Taiyo Matsumoto’s wonderful underground manga is a much darker prospect than its flowing, full-colour movie adaptation by Michael Arias. Matsumoto keeps his vision of Treasure Town closer to the perspective its guardians Black and White, two young boys known as The Cats who protect their district from rival gangs that threaten destroy its character in their competition for influence there. Matsumoto’s artwork appears unconventional and almost hallucinatory in places, but the development of the story, the whole pace and perspective, is a familiar one in Japanese manga.
Black and White obviously represent the yin and yang, the delicate ecological and psychological balance that is under threat from the ways of the modern world. Once that relationship is altered, events rapidly escalate and inevitably there are violent consequences. This all-in-one phone-book size edition, released to coincide with the release of the film adaptation on DVD, is beautiful, providing a wonderful opportunity to read the entirely of one of the best manga books in recent years.
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