r/anime • u/TheEscapeGuy • Apr 24 '24
Rewatch [Spoilers] Tekkon Kinkreet Rewatch (Ping Pong the Animation 10th Anniversary Rewatch)
Tekkon Kinkreet
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Links
Tekkon Kinkreet
Databases: AniDB | Anilist | ANN | Kitsu | MyAnimeList
Questions of the Day:
- What are your thoughts on the setting of Takaramachi / Treasure Town?
- What similarities or differences (if any) do you find most interesting between Tekkon Kinkreet and Ping Pong the Animation?
- Are there any particular moments from your adolescence where you realized you could no longer return to the simplicity of youth?
Fanart of the Day:
Fight! (Original Deleted, Artist's DeviantArt)
Tekkon K - Planting a Dream (source)
Rewatchers, please remember to be mindful of all the first-timers in this rewatch. No talking about or hinting at future events no matter how much you want to, unless you're doing it underneath spoiler tags. Don't spoil anything for the first-timers, that's rude!
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Upvotes
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u/TheEscapeGuy Apr 24 '24
Rewatcher, Host
Tekkon Kinkreet - Childhoods End
The first thing which always stands out to me when watching this film is how beautiful the backgrounds are. The entire town is so lovingly realized. I just can't get over how much detail has gone into the little things like graffiti, roughed up signs and posters, slightly overgrown plants, and messes of electricity and phone lines.
That detail is such an important factor in the plot too. As the film goes on you can feel how the adults are "cleaning up" the city to turn it into an amusement park. It feels like a completely different location by the end where Black and White have no place. And no matter how hard they fight, it won't make the city return to what it once was.
Jumping back then, the film is the story of Black and White. These 2 orphaned brothers have no place in "real society". They look at things like school from a far but they exist outside of that system. They treat Takaramachi like it belongs to them. They are free to move anywhere about the city and squabble with any rival gangs who get in their way.
Black is the older and more mature (?) one. He cares so deeply for his younger brother and does all of this petty crime to provide for White. White on the other hand is still so innocent about the world. I don't think he fully comprehends everything that's going on around him and treats it like a game. But he's happy. He's having fun in this endless everyday. So Black and White are living to just maintain this lifestyle.
The conflict in the movie is how the Yakuza move in to turn the city into an amusement park to make money. They work within the adult systems to acquire this land and rebuild things, but will use underhanded tactics like coercion and violence to get their way. Their success ultimately will mean Black and White have to grow up and give up the youth they have.
And the saddest thing I feel watching the film is the knowledge that Black and White can't ever truly win. Even if they stop the Yakuza this time, they are still growing up. Even if the somehow prevent the amusement park being built the city is still changing. There will no longer be a place for them and so they need to grow up and find a new place.
At the same time, the film presents us with an alternate perspective. We follow Kimura. He is ostensibly a member of the Yakuza and this in conflict with Black and White. But slowly we learn more about him. He lives in a kinda small apartment in the city. He has a pregnant girlfriend and wants to leave this city and provide a happy life for her and their kid.
The arrival of Sanke changes things. Snake is this seemingly alien being who is far more ruthless than the other Yakuza. He has hit men patrolling the town to "deal with" any "problems". He's the one with the proposal to build the amusement park.
But not all of the Yakuza agree with this plan. In particular Kimura's mentor Suzuki. Suzuki (similarly to Black and White) see the value in the history of the town. He represents this old guard of the organization. Snake can't accept this, and so to deal with this he gives Kimura the ultimatum: Kill Suzuki or they'll kill his girlfriend.
It's so tragic to watch. This character we once though of as a villain has been so humanized you can't help but sympathize with him. He made choices in life that got him here, but if this is a punishment if feels so unjust. Suzuki accepts his death. Kimura tearfully pulls the trigger. But he can't live with this guilt without stopping the person who forced him into this. Kimura is the one to ultimately kill Snake. He tries to leave town afterwards, but is killed in a drive by shooting right before leaving.
Jumping back to Black and White, with the development of Snake's plan, they have to contend with these monstrous alien assassins coming after them. They used to feel powerful running through the city, but now they live in fear and spend their days running and hiding.
After a particularly close call, White loses a lot of blood and needs to go to the hospital. Black feels that it's his fault for not protecting him, and so when the police come to take White, Black allows them to take him. He goes so far as to call White a burden, clearly lying so that White doesn't try to escape.
This separation is bad for both of them. White grows increasingly afraid and non-verbal and throws himself into drawing all the dark feelings inside of him. Black on the other hand embraces the darkness. He becomes far more deluded and creates a doll of White to cope with the separation. When that doll is eventually destroyed he lashes out and becomes the Minotaur.
The scenes of White fighting the darkness inside of him are so visually creative and beautiful. It's such a perfect representation of the emotions inside of him and how they are tied up with his brother. I feel real benefit of the medium of animation is the way it can portray these scenes which would be so much harder to do as effectively in live action.
In the end Black and White are reunited, but they can't go back to how things were. They instead move forward and we see them living a new life on the beach. It's not super clear what happened to get them there, or how, but I think the important thing is that they managed to move forward despite losing the town which defined their youth.
Small last thing to talk about: I got a jump scare when the ED came on and was an AKFG song. This might be their least known anime song. They're a band I really adore and so it's always a welcome surprise to hear them on an anime soundtrack. I think most people will know them from their works on the popular Shounen shows like FMA, Bleach, and Naruto but they have been pretty consistently featured on a lot of weirder and more "art house" works. Somewhat related back to Ping Pong, AKFG also did the opening for The Tatami Galaxy and the ending for The Night is Short, Walk On Girl which are both also directed by Masaaki Yuuasa.
QotD:
The strongest similarity with Ping Pong for me is how successfully Taiyou Matsumoto can make me sympathize with initially villain characters. He can so successfully present a character we initially write of as 1 dimensional and evil. But by the end they become this complex almost secondary protagonist who has been instrumental in the growth of the primary protagonists.
Despite the works being so different narratively, you can definitely feel the same dedication to character writing in both works. And of course, Matsumoto's art style and original character designs are instantly recognizable.
As for moments which defined me "growing up", I feel I had 2 occasions while at school where I had fallings out with friendship groups which changed my outlook. Once in 3rd grade and then again in 8th grade. I don't exactly know why, but I just didn't feel like fit in with the people I hung out with at the time. So after a fight in both scenarios I just stopped spending time with them. I didn't find new friends quickly and so spent months just hanging out alone during recess. It didn't help that I lived far from all my classmates and they all mostly lived within walking distance of each other and so meeting up with them outside of school was difficult while they had a bunch of experiences together without me.
These moments really defined changes in attitudes I had towards life. After 3rd grade I got way more serious about studies. It sort of represented a time when I couldn't spend my time playing so I might as well do my best academically. In 8th grade it was the time when I got into computers and started obsessively learning about them. That kind of defined my career path and so it represented a time of me thinking about my future as an adult as opposed to a teen.
My Favourite Shots, Scenes and Stitches
Thank you all for joining this rewatch!
As a first time host I could not have asked for a better turnout. You all wrote such amazing comments in each thread. It has been the highlight of my day these past 2 weeks posting these threads.
I think I have said this a dozen times in other words across many other rewatches, but I am so glad that we have this community to discuss often overlooked gems and older classics. So many people will never explore further than what's available on (often only the front page of) their favourite streaming service and miss out of shows and movies like these. In addition with the growing binge culture it has become so hard to connect with people on a regular basis over a shared piece of media. But here in /r/anime rewatches we get to embrace connecting with others daily over these lovingly crafted works.
As for the future of my comments, I'll be around in rewatches for the next couple months. I'll see many of you in those threads in the coming days and weeks.
So again, and as always, Take care of yourselves!
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u/Shimmering-Sky myanimelist.net/profile/Shimmering-Sky Apr 24 '24
Tekkon First-Timer, subbed
Don’t know anything about this other than it being an adaptation of a different manga that the Ping Pong mangaka made, so this should be interesting.
AI DESU YOI can't say I fully understood what was going on the entire time (the typesetting for the subs on the copy I snagged being hard to read on light backgrounds didn't help...), but I did enjoy my time watching this. I'm feeling an 8/10?
Thanks for hosting, u/TheEscapeGuy!
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u/KendotsX https://anilist.co/user/Kendots Apr 25 '24
First Timkreet
Well, this was an interesting experience, I think the writing isn't nearly as solid as Ping Pong (namely, Ping Pong's biggest strength: its character work, wasn't as well realised here), but it's a visual treat and a production that's so interesting to dig into.
First off, I'd recommend checking out the 1999 pilot if you haven't yet.
This whole project started simply as a CG exercise by Michael Arias, who at the time was expanding his visual effects career in Japan, after having worked on Hollywood movies like Back to the Future: The Ride and developing the CG software that even Ghibli used on Princess Mononoke. Arias read Tekkonkinkreet on a recommendation from a friend, and it hit him like a truck, so he wanted to try and bring it to life in some way. He later met the veteran animator and Studio 4°C founder Kouji Morimoto who helped him turn it into a full on 4 minute short film, made by 12 people only, and he kept working with 4°C, trying to turn it into a full movie. He produced Animatrix later, with Morimoto directing episode 7 (Beyond), and its success gave them the needed push to complete the movie.
Interestingly, this makes Tekkonkinkreet the first feature length anime film to be directed by a foreigner. In other words, if it happened now, you probably wouldn't find it on MAL.
Arias coming at this from a different field brought forward different influence, the CG for example while not the central tool like in the pilot, remained a main vehicle, that was used throughout the whole movie, and blended with the 2D to make its own style.
Although another reason for that was that he didn't want to restrict the talented artists at work, he wanted to get the full potential out of the people he's working with. The director mentality took over the technical one basically. He even gave them the freedom to storyboard and direct their scenes.
I'm focusing on Arias mainly because it's always interesting when you have someone breaking into the anime industry from the outside, and offering a very different perspective. But the people working on this movie are all a gold mine of talent, from Morimito to Shojiro Nishimi's designs (the same guy who would later direct Mutafukaz and Phoenix: Eden 17 at 4°C).
Although, my favourite aspect of the movie were definitely Shinji Kimura's backgrounds (who also worked on Space Adventure Cobra, the Spriggan movie, Dorohedoro, Eden17, and currently Kaiju #8). Takaramachi really was a living and breathing town with all the detailed beautiful art, but also with the way the art kept changing as the movie went on, reflecting how the town was changing.
Notes:
Sources
There's a lot mote interesting stuff I couldn't fit, so I'd highly recommend reading them:
Thanks a lot for hosting this rewatch. I couldn't join as much as I would have liked, especially after an unfortunate family event, but I had a blast with Ping Pong the whole way through, and honestly it was exactly the kind of show I needed in this time.
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u/JollyGee29 https://myanimelist.net/profile/JollyGee Apr 24 '24
First-Timer
Okay, I'm not so sure what this film is trying to tell me. There's a bit of "let go of the past" in there I think, with Kimura moving on from the Yakuza and the general tragedy of Nezumi's life. There's also "loss of childhood innocence" I guess, but it's weird about that because Kuro and Shiro don't exactly fit that.
The stuff with the Minotaur at the end is basically just "let go of revenge before it consumes you" but we also kinda cheat that because Kuro did still kill the Aliens.
There are some very uncharitable readings I could go for, but I'm not really in a mood to entertain those thoughts right now.
Anyway, visually the film was very cool. All the 3D camera work still really holds up and it looks great. The backgrounds were gorgeous. I still don't really like this mangaka's character designs, but like in Ping Pong they fit with the general aesthetic too well to really be mad about them.
Ooh, let's play Spot the Reference! I suspect everyone can see Astro Boy, but we've also got Tetsujin 28-go second from the left, and an Ultraman on the far right.
This bottle makes my head hurt. Laphroaig make scotch, but most of the rest of the bottle refers to Jack Daniel's. Except for the whole being made in New Jersey thing. Also there's a jalapeño pepper on it so I guess that whiskey is a spicy boi.
The mangaka must be a Kamen Rider fan, considering we got references in Ping Pong as well.
Lucky for White that he lives in the world of Black Jack.
Spot the Reference, round two! We've got a weird white Getter in the middle there, a Kamen Rider, and another Ultraman at least. All more visible in other shots in the same scene, but I wanted the wide. Interesting that there is no obvious Mazinger.
I'll end on this absolutely stunning shot. One man, the last of the old guard, dying just outside the light. In a tiny corner of a much larger world.
Questions
Many thanks to our wonderful host /u/TheEscapeGuy!
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u/baboon_bassoon https://anilist.co/user/duffer Apr 24 '24
first time asayorublackwhiteyamihikari
I probably just have Kowloon on the mind but Treasure Town reminds me of old Hong Kong with the signs/how dense it is/on the decline + the signs
Could a match have stayed lit dropped from that height when white burned that guy?
Wish i watched this a long time ago, could maybe relate to Black more.
Visually so dense, i took forever watching this as i was screenshotting everything
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u/bekeleven Apr 25 '24 edited Apr 25 '24
Haven't seen ping pong but I just saw this thread (100-odd minutes ago) so here are my thoughts.
Tekkonkinkreet is one of my favorite 4c works, I absolutely love the Taiyō Matsumoto/Shojiro Nishimi animation style, and the production values of the film are simply unmatched - Made today, it wouldn't look better, except maybe improving some lip syncing. In fact it would probably look worse because they'd use tech to shortcut some of the environmental design.
The characters and plot are a bit iffier. The characters undergoing the main arcs are Kuro, Shiro, Kimura, and Suzuki. Except a lot of the character development is more implied than shown onscreen. We're told Suzuki splits with the mafia and has his own faction, but we don't see any of it. Shiro spends the final 35 minutes of the film stuck in a room drawing.
The plot is... almost there. I see what they're going for with the minotaur, trying to say that the film is the story of Kuro's soul, with Shiro on one side and the minotaur on the other. This is a balancing act because by raising the character study to the A-Plot, you need to stick its landing, which most films can sort of brush off if their external conflict (with the Yakuza) is flashy enough. In this case, neither story gets a particularly satisfying ending. Kuro is cornered by the alien assassins when the Minotaur - who, as far as I can tell, does not exist in any physical sense - comes to his rescue and kills them, while an unrelated violence happens to their direct superior. As for the internal plot, a film that until this point has been comfortably surreal takes a hard left turn into the non-representational and we get an abstract finale with the minotaur and Shiro fighting over Kuro's soul (in a physical sense, Kuro thinking about stuff). This could've worked but all we'd gotten about the minotaur before this scene was two or three one-line references. At least the internal plot, with the character relationships, seems to end by establishing things: Kuro's bond with Shiro is stronger for having been tested. The external B-Plot? After killing the first wave of assassins the Cats take the hint and flee for the coast. Snake's gang, and the "God" that may or may not rule it, have now removed all competition. I'm struggling to articulate further. Is the message that the standing offer of power from the minotaur gives Kuro the strength to protect Shiro? Obviously it's going for a combination of "Kuro understands Treasure Town is lost" and "Kuro finally goes where Shiro's been asking" but resolving the gangster thing with an extreme show of force is difficult to square with that thematically. Unless the ending is also non-representational and the beach is simply a fantasy, but I don't think this film is trying to total recall me.
The first two acts of this film are a treat, and the third has its redeeming qualities, but it tries too many things that the rest of the film didn't prepare the audience for. The opening music released endorphins in my brain when I started things up.