The original film elements were thought to have been lost, until 2021, when North American anime distributor, Discotek Media, located them in a Japanese film archive. All previous DVD editions of the film, including the Japanese releases, had to be produced from existing video sources.
The names of the three main characters, A-ko, B-ko and C-ko, are actually a reference to a common naming pattern of female extras in Japanese movie scripts, as they simply mean Girl A, Girl B and Girl C.
The movie that A-ko and C-ko watch is a spoof of Harmagedon (1983), and the man seen emerging from the shadows is Colonel Sanders.
The Captain is a parody of Leiji Matsumoto's Captain Harlock. While Harlock would often be seen sipping red wine on the bridge of his ship, the Captain in Project A-ko is a hopeless drunk. Further, the design of the Captain is meant to parody the character Char Aznable from "Zeta Gundam," a nod to the voice actor Ikeda, Shûichi, who played both characters.
Characters from Urusei Yatsura" appear throughout the film. When A-ko and C-ko go to the movies, Ten-chan can be seen sitting in a row behind them. Shinobu and Oyuki are found among Ms. Ayumi's class in another scene. Katsuhiko Nishijima, Yûji Moriyama, and quite a few of the animators had previously worked on the Urusei Yatsura TV series and movies.