Tekkonkinkreet
Dir: Michael Arias
2006
***
While I'm not the biggest MANGA fan in the world, I do like the more fantastical animations, Michael Arias's Tekkonkinkreet (steel reinforced concrete) being one of them. I'm always glad when a MANGA story isn't set in a high school too, give me a tale about vigilantism and Yakuza any day. Tekkonkinkreet is pretty out there it has to be said, even for your typical MANGA cartoon. Reality and fantasy have no clear distinction here but both are balanced beautifully. I love the animation, not typical of MANGA, indeed, it's a little bit more European but it works well with the Japanese style City back-drop. My only real grievance with the film is that it doesn't really know how or where to end, I'm afraid the last 20 minutes or so are quite tiresome which is a shame as I've not seen an animation of its kind with the same amount of depth for a long time, if ever (Ghibli aside). I watched the subtitled version and as ever I question the American translation.