Welcome to Treasure Town. It's an old and fading fantasy town quietly disappearing under the spread of modern Japan. But it doesn't stand alone. Black and White, two street orphans, rule Treasure Town with all the charm and wild crazy that every classic Peter Pan deserves. Don't confuse these cats with Disney's version. These lost boys live just this side of lunacy but are not without heart.

Change arrives like a slow earthquake and soon they are battling real gansters, alien assassins and urban development. Truth is a major player here and gives the fantastical its impact. Mythology explodes from every corner of this tale and threatens to trample our heroes, who are only children after all, into the dark recesses that inevitably follow change.

Violent and full of love, Tekkonkinkreet can be seen again and again for its depth, beauty and it's wicked cool. The artistry is envelopling, mind blowing and I doubt you will ever see it all. So many little details that piece together a fading city, an alley, a child's room. In the middle of chaos they must remember one thing:  Truth is love and love is all you need.

I have been an avid Miyazaki fan since the Hong Kong Film Festival of 1984, when I saw Nausicaä and Castle in The Sky. I think Miyazaki-san did his greatest work in the 90s, before Spirited Away brought him fame and fortune in Hollywood. And of his 1990s films, there is none more mature, moving, and masterful as Porco Rosso, the story of World War I flying ace Marco Porcellino, whose disillusionment with the rise of fascism made him choose to become a pig.

In abandoning the world, Marco also left behind people who loved him, especially the beautiful Gina, widow of his wartime comrade and owner of the best club in the Adriatics, where bounty hunters and air pirates alike leave their guns (and troubles) behind.

This is Miyazaki's most romantic film, and could easily have been done with live actors. But with his usual zeal and fanaticism for every authentic detail, Miyazaki has created out of manga (cartoon) a completely believable world, much as Hitchcock had in The Birds with matte painting. The seaplanes and their dogfights will overwhelm you with their realism, and Marco's engine actually bears the brandname Ghibli in reference to Miyazaki's movie studio, just as Grandfather Piccolo who owns the plane factory bears an unmistakable resemblance to Miyazaki-san himself.