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My Chemical Romance Taps Hideo Kojima and Billie Eilish for Animated Short
My Chemical Romance released the roughly 9-minute animated short Prelude to The End on the band's official YouTube channel on Friday, October 30, marking the 20th anniversary of The Black Parade.
Reporting from 1 source: KAI-YOU.
Why it matters
The short is a crossover between the band's anniversary and Lauren Tsai's Dying World project, and it puts a game director and two pop songwriters on the same voice cast, which is the kind of pairing a music release alone would not carry.
Key Facts
- My Chemical Romance released the animated short Prelude to The End on the band's official YouTube channel on Friday, October 30.
- The short runs roughly 9 minutes and commemorates the 20th anniversary of The Black Parade.
- Hideo Kojima voices a school teacher, Billie Eilish plays protagonist Astrid's friend, and Phoebe Bridgers plays a sister.
- Lauren Tsai produced the film, voices Astrid, and based it on her Dying World project.
- Prelude to The End is also scheduled to screen at My Chemical Romance's Hollywood Bowl concerts on October 30 and 31.
Hideo Kojima voices a school teacher, Billie Eilish plays protagonist Astrid's friend, Phoebe Bridgers plays a sister, and John C. McGinley plays the headmaster. Lauren Tsai produced the film and voices Astrid.
The setting is a New England boarding school covered in garbage. Astrid, a girl the school treats as a problem for drawing a certain being, loses her sketchbook and falls down a garbage chute into a world where forgotten ideas live. That premise comes from Lauren Tsai's The Dying World, which was screened at the Annecy International Animation Film Festival in 2025.
The film pairs that world with the band's opening song, The End. Tsai has made fan animations set to My Chemical Romance songs since she was 11, and she voices Astrid here. Prelude to The End is free on YouTube and is also set to screen at the band's Hollywood Bowl concerts on October 30 and 31.
Written with AI by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited. See our editorial policy.
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