Here is the latest cool comic book moment in our year-long look at one cool comic book moment a day (in no particular order whatsoever)! Here's the archive of the moments posted so far!

Today we look at an awfully poignant moment from the end of Akira.

Enjoy!

Okay, you don't HAVE to be familiar with Katsuhiro Otomo's amazing epic, Akira, to really understand what I'm about to show you, but it sure doesn't help if you are.

In any event, as fans of Akira well know, the book had an absolute ton of awful stuff happen to an awful lot of people. Otomo depicts it all in a wave of stunning dynamism, and I'll certainly be returning to some of these moments in future installments of a Year of Cool Comic Book Moments.

But for today, I'd like to visit perhaps my favorite scene in the whole saga, and it happens almost at the end of it all.

Tetsuo Shima caused a lot of bad things to happen, and as we reach the end of the series, his friend/foe/friend/foe/friend/foe (their relationship is quite complex) Shotaro Kaneda has a sort of metaphysical meeting of the minds with Tetsuo while Tetsuo is in a bit of an uncontrollable rage of power.

Kaneda is basically transported back in time to when he first met Tetsuo, and Otomo strongly implies that the path that led Tetsuo down to the events of Akira likely could have been averted if this first meeting between the two had been handled differently, and we then learn that it was all a misunderstanding...

It is a beautifully haunting scene in the middle of the chaos that is Akira.

What a wonderful twist by an amazing creator, and a very cool comic book moment (as to THE moment, I guess when Tetsuo says he's glad to have a new friend).

NOTE: For whatever reason, Wordpress won't let me put a macron over the o's. Sorry.