Takashi/anime

	In an effort to improve the wiki, this character article is to be divided into seperate manga, and anime articles.

Takashi
Full Name	Takashi
Designated No.	26
Age	8
DOB	1980
Nationality	Japanese
Species	Esper
Abilities	Psychokinesis Telepathy
Seiyuu	Tatsuhiko Nakamura
English VA	Barbara Goodson (1989 Streamline dub) Cody Mackenzie (2001 Animaze dub)

Takashi (designated No. 26) is a major supporting character in the animated movie Akira. He is a member of the Espers, a trio of psychic children cared for by the Japanese government of Neo-Tokyo.

Appearance

Takashi is a young boy with pale turquoise wrinkled skin and short hair, and has a skinnier body compared to Masaru, who is overweight. Despite having the body of a child, he has premature aging which makes him appear between his late 40's and early 50's.

While he was in the outside world, Takashi wore a red-yellow jacket with a dark green circle with a capital 'B' on the left front of his jacket; a dark blue shirt with a yellow collar; dark blue pants; and a pair of normal shoes. His clothes were most likely supplied to him by members of the Resistance who mistook him for Akira.

While living in the Nursery, Takashi wore short-sleeved hospital scrubs with closed-toe slippers worn by medical patients. His outfit is the same as Masaru's.

In the Espers' flashback, he has dark hair and healthy skin, and he wears a collared purple shirt with green short suspenders, shoes, and socks. After the psychic experiments began, he wore the hospital scrubs that he would wear in Neo Tokyo. He was also completely bald and wore a special white cap in order to focus his psychic powers. As the flashback took place before the original Tokyo's destruction, he looked his age and did not have wrinkled skin.

Personality

Takashi is very shy and humble, and a bit of a soft-spoken person. Though he's very reluctant to fight and tries to avoid confrontation if possible, he is a very compassionate person and often feels obliged to help if there are people in danger. Towards the end of the movie, he jumped into a psychic explosion generated by Akira to save Kaneda from being absorbed.

Takashi is close friends with the Espers. While he maintains a good relationship with all of them, he is closest to Kiyoko, a fellow Esper, relying on her for guidance. Because of her physical frailty, Takashi is very protective of Kiyoko, and her safety is seen as first priority above all else.

History

Sometime before the events of the movie, Takashi and a group of forty other children were acquired as wards of the Japanese government of the original Tokyo. It is likely that Takashi is an orphan. At the time, the Japanese government was spearheading a secret parapsychology project that focused on the development of psychic powers, possibly for militaristic and political purposes. During this time, Takashi befriended Kiyoko, Masaru, and Akira.

Out of the original forty children, only Kiyoko, Masaru, Takashi, and Akira survived the government's horrible experiments and showed more promise, so the government devoted more of their time on them. One day, Akira grew too powerful and unleashed a psychic explosion that obliterated the original Tokyo. To prevent a future incident from happening, Takashi and his remaining friends - now called "The Espers" - were put in prolonged isolation together, routinely fed drugs that both suppressed their psychic powers and caused premature aging. Takashi was the only one to have no physical handicaps as the result of these drugs, but Kiyoko and Masaru weren't as lucky, having had become bedridden and afflicted with polio, respectively.

One day, he was kidnapped from the Nursery where he lived with his friends by members of an anti-government resistance group, who mistook Takashi for the fabled Akira and hoped to use him to bring down Neo-Tokyo's heavily corrupt government. One of these members, while escorting Takashi, was brutally shot down by riot police before the boy's eyes. Takashi mourns his "father's" death, his psychic powers reacting and causing untold destruction as well as city-wide panic.

While wandering alone on a highway, Takashi had a chance run-in with Tetsuo Shima, a rookie member of the Capsules. The Capsules at the time was involved in a violent gang dispute with the Clowns. In an attempt to prove himself to the Capsule's leader, Shotaro Kaneda, Tetsuo did not see Takashi standing in the middle of the road. Takashi put psychokinetic shields around himself in self-defense, but he ended up grievously injuring Tetsuo, being directly responsible for his motorcycle accident and resulting injuries.

Abilities

Takashi's main special ability is telekinesis, which is instrumental in moving the plot of AKIRA. He can use it to fly and manipulate objects, moving or making them explode like Tetsuo's motorcycle. He can also use it to fight someone or defend a friend. His telekinetic abilities are accompanied by his ability to teleport, which he used to bring Kei to the Espers, and can communicate through telepathy.

Trivia

• Unlike his manga incarnation, Takashi is shown to be alive throughout the entire movie, as the movie had abridged the (then unfinished) original manga; thus the scene where Nezu accidentally shot him was left out