Saturday's L.A. Times carried a fascinating story by Bruce Wallace about Michael Arias, the first American to direct a major anime feature film.  Arias, who was born in Los Angeles, began his career as a special effects cameraman on films like James Cameron's Abyss. He is married to a Japanese woman and has spent 15 of his 39 years in Japan. Arrias developed a sophisticated shading program for computer animation that Miyazaki used on Princess Mononoke. He was the producer on The Animatrix, which is one of the best-selling North American anime releases of all time.

Arias has been working for a decade on the Tekkon Kinkreet project, which is based on a three volume manga series from the mid-1990s created by Taiyo Matsumoto and published in the U.S. by Viz under the title Black & White.  The idiosyncratic manga, which is rated 'Teen +,' focuses on the relationship between two street urchins living in an abandoned car in a pan-Asian metropolis struggling to maintain its character and humanity in the face of pressures for development.  Matsumoto's manga has developed a strong following in Japan among those suspicious of the loss of the 'old Japan' in the never-ending battle with the forces of modernity and globalization.

Tekkon Kinkreet received excellent critical notices and has done 'respectable' business in Japan since its release in December.  Sony Pictures has acquired worldwide rights to Tekkon Kinkreet, but Sony has not yet made any announcement about a U.S. DVD release.