Tekkon Kinkreet (Review)
Tekkon Kinkreet is Black and White, and Yakuza All Over.
Tekkon Kinkreet is the story of two orphans, Black (voiced by Scott Menville, who played Robin in Teen Titans) and White (Kamali Minter), who live in the urban neighborhood of Treasure Town. It’s not exactly the best area to live, but it’s their town and they rule it. Black and White seem like exact opposites, with Black being a street-wise and rather brutal punk and White being a nonsense-spewing, naïve child, but the two are inseparable, creating a perfect team. That is, until the Yakuza starts to muscle in on their city. At first, Black manages to fend off the gangsters, until they team up with mysterious (and seemingly super-powered) foreigners.
What really stands out about this anime is how breathtaking the animation is. Director Michael Arias (who’s worked on such films as The Animatrix) creates a film that seems styled after a children’s book, but is still incredibly mature and dark. What’s so effective about this movie is the fact that at first, the animation causes you to lower your guard, and then it hits you with its mature themes and brutality. But it’s so much more than just that: The animation is fluid and dreamlike, and it fits the story perfectly. Throughout the movie, we float in and out of “reality” and into the dreams of Black and especially into the dreams of White.
What can really make or break an anime is the voice acting, and this anime has some great voice acting in it. For the first ten or fifteen minutes, I knew that Black sounded very familiar, until it finally hit me that he played the character Robin in Teen Titans. However, he’s not the only actor in the film to do a remarkable job. This movie is packed with plenty of other voice actors who are well-known throughout the anime community, including David Lodge and even Steven Jay Blum. There isn’t a single actor that takes away from the film in anyway.
What I liked best about the film is the two protagonist, Black and White, who seem like two different sides of the same coin. The two balance each other out. Black teeters on the edge, ready to give in and become everything that eats away at Treasure Town. Meanwhile, White lives in a fantasy world and is vaguely reminiscent of Edward from Cowboy Bebop. He babbles on and on, with sayings like, “Paper money is bigger than metal money. Nine comes after eight. And spring comes after winter, right, Black? Is that right? Black, when the sky turns black why do I feel so blue?” They both make this film a compelling, character-driven drama.
Tekkon Kinkreet nudges its way into the psychological realm toward the end, but does so without being too heavy-handed. While it’s a really great movie, it’s not something that you’ll be watching over and over again. It’s not that it’s a bad or boring film at all, but most of its impact comes from the first viewing of it. When everything is fresh and new it hits you so much harder. This anime loses a bit of its edge during subsequent viewings. Still, this is a movie that even people who aren’t anime fans should check out if they get a chance.
