the film follows two orphans, kuro (クロ "black") and shiro (シロ "white"), as they attempt to keep control of the streets of the pan-asian metropolis of takaramachi, once a flourishing town and now a huge, crumbling slum fraught with warring between criminal gangs. kuro is a violent and streetwise punk, considering takaramachi to be "his town". shiro is younger and appears to be mentally impaired, out of touch with the world around him and often living in a world of illusions. they call themselves "the cats". despite their extreme differences, they complement and support each other, similar to the chinese taoist principle of yin and yang.