>>5880036This and in a few popular examples (notably Punpun) the backgrounds needed to be photographically realistic in order to evoke the intended effect, and obviously the best way to achieve photographic realism is to... you guessed it, use photographs.
>>5880045Not everything can be as good as, as you put it, one of the most influential pieces of visual media of all time. Even if everybody hand-drew all backgrounds, what makes you think that would mean getting more Akiras and not just a bunch of stuff that can't really compare? Besides, most manga still does use regular drawn backgrounds same as they always were.
