I was never a huge fan of the anime. It's heralded as some great milestone in Japanese animation and what not, but from a Western viewpoint, it's a little hard to follow I guess. The manga isn't -much- clearer, but there's a lot more of a story to it, and it, naturally, continues on after the movie ends... With the Akira Empire and all that. I think it's a movie everyone should watch once for the sake of watching it because of its classic status, but watching it more than once a year would be crazy. Or, you know, play testing the game hundreds of times, too. That's a little crazy. And bound to make you hate the movie a lot.