Akira was, obviously, the launch off point for Anime in the west, and the movie was great. But later on I read the Manga, and they were so much richer than the movie. It seems like a 12-episode Anime would be perfect for Akira. And it would probably be successful, because everybody knows/loves it.
20th Century Boys is a bit... odder. I've read the Manga twice, and I know that there's a live action film, but the work seems so much better suited to Anime. I don't know how it's held up -- certainly no one on KIA2 mentions it. It's also not great -- the build up is fantastic, but the denouement is... odd.
Just wondering if there's a reason for this, or if it's just an historical quirk.
Having grown up in the 80s... no one knew about Anime, and then came Akira, and then many people knew about Anime.
Edit: Oh, and G-force, but we didn't really think of that as Anime. It was just cool.
Voltron was big in the west before Akira.
More people knew about Robotech and Voltron than Akira in the 80s, especially since Akira wasn't released in the US until 1990.
Macross?
Totally, Robotech was way bigger in the 80s.
Just looked it up -- seems really cool.
I grew up in smalltown Canada. Even with 'cable' our choices were really limited.
Dragon ball was out at that time in canada and I watched it before akria came along.
Astro Boy aired on NBC in the 60s in the US. And Voltron as others have said was big before Akira. Latin America didn't get into anime until Dragonball and Saint Seiya.