Black Tar Alley exists before CGI anime knew what it was supposed to look like. Twelve animators built something that moves like ink spilled in water, all weight and momentum and wrong angles, nothing like the plastic smoothness that would follow. Watch it now and you see where the obsession started: two kids navigating a city that breathes, rendered in a language most people didn't know was possible yet.

Tekkon Kinkreet Pilot is a five-minute special from 1999, animated entirely by computer with a crew of just twelve people. The project began when Michael Arias of Softimage made a brief computer graphics test, which drew the interest of Morimoto, who then agreed to work on it using the Softimage 3D software. A few months later, Wilson Tang, the visual director, and Lee Fulton, the animation supervisor, showed the finished pilot to Softimage staff. The pilot later won the Excellence Award in the Digital Art Division at the 3rd Japan Media Arts Festival. Its genre labels are action, adventure, psychological and supernatural.