Noiseman Sound Insect, a trailblazing anime short, is finally available to stream

A hidden gem from the '90s featuring some of the biggest names in anime today

We live in a world where some of the most influential or fondly remembered anime gems are locked away without a streaming service to call home. At best, these trailblazing stories are relegated to YouTube, uploaded by fans who want to keep their favorites from becoming lost media. But now, animation studios themselves are making their older titles available, including Studio4°C with its acclaimed 1997 short, Noiseman Sound Insect.

Noiseman Sound Insect is a surreal anime short that centers on a town stripped of melody by the grotesque Noiseman, a monster who steals music to exert total control over its people. When a small group of boys and girls break free from his noise-induced spell, they discover that music itself — raw, emotional, and truthful — is the only force capable of resisting him. The short's animation and music are very experimental, especially for the time, but that's what made this sci-fi story stand out when it was initially released. Moreover, the artists behind Noiseman would go on to define anime's evolution in terms of visuals, storytelling, and sound.

The short is directed by Koji Morimoto, who founded Studio4°C (slated to premiere a new film on Jan. 16, All You Need Is Kill), and features a bevy of other wildly successful animators and directors who have gone on to define some of the best anime of the 21st century. Morimoto is known for working on Akira and The Animatrix, as well as for key animation on Studio Ghibli's Kiki's Delivery Service. Masaaki Yuasa, who later became the president of Science SARU (Dandadan, Sanda), was ananimation designer, character designer, and supervising animator for Noiseman Sound Insect. Shuichi Hirata was the art director of the film, but was also art director for Ghost in the Shell and later The Girl Who Leapt Through Time in 2006. The CGI director, Akiko Saito, went on to produce the visual effects in Berserk: The Golden Age Arc I - The Egg of the King. Lastly, the score was composed by the legendary Yoko Kanno, responsible for the theme music in Cowboy Bebop, Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, Wolf's Rain, and many more.

Check out the short now while you can, because it will only be available from now until May 14, when it will presumably be pulled from YouTube.