Reading the second book in a series you started four years ago is a little trippy, but it's not all that hard to figure out what's going on. The edition that I have does have a helpful summary of the entire story up till this book, so it was a perfectly little refresher course.

Anyway, volume two of Akira is all action, back to back, front to back, first page to the last. Unlike the first volume, which took its time to build up the characters and the city (as a character), this time it is all about Tetsuo being dead set on finding/meeting Akira, and everybody else trying to stop him.

Needless to say, the art is gorgeous on the page. Destruction has never looked better in a comic book, and Otomo's lines is as close to disaster porn as possible. And if high-octane action is what you seek, then it is what you are going to get. In fact, the characters themselves have little time to take a breather, as everybody's constantly rushing somewhere to find someone or something. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, since there are four more books to go after this one, but this book is a little light on, well, development. Also, the sheer incompetence of the characters — from the Colonel to the Chief Scientist, as well as everybody in the military — is shocking to me. I mean, look, if shooting bullets at Tetsuo does next to nothing to him, shooting him a few more times is not going to work all of a sudden. Chain of command and standard operating procedures also go out of the window in times of crisis, with characters making their own decisions about a developing crisis without consulting anybody. Take over control of a satellite that shoots lasers from outer space? Sure, why not, even if it blasts gigantic craters in the ground. As long as it hits the people we need to hit, right? No, because the military people basically miss every single shot.

Like I said, incompetent.

It's still an enjoyable romp, but I do hope that the following volumes take their time to ramp up the story once again. I know the series was, in the late 1980s, advertised as an 'action comic' for young people, but that doesn't mean we need city-wide destruction and 'pew pew' lasers at every turn. You have, like, more than 1,000 pages in this series. Breathe in, hold it in there, take your time, breathe out, THEN destroy the fucking city — how's that? Thanks.

Characters are growing and we're in it now!!

More progression than the first book. Enjoying that the story line is very different than the movie, providing some different understanding of how the crazy that unleashes later came to be. Enjoying enough to finish the 6-part series.

The second installment has even more deviation from the film adaptation that the first and it’s so good. I’m definitely a big fan of evil Tetsuo and I think getting to spend more time with him is a lot of fun. Ryu is low key starting to be one of the more compelling characters for me, which I didn’t see coming, and the Colonel is just reinforcing how badass he is.
Spoiler, all these books are getting 5 stars unless they whiff hard.
5/5