I have this vague, possibly untenable theory that there are some Revolutionary Works Of Art that still hold up after the revolution, and some that don't, and the ones that don't are the ones that are much more Revolutionary than they are humane/beautiful/everything else. I think the reason a lot of people don't like Akira is that it's not supposed to be liked, or possibly even supposed to be good - Otomo didn't like his characters, his setting existed only to be hated, he didn't really try to depict anything good to contrast with all the bad, and his art (I think, anyway) was pretty utilitarian and all in the service of telling his angry story. So I put Akira in the first group, obviously.

While, totally bias-ed-ly, I think Tezuka's works are mostly in the second, because people are still saying new things about them even though they've been imitated right down to the protagonists' outfits for fifty years. For all that everyone calls it a classic, I don't think I've ever heard anyone having a conversation about Akira that lasted more than three minutes.