Tekkonkinkreet is an award-winning anime feature film directed by Michael Arias. Adapted from Black and White, a three-volume seinen manga series by Taiyo Matsumoto, Tekkonkinkreet centers on a pair of orphaned street kids—the tough, canny Kuro (Black) and the childish but mysteriously intuitive Shiro (White)—as they deal with Yakuza attempting to take over Takara Machi (Treasure Town). Tekkonkinkreet is a pun on “tekkin concrete,” the Japanese term for reinforced concrete; it suggests the opposition of the concrete city against the strength of imagination.

A groundbreaking American/Japanese collaboration, Tekkonkinkreet won the 2008 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year, the Grand Prix award at the Anima 2008 festival, the prestigious Best Film Award at the 2006 Mainichi Film Awards, and was named the number one film of 2006 in the annual “Best of” roundup by the New York Museum of Modern Art’s Artforum magazine.

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Tekkonkinkreet © Taiyo Matsumoto/Shogakukan Inc.

I grew up being away from my parents, and I always wanted to run away from the place, which I suppose may have influenced my work on Tekkonkinkreet.  [In creating the screenplay, Anthony Weintraub and I] used to have good chats about things unrelated to work...such as family and music.  I like him a lot.  [As I do not know anything about screenwriting,] I left it all in his hands."--Taiyo Matsumoto

Click here to see an essay by Tekkonkinkreet screenwriter Anthony Weintraub.