Katsuhiro Otomo's AKIRA

Behold Akira, the amazing journey into post apocalypse mutant madness.  Click the images for the larger image.

The year is 2019 and speed tribes, cyberpunk, mutant gangs all collide in the streets of old Tokyo.  It was destroyed in 1982 with nuclear weapons when the world entered WWIII.  Now Neo Tokyo tries to forget the past and become a beacon of hope and new beginnings.  But the struggles to forget the disasters, and mutations, lead only to new and more catastrophic events.

The comic was beautifully done and captured the Japanese sense of fear and pain over the past use of nuclear weapons, and its fascination with the motorcycle gangs (Speed Tribes) and cyberpunk worlds.

The manga was turned into an animated color film, and is considered by many critics to be a masterpiece.  I prefer the comics, and am not a snob, the comics are just more detailed and more clear about the events.

I thoroughly recommend this to any human.  Not to anyone who is mutant however.