Akira/Trivia

• Acting for Two: The Streamline dub of the 1988 movie had many of its voice actors taking on multiple roles. Barbara Goodson was the voice of Takashi and Kaori, Bob Bergen was both Masaru and Kaisuke, and Tony Pope was Talking to Himself in several scenes as Yamagata, Colonel Shikishima and Nezu.
• Creator Backlash: Not towards the movie or the manga, but a Licensed Game for the Amiga. See The Problem with Licensed Games for more details, but the game was so poorly designed that even the developers hated it.
  • Also, recently, Katsuhiro Otomo admitted he was not happy with how the anime adaption turned out.
• Dueling Dubs:
  • The movie has two English dubs: one from 1988 and one from 2001. The 1988 dub was created by Kodansha for the film's initial US release and was distributed by Streamline Pictures, which resulted in it being referred to as the "Streamline dub" despite Streamline Pictures not actually producing it (it didn't help that many of its cast members would go on to do many dubs that Streamline did produce). The 2001 dub was done by Animaze for Pioneer's DVD release of the film and was created so the DVD would pass THX Certification. Until 2013, only the 2001 dub was distributed in the US, with the 1988 dub appearing on UK and Australian DVD releases. Both dubs would eventually appear on the 25th Anniversary Edition DVD and Blu-ray in 2013, which was distributed by Funimation. Fans tend to agree that it doesn't matter which one you prefer because they're both excellent quality.
  • There's also two French dubs.
  • In Latin America, there's three different dubs: two of them dubbed in Mexico and another one in Argentina. The Argentinian dub was used only in South America, while the Mexican ones were used in the entire region.
  • Spain used to have dueling dubs in the form of the one produced by Manga Films and the one by Selecta Visión. The former was poorly translated and contained changes to the original, but it had some important actors and was well acted. The second was created to correct the first and was more faithful, but it was awfully cheap and most of its voices were either miscast or badly acted. The war between both only ended when Selecta Visión redubbed it with much more money on the line and finally gave the movie a good Spanish version.
  • The manga has been translated and released twice into English: it was first done in the early 90's by Marvel's Epic Comics, and released the entire manga flipped and in color with the approval of Otomo, who selected the digital colorist himself. This release is notable for being revolutionary in comic book coloring in that it was the first regular series to be colored digitally. The entire manga was released across 38 comics, but the collected editions were short-lived: only 6 of the planned 9 paperbacks were released and 5 of the planned 6 hardbacks were released before the license expired. Dark Horse Comics later released the entire series in six giant books in their original black and white, but still flipped, and with a new translation. When their license expired, Kodansha Comics USA rescued the series, but simply reissued Dark Horse's editions under their brand. In 2017, Kodansha released a box set of the entire series in hardcover, unflipped for the first time.
• He Also Did: Satoshi Kon served as Otomo's assistant for the original manga.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: In the German dub, one very minor character that isn't even named and appears in only one brief scene got the voice actor of Bruce Willis.
• Keep Circulating the Tapes: A rather unusual case. While bookstores in North America at least carry the manga, good luck finding more than one volume for sale at a time, maybe two if you're lucky. Depending where you live, you'll find either the first, second or sixth.^[1]
• Overtook the Manga: The movie came out in 1988, but the manga was not finished until 1990. Then again, the movie was only based on the first 2 parts which were already finished by then.
• Technology Marches On: While Katsuhiro Otomo was correct on how 2019 Japan wouldn't much different than it was in the 1980's where both the Manga and film along with correctly predicting the nation hosting the 2020 Summer Olympics, Akira isn't entirely immune to this despite the cyberpunk manga and film having a cult following.
  • Kanda's bike is one thing. The idea of a built-in computer that sounded hi-tech for the 1980's as a reminder the film’s genre. Today, automobiles with a computer built-in are now the norm in those built after the late-2000's.
  • There's a scene where a girl, likely a roommate of Kaori, is taking on a payphone since a cell-phone in the late-1980's were still new and expensive considered the living condition she's in. Today, cell-phones have become easier to afford and have improved to the point a payphone in 2019 seem out of place.
    • There’s also a scene where Colonel Shikishima also receive a phone call regarding Tetsuo, yet caller-ID seems to be missing somehow despite such feature being the norm after the 1990's.
  • During the scene where Tetsuo learns about his newfound powers, attempts to censorship by the Japanese government would be near impossible thanks to smart phones and social media of the actual year of 2019.
  • In the classroom scene, Kanda is seen reading a magazine rather than a tablet that is common today.
  • Granted that Masaru does have Psychic Powers to control his wheelchair, but the idea of having the paraplegia with something like an exoskeleton-like device have been in been in the development since the late-1990's in where else… Japan.
  • Let's not forget about there's a Jukebox in the bar, that can hold up to 100 CDs. The avenge CD-R (yes, they still make those) can hold up to 700 MB of Data or 80 minutes of audio. Fast Forward to likely the actual 2019, one can have a radio and/or jukebox with the ability to hold flash-cards of audio data... with some up to 128 GB. Of course, this could depend on the device with this ability to play them.
• Throw It In: The scene with the black circles just before the final scene and credits is actually a pencil test.
• The Wiki Rule: The Akira Wiki

1. ↑ And the fact that Borders has declared bankruptcy and closed its doors certainly hasn't helped matters.