  In the present paper, we characterize almost Kenmotsu manifolds admitting
holomorphically planar conformal vector (HPCV) fields. We have shown that if an
almost Kenmotsu manifold $M^{2n+1}$ admits a non-zero HPCV field $V$ such that
$\phi V = 0$, then $M^{2n+1}$ is locally a warped product of an almost Kaehler
manifold and an open interval. As a corollary of this we obtain few
classifications of an almost Kenmotsu manifold to be a Kenmotsu manifold and
also prove that the integral manifolds of D are totally umbilical submanifolds
of $M^{2n+1}$. Further, we prove that if an almost Kenmotsu manifold with
positive constant $\xi$-sectional curvature admits a non-zero HPCV field $V$,
then either $M^{2n+1}$ is locally a warped product of an almost Kaehler
manifold and an open interval or isometric to a sphere. Moreover, a
$(k,\mu)'$-almost Kenmotsu manifold admitting a HPCV field $V$ such that $\phi
V = 0$ is either locally isometric to $\mathbb{H}^{n+1}(-4) \times
\mathbb{R}^n$ or $V$ is an eigenvector of $h'$. Finally, an example is
presented.
