One of last year’s slickest anime required a month to finish one second of work

Virgin Punk is what happens when you give a perfectionist far too much time Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl, which opened in only a handful of U.S. theaters in 2025, is the epitome of art as animation. The anime film has a runtime of no more than 35 minutes, which doesn’t sound like much. However, when freelance animators like Daniela Padilla claim “a month of work for one second of animation,” you realize Virgin Punk: Clockwork Girl might not be your typical anime. This obsessive level of polish should come as no surprise to Yasuomi Umetsu fans. The legendary director is still regarded as one of the most talented storyboard artists in the industry, and it seems his touch hasn’t been lost on Virgin Punk. Umetsu is best known for stand-out hits from the 1990s and early 2000s, including Kite, Mezzo DSA, and Mezzo Forte, and he’s behind some of the most well-known anime opening and ending sequences of all time. Virgin Punk marks Umetsu’s first original work in over a decade. It’s also one of the only projects he didn’t directly write or title, with those credits going to Yuya Takahashi of Lupin III fame. Clockwork Girl is intended to be the first in a three-part series. Set in the year 20