Cinema Caravan continued last night with a screening of the 2006 anime hit Tekkonkinkreet, which is based on a best-selling seinen manga series by Taiyö Matsumoto about two orphans named Black and White living in a dystopian place called Treasure City. In the main plot, Black and White battle against Yakuza that want to come in and take over the city. From the poster you can get a sense of how dizzingly dense Treasure City’s urban landscape is, which serves as a nice backdrop for various chases, battles with robot assassins, and a confrontation with the dark side of the self in the form of a minotaur. Don’t ask—just see it. The name of the movie (and manga) is a play on the Japanese words for steel reinforced concrete, which is “tekkin konkurito,” or something like that. The film may be animated, but seinen manga are aimed more or less at an adult audience, so have no fears about this being like a Disney movie. Anyway, there’s plenty about Tekkonkinkreet online so we’ll stop at this juncture. Tonight, Cinema Caravan screens something called Samurai Fiction, which sounds promising. We’ll let you know how that is. Below is a really shitty photo from the festival. Note to selves: invest in a real camera.
