The Akira manga is not just an extended version of the movie but a wholly different and more radical story altogether. [Spoilers ahead.]
This is Kaneda and his fellow anti-imperialists addressing the US military and the UN. They're tagging "A" onto their tanks and choppers.
The rebels have formed their own government. (Where the movie was a sci-fi classic, the manga was a geopolitical epic.)
And like any small country under the threat of Western Empire, they need the threat of nukes to maintain sovereignty and prevent occupation. Akira is their way of saying: "Leave us alone."
This band of anti-imperial communists ("This is a commune. We're communists.") pretending to worship the all-powerful (and unpredictable) great leader Akira and that he's still alive is a powerful bluff, but the only card they have. Kaneda and his biker gang understand geopolitics better than most US voters.
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It deserves a live action series. The only way to do it justice on any screen. It mayyy be possible to do a hunger games style 5 movie series but I feel like a strong budgeted Stream/TV series would be better…
An anime series could be dope too but ppl would constantly compare it to the movie and miss the point