Akira Hardcover Collection manga volume 2 features story and art by Katsuhiro Otomo. This edition features the updated translation and lettering of the 35th Anniversary Edition box set, the creator's Japanese-language, hand-drawn sound effects and the original right-to-left manga reading format in a 7x10 casewrap hardcover.

Neo-Tokyo has risen from the ashes of a Tokyo obliterated by a monstrous psychokinetic power known only as Akira, a being who yet lives, secretly imprisoned in frozen stasis. Those who stand guard know that Akira's awakening is a terrifying inevitability. Tetsuo, an angry young man with immense—and rapidly growing—psychic abilities, may be their only hope to control Akira when he wakes. But Tetsuo is becoming increasingly unstable and harbors a growing obsession to confront Akira face to face. A clandestine group including his former best friend sets out to destroy Tetsuo before he can release Akira—or before Tetsuo himself becomes so powerful that no force on Earth can stop him.