[3] He made his major debut in 1966 with the gag-manga Gaikotsu-kun, which was published in Bekkan Shōnen Magazine, and shocked readers in 1970 with Asura, which contained numerous unsettling depictions of human life.

The first chapter of Asura contains a scene where a woman commits cannibalism to prevent herself from dying of starvation, and later attempts to eat her own child as well.

[2] The August 2, 1970, edition of Weekly Shōnen Magazine, which first published this chapter, was banned in several regions as a result of this scene, propelling Akiyama to infamy within the manga industry.

[3] After repeating this for the duration of the manga, Akiyama suddenly announced his retirement, cutting off all of the serializations he held on various magazines to embark on a solo journey across Japan.

He started his longest work, Haguregumo, on Big Comic Original, which won him the Shogakukan Manga Award in 1979.