Tekkonkinkreet

Michael Arias (born 1968) is an American-born filmmaker active primarily in Japan. Though Arias has worked variously as visual effects artist, animation software developer, and producer, he is best known for his directorial debut, the anime feature Tekkonkinkreet, which established him as the first non-Japanese director of a major anime film.

Michael Arias’ early filmmaking career is marked by stints in both the U.S. and Japan, working in VFX, CG production and software development, and as a producer of animated films. In 1995, after establishing himself definitively in Tokyo, Arias was introduced by a friend to Taiyō Matsumoto’s manga Tekkonkinkreet (鉄コン筋クリート Tekkon Kinkurīto), a work that profoundly affected him. Tekkonkinkreet (Tekkon) is a metaphysical coming-of-age story concerning two orphans, Black (クロ Kuro) and White (シロ Shiro) and their struggle to survive in a pan-Asian metropolis, Treasure Town (宝町 Takara-machi), beset by evil. Of first discovering Tekkon, Arias recalls that a friend loaned him Tekkon to read, “And that was it. Hooked. …I cried many times reading it, also a new experience for me to be moved to tears by a manga.”

In November 1997, a conversation with animation auteur Koji Morimoto, who had shown interest in Arias’ software projects, led to Arias’ introduction to manga artist Taiyō Matsumoto. From there, what had begun as a simple software demo for Morimoto rapidly escalated to a full-fledged all-CG feature-film project, helmed by Morimoto, with computer graphics efforts directed by Arias himself. Though the completed 4-minute Tekkonkinkreet Pilot Film (「鉄コン筋クリート」パイロット版 Tekkonkinkurīto Pairottoban) went on to take an Outstanding Performance award for Non-Interactive Digital Art at the Japan Media Arts Festival and be featured in the SIGGRAPH 2000 Animation Theater’, the project was abandoned shortly thereafter for lack of funding and director Morimoto’s flagging interest in Tekkonkinkreet.

Then, in 2000, while still under contract to Softimage, Michael accepted an invitation from Joel Silver and Andy and Larry Wachowski (the Wachowski Brothers) to produce Warner Bros’ Matrix-inspired animation anthology The Animatrix, a project that consumed him for over three years. On being pegged to produce The Animatrix, despite his lack of experience producing, Arias recounts, “I really had to draw on a great deal of experience that had sat unused in the background while I’d been pursuing software development. Everything I’d learned until this point: a brief career in recording studios, composing music and doing sound effects for short films in college, having my own company, working in special effects. It was a great chance to exercise some dormant (or damaged) brain cells.”

Arias worked closely with the Wachowskis to refine the project’s unique specifications: though initially conceived of as a television series, The Animatrix evolved into a collection of nine non-episodic animated shorts, each six to ten minutes long. With co-producers Hiroaki Takeuchi and Eiko Tanaka (president of maverick animation boutique Studio 4°C, where much of The Animatrix was animated), Arias ultimately developed and produced eight of the nine Animatrix segments (the lone exception being a CG-animated short created by Square Pictures). To helm the films, Arias and his partners assembled a “dream team” of anime luminaries that included Yoshiaki Kawajiri, Koji Morimoto, Shinichiro Watanabe, and Mahiro Maeda. The Animatrix was a commercial success and went on garner the 2004 ASIFA Annie Award for Outstanding Achievement in an Animated Home Entertainment Production.

In 2003, while working on The Animatrix, Arias picked up Tekkonkinkreet again. Armed with an English-language screenplay penned by screenwriter Anthony Weintraub, and encouraged by mentor Morimoto, Arias moved forward with plans to revive Tekkon at Studio 4°C, with Animatrix collaborator and 4 °C president Eiko Tanaka producing and Arias directing. The film was completed in August 2006 and premiered at the Tokyo International Film Festival soon thereafter. Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) curator Barbara London named Tekkonkinkreet “Best Film of 2006” in her Art Forum roundup, and subsequently arranged for the film’s North American premiere to be held at MoMA. Tekkonkinkreet remains a milestone in Japanese animation. It was awarded Japan’s prestigious Noburō Ōfuji award at home, and continued on to compete for two awards at the 57th Berlin International Film Festival and later win the 2008 Japan Academy Prize for Animation of the Year. The Guardian listed Tekkonkinkreet third in its roundup of the ten most underrated movies of the decade. —Wikipedia