The Retrospective

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U9LnbgA1K28

One of my biggest loves is anime. Growing up in the 80’s exposed me to a vast amount of Japanese television that was dubbed into French. It was quite a culture shock to move to the states in the early 90’s and find that American children had not grown up on the same style of television that I had. There are huge cultural and stylistic differences in anime that I’m sure you are well aware of. One of the biggest differences for me was the censorship of subject matter and graphic depiction. I always believed that anime conveyed well thought out and concise ideas, however as we all know the states are sticklers for what is socially acceptable. From funny Saturday morning cartoon type anime like DragonBall Z to more serious anime like Akira and Ghost in the Shell.

I was reading Mr. Kim’s blog and he and some friends watched this anime called Tekken Kikreet. I went out to the local blockbuster and rented it to see what this was all about. THIS MOVIE IS INSANE! The anime is an adaptation from manga done by Taiyō Matsumoto of the same name.What’s interesting about this film is that it was directed by American director Michael Arias and the screenplay was done by Anthony Weintraub (another American), and the score was for film was done by british electronic duo PLAID; the rest of the staff consisted of Japanese studio 4C.

The premise revolves around two orphan children, Kuro or Black and Shiro or White, living in fictional Treasure Town . As we travel through the four seasons we see the invasion of their small, run down city by gangsters; the central theme seems to be loss innocence. The film employs not only traditional 2D animation but 3D as well. Some of the camera angles that we see are down right acrobatic as we are moved around in a Matrix-like fashion. The detail employed in illustrating the city is meticulous. As a kid I always wanted to be an animator but the mind-numbing attention to detail that anime possesses would require more concentration than my brain will allow. I wouldn’t recommend this movie to you if you haven’t watched anime before; it’s not the most digestable film when being introduced to the genre. It’s definitely a great film if you’re an avid fan of anime. The movie gets scary at times (like make a grown man scared). I haven’t felt that way since I watched Akira (which till to this day still gives me chills).

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