KÅji Morimoto is one of my favorite animators whom I’ve never seen a feature by. That’s partly because the only feature he’s done to date is the 1991 Fly! Peek the Whale (an out-and-out kid flick, that I’ve never even seen a copy of), but he’s better known for his animated shorts, anyway.
His most seen short in the US, at least, is undoubtedly “Beyond” from the Animatrix anthology, which was one of that very strong collection’s best. He collaborated with Katsuhiro Otomo for the brilliant “The Order to Stop Construction” in Manie Manie anthology (also known as Neo Tokyo). He did Franken’s Gears from Robot Carnival. He’s also done an OVA series called Eternal Family and — most recently — a short called “Dimension Bomb” for the Genius Party Beyond anthology, neither of which I’ve seen. (A lot of this stuff is pretty hard to find!)
Morimoto has also directed a bunch of J-pop music videos, some of which are gorgeous. His stories have been hit and miss (in the films I’ve seen), but the skill of the animation always impresses me. It’s fascinating work, and it’s all begging to be collected onto one “The Work of KÅji Morimoto”-type set one day.
The reason for this post, though, is a 15-minute short he did back in 1997. Be warned: it’s weird. SFW weird, but weeeeiiiird. (And don’t worry; it’s not all filled with visual noise like the first few minutes. That’s intentional. The video gets perfectly clear after a couple of minutes.
Morimoto is supposedly at work on a feature called Sachiko, but I haven’t heard anything about that in years.