When Does the Animated Film "AKIRA" (1988) Take Place?
"AKIRA" is a science fiction animated film written by Katsuhiro Otomo [partially adapting "AKIRA" (1982) by Katsuhiro Otomo] that released July 16th, 1988. So when is "AKIRA" set?
It takes place in the year:
We know this because early in the story when the gang is being interrogated at the school gymnasium an officer is looking at Shōtarō Kaneda's drivers' license and it has an expiration date of "2020" and "3" and "17", certainly representing March 17th, 2020 AD so it's mostly likely before 2020 AD. Though Kaneda doesn't seem like the type to care about keeping his governmental records current so this is entirely inconclusive.
2019 AD
We know this because early in the story when the gang is being interrogated at the school gymnasium an officer is looking at Shōtarō Kaneda's drivers' license and it has an expiration date of "2020" and "3" and "17", certainly representing March 17th, 2020 AD so it's mostly likely before 2020 AD. Though Kaneda doesn't seem like the type to care about keeping his governmental records current so this is entirely inconclusive.
More specifically, during the meeting of the resistance fighters Ryūsaku drops three magnetic-stripe keycards on the table and one clearly reads "PASS 2019 8-7 8-14" when it is flipped over just after another man picks it up and says, "The lab passes they issue once a week..." The numbers probably represent the 1 week between August 7th, 2019 AD and August 14th, 2019 AD so it is most likely early August of 2019 AD. Indeed, at one point earlier Kaneda is reading a magazine with the words "summer", "vacation", "special", and "issue" on it though there's no way to know if it's a current issue.
Specifically, the resistance fighters also say, "Last week, on the night we tried to abduct subject called Number 26"..., referring to some of the first scenes during this early August of 2019 AD scene. Clearly, 1 week passes from the very beginning of the narrative to that conversation so it is late July of 2019 AD at the start.
8.2,019 - 1 week = 7.2,019.
Furthermore, at the end of the July 1988 AD prologue a simple white title card appears superimposed over the animation that reads "31 YEARS AFTER WORLD WAR III. AD 2019 NEO TOKYO".
7.1,988 + 31 = 7.2,019.
Additionally, there is a very quick but terrifying prologue. During the main action Colonel Shikishima says, "It's taken 30 long years. We've come so far from the rubble.", referring to the horrors of the prologue. That would actually put Tokyo's destruction sometime in 1989 AD.
2,019 - 30 = 1,989.
HOWEVER, at the start of the prologue another white title card appears reading: "1988.7.16 TOKYO". So presumably it is July of 1988 AD at this point and the good colonel is simply rounding down.
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