User Reviews

Noiseman Sound Insect is a experimental anime short from the late nineties by Koji Morimoto (Better known for the Animatrix segment Beyond, and the beautiful "Magnetic Rose" segment from Memories)

The stylish visuals carry the film here, with very neat character designs and gorgeous sceneries. On the other side, the plot is a bit confusing, being frankly hard to follow in a couple of moments.

From what I could understand here, the story follows a strange creature named "Noiseman", which steals the sound from people by separating them into crystals and "ghosts" resembling fishes, while also brainwashing some kids into becoming his minions to chase those fishy ghosts.

However, one of these kids breaks from Noiseman control and joins a rebellion group to recover the music of the world. Or something like that.

Honestly, the plot doesn't feel much important here, being basically an excuse to feature a lot of wacky animations. That works well enough for me, but I kinda wish the story was just as strong as the amazing imagery.

"Onkyô seimeitai Noizuman" or "Noiseman Sound Insect" is a Japanese 15-minute animated short film from almost 20 years ago. The writer is Hideo Morinaka and apparently it is his only work so far in terms of writing for film, at least according to his IMDb profile. The director, however, is Kôji Morimoto, a pretty prolific filmmaker who you may have come across by seeing the animated Matrix short films. And while they have nothing in common with this one here, you could probably see a parallel as many of these Matrix films are style over substance and this one here is as well. It is a truly strange watch. Everything here is over the top, be it the animation style, the characters' actions or the voice acting. Reading the English translation in the subtitles isn't helping much either with this (lack of a) story. The sad thing is there are moments when this film tries to be dramatically relevant, but it's not working at all. I can only take this seriously as a no-holds-barred comedy and even as such, it is very underwhelming. Not recommended.