Biography: Michael Arias (born 1968) is an American-born filmmaker active primarily in Japan. Though Arias has worked variously as visual effects artist, animation software developer, and producer, he is best known for his directorial debut, the anime feature Tekkonkinkreet, which established him as the first non-Japanese director of a major anime film. Description above from the Wikipedia article Michael Arias, licensed under CC-BY-SA, full list of contributors on Wikipedia.