Koji Morimoto, the famed animation director ( Akira, Magnetic Rose, Animatrix ) and co-founder of Studio 4°C recently created this short animated promotional piece for the Japanese metal band MONO. It’s only a mere 15 seconds, but every second of Morimoto’s impactful animation is a gem. Check it out below :

Watching this piece jogs my memory a good 15 years back to another animated music video that Koji Morimoto directed in 1999 for the hugely popular Japanese band Glay, a song titled “Survival” :

Back in 1999 ( yeah, loose socks were evidently still in fashion back then ) this was one of the earliest anime pieces to beautifully blend 3D generated backgrounds with 2D, hand drawn characters, and the additional depth, perspective and dynamic camera moves really wowed me as a budding animation student.

You can imagine how star-struck I was years later when I met some of these amazing artists at Sunrise.