching on and off to a constantly mutating baby-like amoeba state.
Finally, he witnesses Kaori's death at the hands of his followers which leaves him devastated. Shortly after that, Tetsuo begins to mutate more rapidly over his controlled powers while Akira, under the influence of the psychic trio, unleashes a final explosion. This blast marks the end of Akira, Tetsuo and the remaining Espers, swallowing all of them in its wake to finally cancel out their powers during the explosion. Kaneda, who was earlier absorbed by Tetsuo, is taken to a higher plane of existence and sees glimpses of his friend memories. He is given a comprehensive explanation by the Espers of the nature of their powers, after which they tell him that they'll leave with Tetsuo. Kaneda is then able to leave this singularity and return just to see what remains of Neo-Tokyo after the final blast.
Gallery[]
Images[]
Videos[]
Trivia[]
- Tetsuo heavily inspired K9999 a minor antagonist from the The King of Fighters video game series. This ran to such an extent in K999's first few appearances that the two shared a voice actor and all of K9999's attacks were once named after Akira quotes.
- Todd Ingram of Scott Pilgrim vs. the World also seems to be inspired by Tetsuo to an extent. However, his mutations are based around vegetables as opposed to visceral.
- The mutation beginning with his right arm is often inspiration for similar descents into madness and out of control power in other manga/anime, such as Gaara in Naruto and Fused Zamasu in Dragon Ball Super.