Kaneda, Kay and Kai Reunited pre-production sequence.

One of the beautiful scenes from the film where these three friends are reunited after
they assumed Kaneda had died. These preliminary sketches were drawn on thin
paper so that multiple sheets could be collated and viewed on a lightbox to check
the movement of the characters over several frames. It's important to see how the
whole body of a character moves even when it's obscurred by another person/object.
Cel animators can save effort by not painting areas which will be covered by an
image which is a constructive practice.
There is a nice sample of basic character movement (Capsule gang and their
girlfriends) on the AKIRA PRODUCTION REPORT video/DVD featurette, which
demonstrates the attention to/awareness of movement and how images overlay one
another.