They rereleased the series in a 35th anniversary box set on October 31, 2017. Kodansha Comics USA currently holds the license and republished the series from Octoto April 12, 2011. Dark Horse Comics republished Akira in its original 6-volume format from Decemto March 27, 2002. Marvel's version was fully colorized and released in 38 trade paperback volumes from 1988 to 1996 (and later incompletely collected into 10 volumes).

The series was first published in English by Marvel Comics under the Epic Comics imprint and was one of the first manga to be translated in its entirety. This story would be better suited for older readers.EditBackground Akira won the 8th Kodansha Manga Award in general category in 1984, the Harvey Award for Best American Edition of Foreign Material in 1993, and was nominated for the Harvey Award for Best Graphic Album of Previously Published Work in 2002. Akira is pretty violent, has quite a bit of cussing, and has some adult moments. This one is definitely one of those reads that is a slow burn, and will stick with you for a while. However, if you (or students) read it and you don’t instantly like it, give it a minute to permeate your brain and really dig in. This story is full of action, so it will definitely appeal to the fans of action-y, Sci-fi adventures. Now that I’ve read about it a little bit, I am seeing Akira influences everywhere. I watched the anime movie, read a little more about the storyline, and I can’t get it out of my mind. ***One week later*** I sat on this review for a bit because Akira is starting to crawl under my skin. Akira is pretty close to our time frame right now, so it's fun sort of fun to read a story published 30 years ago that thought the 'future' was going to be so different.

It has an interesting story in a post-apocalyptic world that reminds me very much of the video games I'd play on Nintendo that were set in the decimated world of the post-war 1990s. I’m not seeing how ground-breaking it is because the ground has already been well and truly broken by the time I’m getting into manga. However, I’m coming to this well after the series was published, and I’m seeing the fruits of Otomo’s labor. Someone even compared it to the Japanese version of Watchmen in terms of its influence. People point to Akira as being so inspirational and launching genres. As soon as I finished reading this manga, I couldn’t figure out what all the fuss was about.

Akira volumes 1 6