The manga and anime phenomenon is mostly white in this country. It originated in Japan, and, of course, it has a huge Asian fan following. But it’s the multi-ethnic Americans who are fans of Akira and manga. The idea of buying the rights to do that and in fact change it seems rather pointless. If they’re going to do that, why don’t they do something original, because what they do is offend Asians, number 1; number 2, they offend the fans. The same thing happened with M. Night Shyamalan. He cast his project [The Last Airbender] with non-Asians and it’s an Asian story, and the film flopped. I should think that they would learn from that, but I guess big studios go by rote, and the tradition in Hollywood has always been to buy a project, change it completely and flop with it. I think it’s pointless, so I thought I would save Warner Bros. a bit of failure by warning them of what will most likely happen if they continue in that vein.
Source: The Advocate
As much as I want Andrew to cast in this adaptation of the very cool manga (Andrew as a telepathic biker -- that sounds AWESOME!), I personally think Mr. Takei said it all right. I think it's best for them to employ Asian actors to portray the characters as it is originated there. Afterall, we still haven't heard any confirmation from Andrew himself (or his rep) about this project.
Well, at least we still have "Back Roads" in mind, which will start filming soon after "The Amazing Spider-Man" wraps up!
