Though I know about Akira, I never actually saw it. There just wasn't any anime on television here during that time, all cartoons on the tellie here were American or European. First anime I saw was Urutsukidoji III when I was already 21, and that was on VHS from some obscure videostore. A few years later I saw a bunch of episodes from The Guyver, but they didn't broadcast all of them and broadcast times kept changing all the time, making it hard to follow. Apart from the mainstream series, it's still hard to get your hands on anime here, unless you find a good online stream or import it yourself from abroad. Buying a DVD set from a store just won't work out, you'll only end up missing episodes.
So, to me, Akira references are pretty obscure as well. If someone says "I want a bike like Akira", then I totally understand. But if someone uses a quote or mentions a character from it, I just won't know about the connection.