Compu Movie

Compu Movie
Original name	コンピュムービ
Release date	1994
Format	VHS Tape
Lost?	No

Compu Movie (コンピュムービー) is a compilation of six videos produced by OutSide Directors Company and distributed on VHS by Tierrart. The visuals and editing were done primarily on a Macintosh, something that was heavily emphasized in the tape's marketing. Copies were only available via mail-order, which would later contribute to its elusive status.

Before its full discovery on 27 April 2024, several clips were released by Osamu Sato himself, as detailed in the following sections. These clips include:

• A 22-second clip of a 3d animation titled Deme Kume Chame-go.
• An Alphabetical Animals music video.
• What appears to be the lead-up to the beginning shot of a clock in I LOVE YOU.
• 51 seconds of I LOVE YOU, showing a 2D black and white montage of characters created out of eyes.
• Almost 3 minutes of I LOVE YOU, seen in DIG-MAG.
• A video of The Face, also seen in DIG-MAG.
• A photo containing several frames of the ABC segment showing that at some point the letters combine to spell words.

Community Developments

Advertisement for Compu Movie. The original paper is in black & white; no color information was lost in this grayscale photo of it.

A print advertisement for Compu Movie was discovered by Chia, which contained a list of its contents and screenshots from the film. In left-to-right top-to-bottom order, the screenshots appear to be sourced from:

• The Face (Exactly identical to a frame found in The Esoteric Retina version)
• Alphabetical Animals (Same screenshot of the letters spelling "LOVE" found in other media)
• The Face
• Golden Flowers
• Golden Flowers
• I LOVE YOU
• Deme Kume Chame-Go
• Astor Magic
• Deme Kume Chame-Go
• Astor Magic
• Alphabetical Animals
• I LOVE YOU

In February of 2022, we got our closest ever look at Compu Movie with a 1994 edition of DIG MAG, a digital magazine for Mac. The disc contains a virtual art gallery with work by Sato, Hideki Nakazawa, and others.

In March of 2022, an interview of Sato with a Japanese magazine named Quit was unearthed. In the interview, Sato discusses Compu Movie and his early work. The scans were made by the user beanstalk, and shared by FELON. A transcription of this interview was also made by Chia.

In April of 2024, Sato posted a tweet with the first known image of Compu Movie's cover in full color, claiming to have found it in storage. A copy of Compu Movie was sold in a lucky bag at Sato's April 13 live event in Tokyo. It was purchased by community member Nnnn and the purchase was funded by mav6771. Digitization is complete, and was uploaded to YouTube by adam2.

Image attached to Sato's 2024 tweet.

Deme Kume Chame-Go

In Sato's Next Beat interview, there are brief clips of a 3D animation titled "Deme Kume Chame-Go". Shown below this title is the text "コンピュムービーより", which translates to "From Compu Movie".

The Face

"The Face", also known as "Face the Music" is a song by Osamu Sato with several different mixes. A portion of this music video appeared on the "DIG MAG" CD-ROM. It appears to be an early version of The Esoteric Retina's "Face the Music" video, bearing several similarities.

Astor Magic

"Astor Magic" is a song by The Sync off of their album Beat the System. A clip of the music video could be seen in the Next Beat interview.

Golden Flowers

"Golden Flowers" is a song by Osamu Sato, the name is based on the item with the same name in Eastern Mind: The Lost Souls of Tong-Nou. Several imagery in the music video can also be seen in the Tong-Nou Promo Movie.

Alphabetical Animals

The July 1994 edition of Wired magazine features a short interview with Sato, and also mentions the presence of an Alphabetical Orgasm video on Compu Movie. They most likely meant to say Alphabetical Animals instead, since the artwork in the video matches that series and it's labeled as such in the print advertisement and Next Beat interview.

A presumably clipped version of the full video is available on OSD's YouTube Channel, titled "ABC.mov".

The "DIG MAG" CD-ROM features an interactive version of this video, with animations for every letter and several words ("LOVE", "AND", "PEACE", "FOOL"). These animations appear to be the same as featured in screenshots, but possibly run too quickly in emulators. The screenshot featuring Sato's face doesn't appear here, but rather in the CD-ROM's "I LOVE YOU" video.

I LOVE YOU

This video on the OSD310 Youtube channel was speculated to be from Compu Movie for years before the print advertisement lent more credence to this theory.

The description claims it was produced for Tierrart, the same company which released Compu Movie. Like ABC.mov, it features elements (in this case, numbers) from Alphabetical Animals. It also appears to fade out prematurely, implying there's more to be seen.

Lastly, since several of the clips from the OSD310 channel ended up originating from The Esoteric Retina (Xia-Che, Trancemigration, The Earth is Round), it seems plausible that this would also be the case with Compu Movie.

Another portion of this video was found on the "DIG MAG" CD-ROM. Most of the soundtrack had never been heard before, except for one section which also features in a different part of the Youtube upload. The motif of a spinning Sato portrait appears in this video, which may have partially inspired "The Earth is Round".