Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5253 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-09-24
• Rating: Suitable for 12 years and over
• Aspect ratio: 1.78:1
• Formats: Anamorphic, PAL
• Original language: Japanese
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.co.uk

From the creators of Animatrix comes this visually-stunning new anime film based on a popular Japanese manga written by Taiyo Matsumoto. In Treasure Town, where the moon smiles and young boys can fly, life can be both gentle and brutal. This is never truer than for our heroes, Black and White, two street urchins who watch over the city, doing battle with an array of old-world Yakuza and alien assassins vying to rule the decaying metropolis. Tekkonkinkreet is a dynamic tale of brotherhood that addresses the faults of present day society, true love lost, and the kindness of the human heart.

A brutal elegy for our changing times as well as a tour-de-force of visual artistry, Tekkonkinkreet is a deeply resonant story with a heart. The title Tekkonkinkreet is a play on the Japanese words for ‘concrete,’ ‘iron,’ and ‘muscle,’ and it suggests the warring images of steel and concrete cities amassing against the powers of the imagination. Until now, at least in imports abroad, anime style has almost entirely been characterised by wide-eyed heroes, big robots, and uninspired plotting. Tekkonkinkreet jettisons these stereotypes in favour of a more realistic, European ethos, successfully incorporating engaging child characters and a complex action plot into a poetic, engaging story.

Synopsis
Treasure Town is magical but dangerous place. Black and White are flying street children who compete for territory and battle aliens and Yakuza gangsters. Based on the successful manga BLACK AND WHITE.

Customer Reviews

Best Anime Film I've Ever Seen!
Simply amazing, emotional, heart wrenched beautifully written adaption.. loved every second! So much to take in, set in an amazing world of dark and good two brothers live homeless as orphans, one takes on the 'duty' of saviour of the town but at the same time has the responsibility of a younger sibling. Is his competition too much.

A very well constructed piece of anime you feel some aspects of reality.. I'm not a fan of manga or 'action' anime as such and have watched all the Studio Ghibli collection, I can quite easily say this has now topped my anime collection, you wont want to miss this one!! I would say this isn't for a very young audience but pref 12+

Get prepared! this is one ride you won't forget!!
to call this a mere film would be an understatement, this is film as an art form at it's greatest! i bought this DVD for the sake of it at the same time as paprika having no prior knowledge of the story at all, i didn't even read the description and to be honest when i learned that it was made by an American Director i almost canceled my order! yes i see now how closed minded that was, (thoughts of American dominance seeped into my head, i thought of Disney ripping off the great osama tezuka with the lion king and others, my mind then began to trail off, various news headlines written by the Americans and the British (who were the worst) entered my thoughts, mainly bashing the Japanese for watching anime and reading manga, implying that all anime was was sadistic pornographic viewing for grown men, calling it evil cartoons from the east! and now an American hater was trying to rip off anime and make it American!! noooooo!)

ahem, anyway back to the review.

from the moment i pressed play i found myself drawn into the sheer ludicrously that is tekkonkinkreet, in fact i hated the animation style at first, moaning that i couldn't watch it yet clued to the screen all the same, waiting for that point to come when the storyline engrosses you so much that you forget about any visual qualities that you may not 100% agree with at first. i didn't think the "film" would really get any deeper and darker as it did do because i thought the animation was very childlike and reminiscent of something you would see on the cartoon network, but i didn't think this for long as the story soon became far too engrossing for me to notice.

i now appreciate the art style used and truly rate Michael Arias for what he has done after reading about him he has lived in Japan for many years and has always had a passion for anime and everything Japanese, his enthusiasm can be felt and seen as you watch the film, Arias using stunning visuals and a lot of surreal elements such as the boys flying, can they really fly? and why? this is never explained, and you never know if anyone else can see them fly or if it is all imaginative play with the children? does black have powers? maybe if i had read the manga beforehand i would know, but i just thought that not knowing if certain ideas were real or not added to the whole lucid sensation i got whilst watching this.
a very good film overall and i would recommend it to anyone, obviously not for younger children, people looking for raw action and violence will not like this one as it contains emotional elements similar to that of ET (with the connection displayed between the 2 boys when they are separated)although there is violence the film is not solely about that.

you must see this! i found it to be much better than the over-rated paprika-although i love satoshi kon and own all of his works i didn't think paprika quite matched up to the rest although visually it was stunning- the story seemed to be chucked in to match the visuals)

if you can see past the sometimes very ugly animation style this is an absolute must have!!!

You won't regret it
What else can be said? Brilliant.

Easily an all-time personal favourite, everything about it is classy and original. The characters are engaging and entertaining, the plot is thoughtful and intricate, the visuals are cutting edge and mesmerizing, the music is cool and modern- what more could you want?

I will advise to keep watching it, for some reason upon first watching it I lost interest but I blame tiredness. It is a superb show.