Adaptation Displacement: The movie is undoubtedly more well-known than the original manga, partly because the source material had a really screwed-up release. Marvel Comics bought the rights to translate it/bring it over to America when the movie was released in the US in 1989, but Katsuhiro Otomo's decision to redraw the last 1/6th of the manga led to the US version seeing a massive delay in the publication of the last eight issues and by the time the last issue came out in 1995, the series was out of print as well as the trade paperbacks, of which only 10 of the proposed 13 volumes ever saw the light of day. It was not until Dark Horse Comics got the rights to the series in 2000 that the manga received wide release, in terms of availability. And even then, it was difficult to find and when it did appear, could often be quite expensive due to its unusual size as well as volumes going for hundreds of pages. The availability problem has been somewhat lessened by Kodansha USA releasing the 35th-anniversary boxset.
Alternative Character Interpretation: There is some debate about whether Tetsuo or Kaneda is the protagonist of the story, considering that Tetsuo receives far more development as a character than Kaneda.
Designated Hero: Kaneda, at least in the beginning. Moreso in the manga, where he doesn't have any remotely heroic traits until about the second volume.
Evil Is Cool: Tetsuo has a lot of badass moments after gaining his powers and going insane.
Hollywood Homely: A prominent example is Kai (aka Kaisuke), the necktie-clad biker from Kaneda's gang. Like Tetsuo, he's not drawn in Mr. Fanservice fashion, but a lot of people call him the Bishōnen.
I Am Not Shazam: Akira is not the name of the main character of the manga, he's named Kaneda. His best friend who gains superpowers and goes insane also is not Akira, he's called Tetsuo. The strange creepy child that gives Tetsuo the superpowers? No, he's Takashi. In fact, Akira doesn't show up during the entire first volume and is more like a Living MacGuffin. In the movie, he doesn't even show up in the flesh at all, because he's been dead for 31 years.
Jerkass Woobie: Tetsuo's had a pretty sucky life. And then he pulled all kinds of shit on others.
Tetsuo: Kaneda, you've always been a pain in the ass, y'know. You've been telling me what to do since we were kids. You always treat me like a kid. You always show up and start bossing me around, and don't you deny it! Kaneda: And now you're a boss, too... of this pile of rubble.
Kaori, in a fair few ways (although the movie came out before the trope was really recognized). Like a lot of early examples from this time period, it doesn't endwell for her.
Akira's the most adorable walking apocalypse ever.
Tetsuo crosses it when he kills Yamagata in the film and manga; earlier on in the manga than in the film.
The executives on the council cross it when they put an investigation into Colonel Shikishima's supposed scandals over the security of Neo Tokyo. Being put under arrest only convinces Shikishima to take immediate action and execute a coup d'état before the corrupt council can do any further damage.
Spiritual Adaptation: Word of God has stated that Akira is this to Tetsujin 28-Go, but with psychics instead of giant robots.
Tough Act to Follow: AKIRA was such an influential and massively successful piece that Katsuhiro Otomo never rose to the same level again afterward. To wit, The Legend of Mother Sarah which he wrote and completed afterward was also popular and took much longer to complete (16 years) but was always overshadowed by its predecessor, despite its high-brow and intricate plot. Likewise, his first major manga Domu is also not as known despite its quality. It even caused some Hype Backlash with regards to Steamboy.
The Woobie: Kaori. She's one of the few characters who actually loves and cares for Tetsuo and for simply liking the guy, she was molested by a biker gang that was rivals with Tetsuo's, is constantly shown to be in a state of sadness due to all the crap that happened to Tetsuo, and is rather cruelly killed off at the end. Tetsuo himself would be here on this list too if not for his more villainous actions.
Movie
And You Thought It Would Fail: While they were both fans of the film, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas thought the film would be unmarketable in the United States. The movie became a cult hit, and its arrival in the West became one of the defining moments in leading to the growth of the anime market outside of Japan and Europe.
Despite the original release having warnings that it was not for children and the re-release being rated R, you can still find stores that put this in the "family" shelf. Other stores at least put it in the dedicated "Anime" section, leaving it to the person browsing the shelf to at least use their own discretion when searching for stuff to show their children.
The movie is sometimes cited as the one thing that first proved there was potential for animation beyond the ghetto.
Gateway Series: Towards adult-oriented anime and animation in general. Remember, the movie hit western theaters around the time that The Little Mermaid (the film that kicked off the Disney Renaissance) was first playing, so its arrival outside of Japan came at the perfect time.
Genre Turning Point: In America and the English-speaking world in general, the film pretty much launched the anime boom of the 1990s that would pave the way for it to become the cultural juggernaut that it is today, in addition to being one of the most important films in disproving the Animation Age Ghetto. Ironically, its financial failure in its home country of Japan meant that it was not only almost a Genre-Killer, but alongside Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise— which saw a similar notorious failure to live up to box office expectations despite being hugely acclaimed by critics— it even threatened to put the entire future of anime production in serious jeopardy.
Germans Love David Hasselhoff: For some reason, the film was overlooked in Japan while it received positive reviews in the Americas and the English-speaking regions of Europe, basically introducing anime aimed at adults in those regions. The film version was also cited, along with Ghost in the Shell and Serial Experiments Lain, as influences for American films like The Matrix and Chronicle.
A blurb in the manga claiming that the World Health Organization was being criticized for its handling of a pandemic was even more prescient in 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In addition, the story is in a backdrop of the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics, and Akira was apparently buried below the unfinished Olympic stadium. On September 9, 2013, Tokyo was selected as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, which would almost happen... until the coronavirus delayed it by a year (with the strong possibility of it being cancelled altogether). Despite the difficulties of COVID-19, the Olympic games finally started on July 23, 2021.
As Tetsuo advances towards the city we see a young man standing down a tank, an anti-government demonstration, government censorship of the media, and the massacre of countless civilians. Remember that the movie was released in 1988. Guess what happenedin China the following year.
China's aggressive invasion of Japan hits a little close to home with China building staging point islands starting in the early to mid-2010s.
The giant teddy bear and rabbit used by Takashi and Kiyoko resemble Freddy and Bonnie respectively from Five Nights at Freddy's, even invading the main character's darkened room with murderous intent.
A then-unknown Barbara Goodson (who would later become famous as the voice of Rita Repulsa) has a supporting role as the voice of Takashi in the original 1989 English dub. She wouldn't be the last Power Rangers alum to be affiliated with Akira: Johnny Yong Bosch, who became a prolific and acclaimed voice actor after his time as a Ranger, went on to voice Kaneda in the 2001 dub.
Mainstream Obscurity: The film is very iconic, but there are plenty of people who are familiar with the major scenes and the memes they've spawned, but have never actually watched the movie themselves and have no idea what the plot is about.
"Leave me alone!"ExplanationThe flashback scene has also been making rounds on TikTok and other sites in 2023, replacing the images with something else.
Nausea Fuel: You might want to stay away from meat for a while after watching Tetsuo's horrible mutation sequence at the end of the film, particularly the moment Kaori is pulled inside Tetsuo's mutating, expanding body and squashed like a bug.
Once Original, Now Common: The movie overall falls into this, with newer viewers finding that the movie is a beautifully animated but standard cyberpunk film that has little going for it outside of its notorious Body Horror scenes.
For North American viewers in particular, where anime is now understood to cover a wide base of age demographics, it may be difficult to appreciate how the film aided in breaking down the Animation Age Ghetto for animated imports.
Matthew Mercer, who would become better known in the 2010s, appeared in the 2001 dub.
Barbara Goodson voiced Takashi in the original 1989 English dub a few years before she became famous for her role as the voice of Rita Repulsa in Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers.
Tetsuo's mutation at the end of the movie is one of the most famous instances of Body Horror in any media. In fact, it's become common to refer to any sequence where a character undergoes a horrific, uncontrollable transformation as them "going Tetsuo".
They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: Many fans of the manga have this complaint because the film tries to cram the first third of the manga into a single movie (many for the first two acts it has plotlines following three to four characters at a time) and doesn't use the rest due to a divergence in plot, with the ending being especially disliked for how off the rails it gets from the original story.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: Kaori is Tetsuo's girlfriend and probably one of the few people who really understood/cared for him. She only gets a few lines and screen-time before being squashed like a bug.
Manga
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring: While the movie had its rough edges due to being set in a post-apocalyptic world where violence and corruption are rampant and with a few scenes of nasty imagery thrown in for good measure, the manga makes it look tame in comparison due to how far more nihilistic it is! Case in point, Kaneda and Tetsuo are far more mean-spirited and cruel than they are in the movie, Kaori is treated as one of Tetsuo's sex slaves rather than his Morality Pet, and while the movie ended on a bittersweet, but still hopeful, note since it adapted Volumes 1 to 3 as it source material, things go From Bad to Worse in the Manga starting with Volume 4 where a post-apocalyptic war is incited by Tetsuo, who becomes even nastier than he was in the previous three volumes!
Vanilla Protagonist: Kaneda, despite being a badass in his own right, is otherwise just your standard biker. His outfit is more iconic than his personality. Meanwhile he’s surrounded by godlike psychics, a rebel group, and a military colonel who gets a character arc of his own.
in the manga claiming that the World Health Organization was being criticized for its handling of a pandemic was even more prescient in 2020 during the COVID-19 Pandemic. In addition, the story is in a backdrop of the 2020 Neo-Tokyo Olympics, and Akira was apparently buried below the unfinished Olympic stadium. On September 9, 2013, Tokyo was selected as the host of the 2020 Summer Olympics, which would almost happen... until the coronavirus delayed it by a year (with the strong possibility of it being cancelled altogether). Despite the difficulties of COVID-19, the Olympic games finally started on July 23, 2021.