Akira/Gameplay

Controls

 * : Use the direction pad to navigate each of the menus. In certain circumstance, you will need to guide a cursor around the screen, either to select something to examine, or to move the crosshairs during a shooting scene.
 * : Press the A button to select a highlighted command, or to examine something a cursor is pointing at, or to fire a weapon during shooting scenes.
 * : Press the B button to cancel a selection and return to a prior menu. B also allows you to dodge during shooting segments.
 * : Only used to start a new game, or continue a game using a password, from the main menu.
 * : Used during one of the shooting scenes to turn around to face the other direction.

Kaneda
Shotaro Kaneda (金田正太郎, Kaneda Shōtarō) is the character that you direct throughout the game. He is the leader of a bike gang known as The Capsules, and is the main protagonist of the manga and anime. Kaneda is childhood friends with Tetsuo Shima. Most of the action of the game takes place through his eyes as he tries to understand what's happened to his friend, and ultimately put a stop to him.

Tetsuo
Tetsuo Shima (島鉄雄 Shima Tetsuo) is a member of a biker gang and is the main antagonist of the story. After a near collision with Takashi, he rapidly develops powerful, psychic abilities. Tetsuo goes on a violent rampage in search of methods to improve and better control his new powers. Along the way, he learns of the mystery of Akira, and tries to discover his fate. Throughout the story, he reflects on feeling bossed around, and exhibits an inferiority complex. When he is injured and later incarcerated by the government and left helpless on his own, he takes on a corrupt and arrogant attitude, absorbed in his new powers.

Kei
Kei (ケイ Kei) is one of the main characters of the story. A young woman whom Shotaro Kaneda meets on his quest to find Tetsuo Shima. She is a member of an anti-government organization that Ryu and Mr. Nezu are also involved in. Initially believing Kaneda to be just another skirt chaser, she eventually sees past his come-ons and begins to trust his as an ally in her fight against the Army.

Kai
Kaisuke (甲斐), also known as Kai, is a high-ranking member of the Capsule gang, and is good friends with Shotaro Kaneda, and Tetsuo Shima. He acts as the most flamboyant member of the gang. After Tetsuo's second escape from the military hospital, he and a fellow gang-member, Yamagata encounter him by chance in the ravaged Harukiya bar, and he witnesses Yamagata's death at Tetsuo's hands. Horrified, he flees until he Kaneda and Kei come across him. He aids the pair in their final fight with Tetsuo.

Colonel
Colonel Shikishima (敷島大佐 Shikishima Taisa), typically referred to as The Colonel, is the head of the secret government project conducting research on psychic test subjects (including the Esper children, Tetsuo Shima, and formerly Akira). Although he originally appears to be an antagonist, the Colonel is actually an honorable and dedicated soldier committed to protecting Neo-Tokyo from any second onslaught of Akira. He is usually referred to by Kaneda as "The Skinhead", due to his distinctive crew cut.

Espers
The Espers are a trio of psychic children (Kiyoko, Takashi, and Masaru) who were a part of a secret government project designed to acquire psychic powers and use them for personal benefit. However, after Akira's demise following a devastating, psychic-based explosion that destroyed the original Tokyo, the project was terminated for at least thirty-one years and the Espers were kept in isolation to keep any information from being leaked. They wield a variety of psychic powers that are weak compared to those of Akira and Tetsuo, but are still strong enough to overcome a normal human being when combined.