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Taiyo Matsumoto’s revered manga masterpiece “Tekkon Kinkreet” has made it to the big screen.
Surprisingly, the director is an American, Michael Arias, who becomes the first westerner to helm a major Japanese animated production.
Arias has lived in Japan the past 15 years, nurturing the project for 10 years, with the last three in full production mode with cutting-edge Japanese studio 4°C. And Arias has truly soaked in that culture, as evidenced by the film’s trailer, which features a bristling, chaotic Asian city called Treasure Town and nice touches like mechanical Buddhas with elephant heads.
Arias started his career doing special-effects camerawork in Hollywood films like The Abyss and Fat Man and Little Boy before moving into computer graphics and software development. He was also a producer on The Animatrix, the collection of Matrix-inspired animated shorts. There’s a great interview with him discussing his labor of love.
Tekkon had its debut stateside a few weeks ago at New York’s Museum of Modern Art. Details on a possible U.S. limited theatrical run in July and DVD release next fall are still sketchy.
