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.
Anime adapts are just the Japanese version of 80s cartoons. Seasonal marketing budgets for manga/merchandise.
He-Man and Transformers sucked pretty hard too if you don't have nostalgia for them, but they did their job and created a media empire and sold a shit ton of toys.
90% of anime are just doing the same thing, but for manga and all the various figurines/posters/whatever. We just don't have access to most of that in the West, so it loses the immediate hype value its meant to have.