Watched another terrific Japanese animated film last night with some friends, albeit one directed by an American named Michael Arias. Based on a manga by Taiyo Matsumoto, it's called "Tekkon Kinkreet," a Romanization of the Japanese title "鉄コン筋クリート" which itself wittily syncopates the Japanese word for the iron rods inside concrete (鉄筋) with the katakana transliteration of "concrete" (コンクリート); in France it was released with the less obscure and poetically apt title "Amer Beton." It's visually ravishing fully realized world - with crazy camera angles (sic!) and a funkily downbeat soundtrack by Plaid (the protagonists are children but it's not a film for kid). It's nostalgic, as are many Japanese films live-action and animated, for what you might call pre-Tokyo Olympics Japan - you've seen it if you've been in Tokyo's shitamachi, in the arcades under railroad tracks or half vacant shopping streets in provincial cities - although it mixes in features of other old world cities. The story? Is kind of grim, though not without moments of sweetness. Amer catches it well. 
