Digital scans of the Archives (and the intense interest in specific high-resolution files) highlight a critical issue in animation preservation: color shifting. The original cels from 1988 have faded or been scattered to private collections. The Archives preserves the "intent" of the film. The background art, painted by artists like Art Land and Anime Friend, utilized airbrushing and scratch techniques that are nearly impossible to replicate digitally. The Archives categorize these backgrounds by location, showing the "set design" of a city that never existed.
The original hardcover is approximately 178–194 pages and measures roughly inches . Digital Availability and Scarcity Full PDF versions of the Akira Animation Archives are extremely rare because the book is long out of print . Akira Animation Archives Pdf 11