Taiyo Matsumoto - Black & White (Tekkon Kinkreet)

I'll only use the term manga for this work because the author and origin of it is from Japan. Other than that this very little to do with the usual manga format. The art is a lot more European than Japanese and this is because Matsumoto was greatly fascinated with the French way of doing things in comics. What he primarily tried to do with this story is fusing European and Japanese styles of comics into one. Did he succeed? I think he did, some people might think he ruined a good story. So it's either a like or hate from what I learned by looking around.

The story focuses on two young boys. Reckless little anarchists who don't follow their peers but live an adult life filled with yakuza and other kinds of mafia. They go around and beat people with steel pipes and torture others. Fun! They are sort of like an urban legend in this strange little town. The mobsters and criminals actually fear them. One day though a sort of frightening yet laid back yakuza (that reminds me of soooo many characters that Takeshi Kitano played, like Sonatine for example) returns from jail and from then on shit will start hitting the fan very soon.

As I mentioned before the most apparent different thing in this work is the art. It's minimalistic at heart but not to the point of being just scribbles/pseudo art(?). It achieves a lot of things with only few details and some smart shading. The story and the characters are complete nutjobs so I think most of Flying Teapot readers will have no problem with it. :D As with all mindfuckery you can get lost in the story fast if you don't follow much what's happening. I had to read some chapters twice haha but that probably won't happen to others.

All in all I think this is great and you should give it a try.

Get.