Learn Exciting Akira Movie Facts And FAQ

I sat down the other day and finally watched the Akira movie all the way through. You can check out my Akira review and let me know what you think. While I was reading up on the film, I came across some interesting facts that a lot of people might not know. Most people don’t have the graphic I made to go with them, though, which makes the info a bit more visual and appealing.

So keep swiping with that thumb and enjoy some Akira movie facts, both well-known and lesser-known, along with answers to a few questions people are always asking about it.

Akira Movie Facts And FAQ Audio Blog

For the visually impaired and the too lazy to read without pictures crowd.

Akira Movie Facts

• Akira pushed animation to the limit. It’s made up of over 2,200 unique shots and around 160,000 hand-drawn images
• The team used 327 different colours throughout the movie, and 50 of those were custom-made specifically for it.
• The manga that inspired the movie has picked up multiple major awards over the years, including the Kodansha Manga Award, a Harvey Award, and four Eisner Awards.
• This was one of the first Japanese anime films where the voice acting was done before the animation. That’s pretty standard in the U.S., but in Japan, it’s usually the other way around — the animation comes first, and the voices are added after.
• Back in 1988, Akira cost around $10 million to make, making it the most expensive anime film at the time. It held that title for a good while. But clearly, the money was well spent considering how popular it became. Years later, the studios even put in another million to fully remaster the audio and visuals for a 2001 re-release.
• The music for the film was completed before any of the composers saw a single frame of film or even read the script. Because of this, the music had to be edited to fit some scenes.
• The original English dub features none other than Cam Clarke, who also voiced Leonardo in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon from the early ’90s. And in the 2001 remastered version, Kaneda was voiced by Johnny Yong Bosch — you might know him as Adam Park, the Black Ranger from Power Rangers.
• During the riot scene, there’s a quick moment where Kei pushes past a guy wearing a Young Magazine t-shirt. That’s a cool little detail, since Young Magazine is the bi-monthly comic anthology where the original Akira manga was first published.
• Akira actually started out as a manga (which is basically the Japanese version of comic books) before it was turned into an animated film. It ran from 1982 to 1990 in Young Magazine and, by the time it wrapped up, it was over 2,000 pages long.
• Akira is easily one of the most iconic Japanese films ever made. Both the movie and the manga pull heavily from Japanese culture and left a lasting mark across the country. It’s gone on to become one of the most beloved and influential films in Japan.
• A true sign of Akira’s quality and legacy is that it’s one of the very few animated films included in the Criterion Collection. The only others with that honor are titles like Fantastic Mr. Fox and Watership Down.
• Akira was based on the manga of the same name — but what might surprise some people is that the movie actually came out before the manga was finished. Kind of like what happened with Game of Thrones, the film had to wrap up its own way while the original story was still ongoing.
• That being said, while the movie was released prior to the conclusion of the manga series, the manga has a noticeably different ending to the movie. While the film would release in 1988, the manga series would continue until 1990.

There are some well-known Akira movie facts here, but sprinkled among them are a few lesser-known ones you can drop the next time you’re at the bar chatting about your favourite films — especially if Akira comes up in the conversation.

Akira Movie FAQ

Now that you’ve read about the movie, chances are you’ve already seen Akira and just came here to dig into some cool facts and learn more about the manga it’s based on. But a lot of people still have questions about it, so here are some of the most common ones answered.

They might seem dumb but people do ask them.

Akira Movie Facts and FAQ Final Paragraph

I won’t lie to you, this wasn’t a long blog today — I mostly just wanted an excuse to show off my Akira poster. I was inspired by other movie posters with a similar style and decided to put my own spin on it as a way to learn more about Akira and improve my skills. It was fascinating diving into such an old film, and I can say “old” because it came out the same year I was born. I think the movie might be a couple of months older than me, actually.

Hopefully, you picked up some cool Akira movie facts and got a few of your questions answered along the way.