It is known that Otomo interrupted his work on the manga 'Akira' to
create the anime of the same name. After the anime, he picked up where
he left off in the manga. For my final dissertation, it is of
importance to know exactly at which point the manga was interrupted.
Which page, which scene had the story reached in the manga when Otomo
wrote the scenario for the anime?

Hoo... that's a tough one.  The movie actually takes parts of the
manga that were not fully published until later, and leaves out huge
portions of the manga as it was even before publication.

I believe that the manga was a monthly publication started in december
of 82.  The film was released in 1988, and the manga ended in 1990. 
However, I do not know when the filming or writing for the film
started.

Thank you, I very much appreciate your comment. 

I believe the writing on the film started in 1987, but having these
dates still make it a bit of a guess at which point the manga was
temporarily broken off.

I want to know this, for I believe that the actual ending is very much
influenced by the possibilities of the film medium, in a 'cinema of
attractions' kind of way: in an interview, Otomo calls the most
important difference between film and comic that in film "something
always has got to move". I know that the ending of akira was not yet
written when otomo started writing on the film. So I'm just wondering
wether Otomo's new-born obsession with movement is not one of the
major factors which pushes the storyline towards the grotesque ending
of the film.

Well, of course, doing simple math, we can see that the comic ran for
~7 years.  1987 would have been the 5th year, which would make the
comic about 1/3 of the way into volume 5 of the collected volumes. 
Unfortunately I do not have my dark horse editions with me or I might
be able to give a general idea of when that occurred.

I can't speak to the ending of the film in that light, but it does
seem to me that the general tone of the film is far different than the
manga.  Tetsuo was significantly less sympathetic in the manga for me.
 The film concentrated significantly more on the relationship between
tetsuo and kaneda and very little on the politics and conniving clans
of the manga.

It does also seem in the film that there were more scenes of vehicles
moving at high speeds and so forth.  In the manga there were a lot of
impressive hulking machines, and the city itself seemed to be a
hulking menace, with buildings ready to crumble at any moment.  It was
more of a threat of movement or disaster than actual movement itself.

Whereas in the anime the city was very much alive and thriving.  The
conflagration between the rebels and police, for example.  The akira
climax in the film was really (it's been a while, I hope I remember
this correctly) just an event in the manga which allowed for the rise
to power of the rebels and a sort of post-holocaustic chaos.  In my
mind, in the manga it was like roaches scattering when you turn on a
light, but returning to their deeds afterwards.  In the film, it does
seem to be an abrupt halt to all of the "action".

Hopefully some of that is of help.

Yes, that is very helpful, in the sense that your findings, i think,
kind of reaffirm my thesis. I think that when making the film, Otomo's
obsession with fluent movement sometimes urged him to create dazzling
spectacles, like the gang war in the beginning or that frenzy of
metamorphosis of tetsuo in the ending. As you said, the high speeds,
the impressive portrayal of the city with its many lightsources are
exclusive to the film; it is exactly these scenes which classify as
cinema of attractions.  In these parts, the visual structure of the
film gains more importance than the other layers of significance.
Still, there is a strong narrative influx from the manga, offering a
frame in which to fit these beautiful scenes. This influx also
re-established most characters from the manga, and brought the
necessity of some more narrative, non-spectacular scenes; still, these
are far less important then in the manga. I think the film came to
exist on th crossroad of the manga's strong narrative and Otomo's love
for flowing movement, both opposing forces much like The Power and The
Flow in the film (which are both indeed instrumental in the process of
Creation). Perhaps the ending of the manga was then influenced by the
cinema-of-attractions-ending from the film. Anyway, I'm not going to
argue this extensively, I'm just glad that some of my findings were
mirrorred in yours :) (don't know if that's decent english, but hell).

cheers,
isaak