written and illustrated by Taiyō Matsumoto
published by Viz Media
ISBN-10: 1421518678
ISBN-13: 978-1421518671
review by Adam Armstrong
11.25.2008
Bizarrely touching.
Black and White are two orphaned brothers who run Treasure town.
Underestimation is their biggest ally, being two young scrawny kids no one ever
gives them much thought until after they are already beaten by the duo. With
the Yakuza and a new mysterious man named Serpent moving in on Treasure town,
the stronger Black decides he can't keep protecting the mentally imbalanced
White and decides to give him over to the police. But with out his good side in
White, Black moves over to the darker side of his self taking dangerous risks
and even killing some of the men that are sent after him.
I'm not a fan of Manga but I think it is
good to occasionally take the glasses of another culture and put them on to see
the world from a different angle. With Tekkon Kinkreet I read the entire book, and it's quite a book
at over 600 pages, in one sitting. Matsumoto only adds what is truly necessary
in the drawings to say what he really wants to tell the reader. Something of
note: Typically we don't expect comics or graphic novels to evoke much emotion.
Bad things happen to the people in comics; it is the nature of the beast. But I
really felt for Black as he went through such a hard separation from White and
began to draw into his darker self.
Worth looking at: 4.5 out of 5