The movie aired on the Sci Fi Channel in the mid-90's using the Streamline dub.
The movie aired on Toonami as part of a Month of Movies event on December 2013. In December 2014, it was given an encore showing, airing the same night as Dragon Ball Z: Broly – The Legendary Super Saiyan. Both airings used the Pioneer dub.
The movie is one of the last animated features to use traditional cel animation exclusively and it's entirely made by hand (the wavelength ring that Doctor Ōnishi uses features a CGI swirl pattern on it, but the waves themselves are hand-outlined). Its status as a landmark in animation and cultural status in Japan has made further adaptations impossible, including multiple attempts at live-action films and animated series.
The movie covers about 1/3 of the manga, excluding the urban battle for control of Akira and the aftermath following the second "Akira" event, which happens much later in the story.
Unusually for anime, the film uses the Western "pre-lay" style of recording first and then animating the mouths to match. This has made convincingly dubbing it into other languages very difficult.
The movie uses a record-breaking 327 colors, 50 of which were created exclusively for the film (due to the majority of the film taking place at night, a setting animators commonly avoid due to increased color requirements).
Both film and manga depict Japan, although the country is never mentioned, getting ready to host the 2020 Summer Olympics, 25 years before the announcement was made at the 125th IOC Session in Buenos Aires, Argentina that Tokyo would have indeed hosted the 2020 Olympics in real life. However due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Olympics was postponed until Summer 2021.
Somewhat disturbingly, a random background detail from the manga seems to have "predicted" a dangerous viral outbreak and the WHO's perceived poor response to it, too.
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 in several scenes as Yamagata, Colonel Shikishima and Nezu. To say nothing about the large amount of incidentals both Pope and Steve Kramer performed.
Actor-Inspired Element: Considering Kai's voice actor in the Streamline dub is Jewish, it's not all that surprising to hear him directly compare the riot police descending upon the shopping center following a terrorist bombing to the Gestapo in that dub.
Creator Backlash: Not towards the manga or the movie, but rather, a Licensed Game for Amiga, which is considered one of the worst games for the platform. When one guy tracked down the developers to get an idea how the game turned out so awful, everyone who was willing to talk wanted to distance themselves from the game and the development company ICE Software as much as they could—and no wonder, since ICE's working conditions—according to the one who was anywhere near candid about the whole fiasco, and on condition of anonymity at that—made Konami look like absolute saints. When he attempted to contact the former heads of ICE Software (which had gone under not long after the AKIRA game was released), he was told rather loudly to "FUCK OFF".
Cross-Cast Role: Apparently, you gotta be a man to voice Lady Miyako, if the casting choices across all versions of the anime are anything to go by.
Development Hell: Almost infamous at this point. Warner Bros has been trying to make a live-action adaptation since 2002. No less than five different directors have been attached to the project. It's been going on long enough that the planned film has its own wiki page, dedicated almost entirely to documenting the many attempts to make the film.
The movie has two English dubs: one from 1989 and one from 2001. The 1989 dub was made by Electric Media 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, and the voice director behind the dub, Wally Burr, 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 1989 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 four different dubs: Three of them dubbed in Mexiconote One for home video, one of the defunct Locomotion network, and another one for Netflix. The first two were dubbed in Mexico City, while the Locomotion one was done in Cuernavaca. and another one in Argentina. The Argentinian dub was used only in South America, while the Mexican ones were used in the entire region.
There are three Brazilian dubs, one for the VHS, the second for the DVD (which has since become the most widespread, being on Netflix and such) and a third on the defunct Locomotion network. A few voices appear in multiple dubs, such as Shikishima having the same dubber in the second and third.
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 (to the point that, at the last minutes, the audio and the image is out of sync) 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.
Even the subtitled versions experienced this. Even excluding the dubtitle tracks released by Manga and Bandai shortly after the turn of the millennium, there are no less than three subtitled versions. The first one was produced by Captions Inc. for the Island World Communications Collector's Edition double-tape release which also included Akira Production Report and was also released by Streamline Pictures in the spring of 1994. Another subtitle track was produced for the British television premiere on BBC2. The current subtitled version was produced by ZRO Limit Productions for Pioneer Entertainment in 2001, and later released by Funimation with slight modifications.
The manga has been translated and released twice into English: it was first done in the early 90s 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, for the 35th anniversary of the series, Kodansha released a box set of the entire series in hardcover, unflipped and black and white for the first time.
Fountain of Expies: Tetsuo. At least half the psychotic, supernaturally powered youngsters in anime, video games and even movies of the last 30-odd years owe something to the lovable little freak.
The original color English-language release of the manga from the late 80s/early 90s courtesy of Marvel isn't too hard to find... until you get to the last batch of issues that weren't included in the collected editions. #38 in particular can go for huge money on auction sites.
For US fans, the original 1989 movie dub that was distributed throughout the 1990s was impossible to find for years outside of old VHS and Laserdisc copies. note And the Australian DVD, but whatever.Funimation's 25th Anniversary release, however, features both this and the 2001 dub on top of the excellent Japanese surround sound mix, so this is no longer an issue. FUNimation themselves even said that they had not considered including that dub until someone who used to work at Intersound approached them at a convention and offered to give them its masters.
The BBC2 subtitled version hasn't been seen since its initial broadcast in 1994. The Island/Streamline subtitled version hasn't been seen since the '90s, either, but at least that one was released commercially on home video.
Licensed Game: An adventure game / visual novel was created in 1988 for the Famicom to tie in with the film. It was translated by fans in April 2012.
Overtook the Manga: The movie came out in 1988, but the manga was not finished until 1990. Although the film was mostly based on the first two parts of the manga, the film and book have very similar endings.
Self-Adaptation: Katsuhiro Otomo, who created the original manga, also directed and wrote the screenplay for the movie.
Throw It In!: The scene with the black circles just before the final scene and credits was actually just a pencil test, but it fit well with the birth of a new universe under Tetsuo.
What Could Have Been: Being an extremely popular manga (and anime movie overseas), there were video game adaptations planned for various consoles. Few of these were ever finished or released, save for an Amiga adaptation, a Famicom version (which wasn't much better), and a PS2 pinball game.
from the manga seems to have "predicted" a dangerous viral outbreak and the WHO's perceived poor response to it, too.