In Treasure Town, where the moon smiles and young boys can fly, life is both wonderful and terrible.

Never more true than for KURO (BLACK) and SHIRO(WHITE), two rascal orphan heroes who wander the city by day, looting street tramps for watches and change.

Street-wise, tough-as-nails, and mean as hell, they’re still just two kids fighting for survival in a man’s world. Living life in a surreal and corrupt city that is turning darker every second, Kuro and Shiro must wage a war to save not only themselves but the very soul of their decaying metropolis.

TEKKONKINKREET combines the imaginative fantasy and action elements of the best Japanimation with a modern, dark children’s story. 

By using cutting-edge 3D CGI technology with traditional Japanese anime, a new type of animated feature has been created. The combination of dynamic action, virtuoso visual treats, and heart-rending tragedy gives TEKKONKINKREET universal appeal.

The heroes, Kuro (Black) and Shiro(White), almost defy description. They are equal parts superhero, hardened street urchin, and innocent child.

They can fly and their deftness with a kick, pipe or bat is unmatched. While they are constantly searching for the next great adventure, they instinctively know that their world is changing and not for the better.

Kuro, the oldest of the two boys is the most hardened and always ready for action. He is the man with the plan. He has lost his childhood innocence and has become an aggressive and an impulsive violent force, made to grow up.

As there’s no turning back for Kuro, his goal is to save what’s left of Shiro’s innocence. Far from pure, Shiro is clearly still a child, helpless, emotional, and open to the world, but paradoxically all-knowing, in tune with the poetry of the streets.

These two love each other, but it’s deeper than that: they cannot live without one another. Shiro needs Kuro to survive; Kuro needs Shiro to feel worthy, and to maintain hope in the world.

Combining action with poetry in equal parts, TEKKONKINKREET opens as the two boys kick and fight their way through daily life on the streets. We meet Shiro as he flies above the city and “radios in” to an imaginary command center in the sky.

Shiro reports that he has again kept the world safe from ‘bad guys,’ then mentally retreats into a dream of a better life. Meanwhile, perched on a telephone pole high atop Treasure Town’s streets, Kuro watches the street action with the eyes of a hawk, zeroing in on his next kill.

A crew of three tough guys look like the perfect target for an afternoon attack, and before we know it, Kuro is flying through the air martial arts style. Kuro works his sinister ‘magic’ with shifting back-kicks and pipe blows and the sound of teeth smashing soon fills the alley. Kuro – 3: Gang Toughs - 0. All in an afternoon’s work.

But it’s not all fun and games in Treasure Town. When Yakuza chieftain THE RAT arrives back in town, Kuro knows something is cooking. The Rat brings a new breed of villain with him, led by an evil Lieutenant, KIMURA.

They have been instructed by the BIG BOSS to clear the streets of Treasure Town for a new development, and Kimura relishes his new task.  Much to the Rat’s dismay though, the Boss has plans to wreck the old city, and he has enlisted a dangerous outsider to carry them out.  SNAKE now enters the mix.

More deranged then all of them combined, Snake commands a band of treacherous and all-powerful ALIEN ASSASSINS. Life will never be the same in Treasure Town.

As the tension builds to a violent climax, the action shifts between the boys’ sweet, caring relationship and the encroaching violence of Snake and his assassins. But Snake has his own ambitions.

He wants Treasure Town for himself and he has the plan, the will, and the firepower to do it. With the insight of a soothsayer, Shiro senses this danger deep in his gut, but only Kuro has the ability to stop it. The scene is now set for battle.

Central to the soul of the story, Treasure Town is a major character in itself, a jarring visual metaphor for the war between good and evil, darkness and light, retaining innocent ‘treasures’ versus losing them to the dark powers of greed.

Treasure Town is Old Tokyo on steroids, with smiling moons, expressionistic clouds, and whimsical blimps always floating somewhere behind a city piled on top of itself. Treasure Town is a dream city floating behind the invading nightmare. 

TEKKONKINKREET is a classic tale of innocence lost, and Treasure Town is the perfect visual depiction of this age-old theme. An amusement park taken over by a new, more corrupt and chaotic megalopolis, like Kuro and Shiro, Treasure Town rests perilously on the precipice of despair.

United as one in preserving the balance of the city, all turns to hell when Kuro and Shiro are separated and the assassins increase their hold on Treasure Town. Bit by bit, things fall apart, and each brother enacts his own unique descent into madness. Wandering aimlessly, his speech more and more incoherent, Shiro, the perpetual child, falls further and further into his dream world.

Kuro, forever the savage, suffers an even greater transformation, turning into a violent beast, a dark demon capable of the most extreme evil. Reason, purity and lucidity disappear, and only darkness remains. Kuro vanquishes the aliens, but it may be too late to save himself.

Momentarily switching their roles, it is Shiro who now must save Kuro from his self-imposed prison. Peace returns to the city, and yet somewhere deep down the evil is waiting, ready to pounce at a moment’s notice.
 
A brutal elegy for our changing times as well as a tour-de-force of visual artistry, TEKKONKINKREET is a story with heart and soul.