Trivia

Along with Mie Hama, Wakabayashi was one of the first Asian "Bond Girls", when the two of them appeared in 1967's You Only Live Twice (1967).

She was able to speak bits of Italian and German.

She impressed director Lewis Gilbert, when she learned the English language in just three months for You Only Live Twice (1967). In his 2010 memoir "All my Flashbacks", he wrote: "Akiko was fine. She could not only say the words, she could make sense of them." She became one of the few foreign actresses in the 1960s James Bond films, whose voice wasn't dubbed.

She and her fellow Japanese co-star Mie Hama didn't speak any English, so the producers from You Only Live Twice (1967) sent them to live separately with English-speaking families in England for three months, where children would talk to them incessantly in English. Akiko picked up the language, but Mie couldn't, so the producers had them switch roles, where Akiko got the dialogue-heavy role of Aki, while Mie's voice would be dubbed by Nikki Van der Zyl.

Diane Cilento {Connery's then wife} doubled for Mie Hama and Akika Wakabayashi in the swimming sequences as neither could swim,.

She's the only actress to appear in a stand-alone Godzilla film, a Godzilla & King Kong film, and a James Bond Film.