He spent all of his scholarship money to purchase a large collection of jazz records, extending from Bix Beiderbecke to Miles Davis.

Akira currently enjoys being a member of the Rotary Club of Kyoto-East and publishing books on various non-science themes including history, finance, and culture.

He believes that Japan is a country established on a unique matriarchal culture during the Jomon period, some ten thousands of years BC.

In addition to an extensive academic publication record and the editorship and authorship of numerous scientific research level text books,[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19] Hasegawa has been prolific in the publication of various aspects of culture and philosophy in the past few years, writing on diverse topics such as life and entropy, the economy and finance, Lao Tzu and Confucius, as well as Japanese culture and religion.

Many of the texts are available electronically in Japanese, as well as in English and include such titles as: "A Story of Life and Health",[20] "A Story of Money",[21] "Fund Management for those near Retirement",[22] "Method of Investments for Private Pension",[23] "The One World of Lao Tzu and Modern Physics: A Dialogue with a Zen Abbot",[24] "Mai and Dance and Japanese Culture",[25] "Enjoying Wine",[26] "Science and Religion",[27] "How to Increase Productivity in Service Industries",[28] "Japanese Women Changing the World".

[29] Hasegawa has made a number of seminal contributions in the subject of waves and turbulence in plasmas as well as in information transfer in optical fibers.

[32] The nonlinear Schrödinger equation is now widely used for simulation of optical signal transfer in fibers over inter-continental distances[33] and not solely limited to solitons.

Hasegawa and Liu Chen succeeded in explaining the Earth's magnetic oscillation mechanism (now known as the Chen–Hasegawa resonance[34]) which was observed by his colleague, Louis J. Lanzerotti.

Hasegawa with Kunioki Mima derived a two dimensional nonlinear wave equation that describes the observed turbulence spectra.

One unique property of the equation is the existence of an inverse cascade of turbulent spectra which may form coherent structures such as zonal flow in the azimuthal direction in cylindrical plasmas.

He established international as well as domestic research groups that concentrated on ultra-high speed communications based on optical solitons.

The group successfully demonstrated soliton based, all-optical ultra high speed communication over inter-continental distances.

Here, the device operates with the help of continuous injection of electromagnetic power that provides negentropy which maintains the desirable plasma pressure profile.

He also shared with Kuniaki Mima and Pat Diamond the 2011 European Physical Society Hannes Alfvén Prize.

He also has the honor of receiving the 2008 Japan Academy Prize, and in 2010 The Order of the Sacred Treasure, Gold Rays with Neck Ribbon from the Japanese Emperor.