It bears some resemblance to the 'low-life high-tech' cyberpunk, as understood in the West; however, it differs in its representation of industrial and metallic imagery and an unconventional narrative.
Akira inspired a wave of Japanese cyberpunk works, including manga and anime series such as Ghost in the Shell, Battle Angel Alita, Cowboy Bebop, and Serial Experiments Lain.
[8] According to Paul Gravett, when Akira began to be published, cyberpunk literature had not yet been translated into Japanese, Otomo has distinct inspirations such as Mitsuteru Yokoyama's manga series Tetsujin 28-go (1956–1966) and Moebius.
William Gibson's Neuromancer, whose influence dominated the early cyberpunk movement, was also set in Chiba, one of Japan's largest industrial areas.
[citation needed] Cyberpunk anime and manga draw upon a futuristic vision which has elements in common with western science fiction and therefore have received wide international acceptance outside Japan.
I remember my first glimpse of Shibuya, when one of the young Tokyo journalists who had taken me there, his face drenched with the light of a thousand media-suns—all that towering, animated crawl of commercial information—said, "You see?
[5][6] Akira has been cited as a major influence on Hollywood films such as The Matrix,[17] Dark City,[18] Chronicle,[19] Looper,[20] Midnight Special, and Inception,[5] television shows such as Stranger Things,[21] and video games such as Hideo Kojima's Snatcher[22] and Metal Gear Solid,[4] Valve's Half-Life series[23][24] and Dontnod Entertainment's Remember Me.
[29] Deus Ex: Mankind Divided video game developer Eidos Montréal also paid homage to the film's poster.
The Wachowskis, creators of The Matrix (1999) and its sequels, showed the 1995 anime film adaptation of Ghost in the Shell to producer Joel Silver, saying, "We wanna do that for real.
[33] Ghost in the Shell also influenced video games such as the Metal Gear Solid series,[34] Deus Ex,[35] Oni,[36][37][38] and Cyberpunk 2077.
[39][40] The original video animation Megazone 23 (1985), with its concept of a simulated reality, has a number of similarities to The Matrix,[41][better source needed] Dark City, and Existenz.