AMV chronicles #081: favorites of 2019 (#10-1)

A complete YouTube playlist of my 50 favorite AMVs from 2019 can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLc3GuT5JoUhPLGvMN6vNXsWgVeEI6dpqg

Here are my top ten favorite AMVs from the past year. Thanks for reading.

10. Disco Fantasy For the Pin-Up Queen
editor: KazKon
film: Fire and Ice
music: Stilz – “Midnight Dancer”
*Epilepsy warning (strobe effects, flashing images)

If you love 1980s fantasy movies of the hyper-violent, smutty, R-rated variety (Conan the Barbarian, Heavy Metal, Deathstalker, etc.), stop reading this immediately and watch the video posted above. If you’re on the fence about this dated/problematic genre or have no idea what Fire and Ice is, then you’re probably in the same place I was when I excitedly saw that KazKon had uploaded a new edit to YouTube. Even better, this was another video made solely with animated scenes (his first in over a year), which I’d been anticipating since “Psychedelic Limbo,” a dazzling work I don’t know how to describe without repeating the P-word that it’s already invoking. Thing is, I was getting a little burned out on Monogatari videos at this point, and “Psychedelic Limbo” was the third time that KazKon had built an AMV around footage from the franchise. That’s a dumb reason to take it for granted, but I was left hoping that he’d do something different next time around. This video delivers something genuinely new from him and it’s nothing I ever could have anticipated.

I have no nostalgia for this movie and have no idea what it’s about, although it’s not hard to piece together a plot from these scenes even if your brain is halfway turned off. But building a narrative isn’t the main objective here, and that’s just fine. “Disco Fantasy For the Pin-Up Queen” is enjoyable purely as a compilation of stock fantasy tropes and cliched visuals from the Reagan years, which probably doesn’t sound especially appealing or rewarding, but KazKon approaches the film with a very modern eye, giving it a visual treatment that’s usually reserved for sci-fi or stories with a futuristic setting. The entire video is bathed in varying degrees of 3D filter, with neon color and blur effects radically transforming the footage into a look that’s not hard to find these days but rarely (if ever) applied to this genre of film. I’m actually feeling extremely burned out on the entire spectrum of synthwave/retrowave/”1980’s” aesthetic, but it’s such a bizarre, and utterly mind-frying lens to view this kind of rotoscoped animation through that it instantly hooked me from the start. The purist in me was hoping KazKon would return to anime, and maybe he still will in the future, but I’m thankful he made such an unexpected stop along the way.

9. Rock Bottom
editor: Abrogate Need
anime: B.B. Fish
music: Robert Wyatt – “Sea Song,” “A Last Straw”

Watching this AMV feels like stumbling upon some animated rock musical cult movie from the 80s (splitting the difference between the 70s song and the 90s OVA source), not just an AMV imitation of that sort of thing but a video where you can just turn off your mind and instantly fall under the spell that you’re watching something from a bygone era. Every sequence of this flows with a poetic sense of lyric sync that feels miraculously unforced and and natural, beautiful scenes and animation that look like the music sounds, an unlikely knack for matching the most subtle shifts in the song’s mood with consequential actions onscreen, all paced at a leisurely clip that gives the viewer time to soak in the visuals (which you’re going to want to do here, you’ll see)… Is this anime good? Who knows! These scenes feel made for this song but not in any way you’d have ever thought about, nor is anything in this video really like anything you’ve seen before while watching AMVs as long as you have (actually, “Rock Bottom” wouldn’t have looked too out of place in this hobby 20 years ago). “Rock Bottom” works on several levels, and if derisive mockery is your first instinct, then feel free to have fun with how cheesy this anime looks 26 years after it was first released. But if its retro tint feels strangely inviting and you find the slow pace of this work to have a hypnotic appeal you never expected, then you have ten very trippy minutes to enjoy yourself. Abrogate Need released a few AMVs in this vein over the past year, all worth watching; if you’re going to pick just one for your girlfriend to walk in on you in the middle of watching, make sure it’s this one.

8. Borderline
editor: Salt AMV
anime: Darling in the FranXX
music: Tame Impala – “Borderline”

Salt AMV’s “Fine Without You” was my favorite AMV of 2017, but that didn’t mean I wanted him to edit another video to a Tame Impala song (I’m all about editors who branch out and don’t repeat themselves, if I haven’t made it clear at this point). Also, I had dropped Darling in the FranXX after a half dozen episodes and wasn’t particularly looking forward to anyone’s efforts to give it the AMV treatment (a flood of videos I was sure was imminent but never really came to be). Somehow, Salt makes this series look like the coolest thing in the world, a feat I probably should have seen coming and not been quite so surprised by. For the most part, this is pretty much a standard action video, albeit one that probably shouldn’t work with such a mellow-feeling song. Yet every time I watch it I’m struck by the feeling that the video is slowly pulling me in and breaking down my defenses; suddenly I’m fourteen years old and this is the most badass show I’ve ever seen and anime is awesome. I’ve always wanted to edit an AMV in a certain style and achieve a certain feeling that I have difficulty putting into words; Salt provides the best example of this I’ve ever seen in a pair of passages down the stretch in this video, from about 1:50 to 2:30 and then 3:45 until the very end, to be precise. Whether or not everyone else finds these sequences are as brilliant and enjoyable as I do is beside the point; somehow this editor is tapping into a feeling that really gets to the heart of what I love most about this hobby.

7. Precious Metal
editor: sailormoonfreak
anime: Sailor Moon
music: Donatachi – “Precious Metal”

This entry began as an analysis of Sailor Moon and how changing attitudes in the West, both inside and outside of the anime fandom, have affected how it’s been perceived, enjoyed and respected over the years. Upon further consideration, I’m really not qualified to write such a thesis, but I do find it very interesting to compare how people talk about it today with how I remember both myself and other people reacting to it when it first intersected with “American culture” on a broad scale back in the late 90s. Comparing an AMV like UnluckyArtist’s “Moonlighter” (my favorite AMV of 2018) to older classics like Aluminum Studios’ “Blue Mercury” and Kwasek’s “Red Alert” might be useful in this endeavor, as each is a reflection of both the aesthetic trends and the social values of the time and cultural space they were released into. All this is a long-winded, roundabout way of saying that anyone who loves those older Sailor Moon AMVs (videos that framed the series in fantasy/action terms) and newer edits made with the series (videos that embrace its now-iconic overall aesthetic/ahead-of-its-time social themes) will find something to love in sailormoonfreak’s “Precious Metal.” It’s an AMV that, if not for its technical competence and high video resolution, feels like it could have come out at almost any time over the past twenty years. It’s every bit as scintillating and colorful as you’d expect, with no shortage of the transformation scenes that make their way into most Sailor Moon AMVs (not a complaint, just keeping you informed here). There’s a rare balance of action and more emotional content, scenes that are hard to classify as “drama” when taken out of context but give the video a sincere sentimentality that’s internal to the scenes, not just the product of nostalgia. sailormoonfreak finds meaningful sync in every bar of this song, hitting the big moments like you’d expect but incorporating fitting shots into all the in-between moments that establishes a seamless sense of flow from beginning to end.

6. Persimmon
editor: PieandBeer
anime: Waiting in the Summer
music: Arcade Fire – “Everything Now”

Not trying to join in on the Arcade Fire backlash here, but I did not care for this song one bit when it came out. Now it’s forever intertwined in my mind with scenes from this video, and I kinda sort of love it. The strain of sentimentality running through “Persimmon” is right down my alley, as it’s a video that feels bathed in nostalgia, but never feels manipulative or fabricated in its scenes of adolescent small town life. I’d even call it relateable, with its most fantastic, unrelateable scenes working on a symbolic level. Symbolic of the heightened emotions we experience during those formative years? Symbolic of the scenes these characters shown filming? I haven’t seen Waiting in the Summer, so perhaps everything onscreen here is meant to be taken very literally. But I’m not thinking too hard about this one, I just love it as a timeless ode to youth, the kind of thing that’s definitely not in short supply but rarely feels so timeless and inclusive. Big shout out to P&B for the 8mm-esque video filter used here (possibly one of the only times this decade that anyone has used it for a good reason) and for cutting right to the chase with these two main characters, sealing the deal not even halfway through this AMV and not stringing us along like their romance is the main attraction here.

5. Otaenearb
editor: Elcalavero
anime: After the Rain
music: Lowly – “Baglaens”

Elcalavero’s AMVs rarely meet you where you’re ready for them, bypassing your expectations and slipping between your most easily-held ideas of genre or structure. You might have an idea of what you’re in for or a sense of what you want from a given combination of sources that’s employed in their works, but this editor rarely bothers to oblige your desires, preferring instead to lead the viewer into less familiar emotional territory, striking unfamiliar tones and playing with moods that aren’t immediately recognizable. Their AMVs’ objectives are rarely crystal clear, but the ambiguity of “Otaenearb” feels more open to interpretation than anything they’ve edited before. Based on the plot description of After the Rain alone, the well of potentially provocative scenes to draw upon here seems to be too tempting of any editor to pass up. On the contrary, this video is mostly composed of private glimpses of its main character, quiet and mundane scenes marked by beautiful composition and an eye-catching color palette. We’re never privy to who this young woman is or what she might be going through, but even in the most ordinary and unremarkable scenes imaginable, her presence has a mysterious air that’s irresistibly and inexplicably compelling. “Otaenearb” lacks the elements of overt fantasy that’s present in much of Elcalavero’s other work, but there’s an ineffable sense of magic in these scenes that’s hard to put your finger on. Imperceptibly building throughout the video, its ambiguous atmosphere doesn’t feel like anything I’ve encountered before, neither relaxing nor menacing, but there’s a sense of relief (if not tangible resolution) when it comes to a head in the final minute. Easily one of Elcalavero’s best works, this isn’t a video to think about, but to feel.

4. I did (not) mean to blow your mind.
editor: camhcom
anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion, Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny
music: camhcom – “I did (not) mean to blow your mind.”

I originally didn’t even want to put this video on the list, not because I didn’t love it but because I was kind of afraid that it would just melt any other AMVs within its general vicinity. Or maybe I just wanted to preserve this exercise as a celebration of AMV editing as I’ve always known it, where anyone with a unique idea that’s appropriately executed has a fair chance at bringing me to tears or making me laugh or just getting me to think about the anime they’re editing with in a way I never would have even considered. When professionals start infiltrating this list, all my standards get twisted and all bets are off. Or so I thought, but maybe it doesn’t have to be like that? Maybe it would be more of an insult to all the hobbyists here (even the most inexperienced beginners) if I didn’t let this video into the mix. You wanted the best, you got the best!

Watching Tenacious D in The Pick of Destiny isn’t a requirement to appreciate this video or even understand the crossover appeal between these sources (spoiler: there really isn’t one). I’d recommend doing so for maximum enjoyment, but going into this completely cold is a the best way to experience its absurd brilliance in full. Aside from the visual editing, camhcom also mixed the audio track that this video is set to, a mashup that predates this AMV by at least a year or so. That track alone is a work of hilarious brilliance that stands up on its own, but listening to it practically invites the listener to imagine the inevitable next step: bringing these two sources together on screen. If this video was the messy disaster, as it would be in the hands of most editors on this list, it would probably still be funny and worth sharing. But in its finished form here, it might be the best blend of anime and live action I’ve ever seen in an AMV, maybe even the most ambitious and fully-realized Evangelion fan work since RE-TAKE.

3. Emotions
editor: TRUTH CRAB
anime: Bakemonogatari
music: Cashmere Cat – “Emotions”

“Emotions” may have been the closest that TRUTH CRAB came to making a “normal” AMV in 2019, yet it still looks and feels like no other AMV I’ve ever seen. It’s the only Monogatari AMV I’ve ever seen that doesn’t emphasize the series’ frequent use of fanservice or violent action scenes. Yeah, there’s traces of those in this video, but they’re almost an afterthought and not central to TRUTH CRAB’s approach to the material. I don’t want to try to describe what happens in this video, but the concept wrings every last drop of beauty out of Bakemonogatari, molding its footage around a song in one of the most unique ways I’ve ever seen. “Emotions” is sort of a paradox, an AMV that feels spacious and massive but also uncommonly intimate, easily the most unique experience I’ve had with an AMV made to this anime… or almost any anime at all, for that matter. This may underwhelm some viewers who prefer “Into the Labyrinth” or “The Witchtrip” and hold certain attributes of those videos to be the standard for what constitutes a mindblowing visual trip into the Monogatari world. That can’t be helped and I won’t pretend that “Emotions” would ever win in a contest of technique against effect-driven editing. But when you’re ready to come down from the highs and the lows of those sensory rollercoasters, this AMV will be here for you and maybe you’ll be in a better place to meet it halfway. You’ll be glad you did!

2. Easy
editor: Abrogate Need
anime: Leda: The Fantastic Adventure of Yohko
music: Joanna Newsom – “Easy”

“Easy” was a video I enjoyed from the first time I watched it, but it wasn’t one I returned to very often throughout 2019. I could blame the editor himself for simply being as prolific as he was last year, continuously releasing new AMVs on a regular basis that grabbed my attention and never gave me too much time to look back at his previous projects. But I don’t think I took an attentive, serious look at this video until a month or two ago, because despite all evidence to the contrary I’ve put forward here, I’m really just another fan who loves modern AMVs in all their flashy, fast-paced, eye-popping, adrenaline-pumping glory. For all the time I spend dismissing lowbrow videos that are all flash and no substance, I’m still as naturally drawn to that stuff as all of the people I’ve ever complained about for mindlessly supporting it. So while it’s not a benchmark I subscribe to or personally find rewarding, I understand the appeal of hyperactive editing and the idea that a “good” video will have more cuts per minute than a “bad” one. Based on that standard, some viewers might have a hard time getting into “Easy,” or perhaps will have a difficult time relating to it as an AMV at all.

Maybe I don’t think “Easy” feels like an AMV, either. It flows more like a perfectly-timed and thoughtfully edited music video, the kind of mini-movie that directors used to aspire to make for bands and their songs, videos that actually told stories (and were still novel enough to hold viewers’ attention and get played on TV–this is not an MTV nostalgia tangent, I’m just trying to be specific). When directors have total control over every aspect of production, the end result should feel like a cohesive whole and not the piecemeal assemblage of compromised choices that even most good AMVs undeniably resemble even to the untrained eye. “Easy” achieves that illusion for me, flowing like a storyboarded video where every scene is perfectly composed and nothing is the product of compromise.

There’s basically four parts to this video: an opening establishing the main character, a sequence illustrating the conflict she must overcome, a series of shorter vignettes (flushing out the backstory, adding some beautiful imagery and picking up the pace where a sense of stagnation was probably due to set in) and a satisfying final resolution. Each of these segments plays out exactly as long as it needs to, outlasting the duration that most editors would focus on these scenes for but never coming close to outliving their welcome. “Easy” is an introspective story, with most of its focus on its central character privately musing over a one-sided crush, bemoaning her own inaction and eventually arriving at a moment of epiphany. The drama in this story ought to be relatable to just about anyone who’s ever weathered the pangs of adolescent limerence, a phase that’s easy to dismiss in hindsight but is nothing less than Earth-shattering to experience for the first time. There are lengthy sequences of this video where there’s zero “action” as we commonly recognize it, but in these moments there’s still a slow burn of longing, deliberation and emotional turmoil, emotions we recognize via the visuals but acutely feel in surprising depth through the music. This is what all editors aspire to or assume they’re achieving, but rarely pull off in a way that feels so genuine and attuned to the emotions of the material as this.

1. GUNSMITH CATS x DEATHPACT AMV
editor: Transit Authority
anime: Gunsmith Cats
music: Deathpact – “Suspect”

I’ve written a few thousand words about my experience with this video, but unfortunately it’s jumbled mess that jumps back and forth between personal anecdotes, an overly simplistic overview of this editor’s work and a here’s-what-you’re-going-to-see/here’s-how-it-will-make-you-feel description of this AMV that really doesn’t do it justice. My honest opinions read like absurd hyperbole, and while I’m not really afraid of embarrassing myself (not in this case, anyway), I really don’t want to make my reaction to this video seem silly or overblown, because I really do want people to see it and experience it in the same extremes that it’s worked me over with and helped me reconnect with the basic, primal sense of excitement that got me into this hobby in the first place.

I’d been patiently awaiting another AMV from this editor since his first release, an Evangelion video (then released under his given name, I think) that was my second favorite video from all of 2017. The next video he’d eventually release was not the next installment of that project (as I’d been eagerly anticipating for two years) but a completely unrelated and totally different video that initially confused and disappointed me. “GCxD AMV” was a big departure from that sublimely sync’ed but understated work, one packed with countless audio edits, hyper-violent scenes, jarring cuts and a brash electro house track that was a lot closer to baseball cap EDM than I’m usually comfortable with. Oh yeah, I first watched this on my phone in the bathroom and didn’t get much out of it. Big surprise, right?

A week later I was… not really in a good place, going through some shit, etc. I don’t want to elaborate on this too much because I might wake up tomorrow and regret that I’ve overshared (or decided that I’ve left out too many details), so to keep it simple I’ll just say that I deal with depression a lot and I don’t cope with setbacks and disappointment very well. Embarrassingly (or appropriately) enough, this particular round was triggered by AMV-related drama, of all things. It’s a long story! I’m aware of how corny and unbelievable it sounds to suggest that this is a healing AMV that helped me through that rough patch until I was able to get some distance from it and eventually put it into perspective, but it did. Turning off the lights in my living room, sitting in front of the TV on the floor like a child, putting on my headphones and queuing up this video to give it a second try was an experience that shook me out of my head and overloaded my senses. If my brain had been caught up in a cycle of negative thoughts, this AMV effectively pushed the reset button on it. I wasn’t amazed by a new style of editing I’d never seen before or anything like that–the “Toonami style” in the title here was added by the editor much later, but the homage was immediately understandable even if I couldn’t quite recall the exact source of Transit Authority’s inspiration–just caught up in the brutal, visceral rush of this creation that hit me on an exponentially more potent level than any other action AMV I’d ever seen.

“GCxD AMV” oozes with an unparalleled sense of sinister malevolence. Transit Authority does not edit in an “aggressive” style, nor are the scenes included in the video particularly violent compared to a lot of content I’ve regularly seen in AMVs over the years. But the combination of pure hard cuts along with its intriguingly selective use of audio clips from the series yields an action AMV experience so raw and gritty that it almost feels overwhelming at times. Primed by years of anime viewing or even just American television on any typical night, most viewers probably won’t be surprised by anything here (not that it doesn’t capture a unique sense of danger that was once inherent to anime, particularly in OVAs from the 80s and 90s, but feels mostly lost today). Yet by ripping these scenes completely out of context, the suspense and stylized violence they depict are distilled down to their most potent essence. This AMV is essentially a collection of disjointed scenes that resist any of the usual definitions of “flow,” but set to such an aggressive techno track (definitely a break away from the hard rock that’s so commonly soundtracked both Gunsmith Cats and Riding Bean AMVs over the years), it builds with a sense of tension I’ve never come across in a fan video before; the chaotic release it delivers on this does not disappoint! I imagine that entire illegal underground economies are built around bottling and selling this feeling!

There’s a loose and unorthodox feel to how this video was edited, one that’s out of step with how viewers have been primed to expect what’s coming next in a “music video.” The style is the concept. Whatever blueprint this AMV may be following, it does evoke a long lost sense of anime as a late night graveyard of forbidden sleaze, love it or leave it English dubbed dialogue and the kind of painstakingly gorgeous and expressive cel animation that routinely defined anime prior to the 2000s and was enough on its own to grab the attention of would-be fans who’d never seen anything like it before. There’s a dry sense of humor running through this whole thing that only peeks its head out a handful of times, a weird analog to the general flow and irreverent mood of most “fun” AMVs that could explain why I’m never really “pumped up” after watching this, but instead just in the strangest glow of a mood. Even though I’ve never watched this series, this AMV gives me a vicarious sense of nostalgia for it, or a feeling like watching it is an act of returning to something dear to me. This AMV exposes 99% of “retro edits” to be complete frauds! The sound editing in this super creative and just on a different level from anyone else trying to do this kind of thing. Unpolished in all the right spots, the whole thing is a gross and beautiful mess, a video I found so entertaining and unique and uninformed by conventional rules that it feels like a work that I’ll eventually look back on and think about as a work that changed my feelings about this hobby in profound ways. It’s also such an absurdly overblown and seductive ode to violence that it almost beckons you to reconsider taking it completely seriously; good advice in general.

AMV chronicles #080: favorites of 2019 (#20-11)

20. Kissed Right
editor: TwigglyFiggly
anime: Puella Magi Madoka Magica
music: Cocteau Twins – “Lorelei”

At the beginning of this whole thing I tried to emphasize that this was a list of my favorite AMVs from the past year, not a list of videos that I considered to be the “best” by any standard other than my own. There’s a lot of really accomplished works by talented editors that I didn’t include here, not because they weren’t creative or admirably crafted or that they failed to succeed on their own terms or anything like that, I just wasn’t feeling ’em quite so much on a personal level. I had a personal reaction or felt some kind of connection to everything that’s listed here, and that obviously applies to TwigglyFiggly’s “Breakdown,” which I ranked at #22. It’s a brilliantly edited AMV, and in my opinion it’s the most sophisticated and successfully realized video from beginning to end that he’s made so far. So what’s this video doing here ranked even higher?

“Kissed Right” doesn’t quite flow with the near-flawless precision and clever lyric sync of “Breakdown,” and judging from the editor’s own comments on it, I’m not even sure he’s really satisfied with it at all. But I love the concept of this video and I found its execution to be just as fulfilling as I dared to hope it would be. There’s a supernatural, ethereal grace in Madoka that’s rarely celebrated or acknowledged by AMV editors or anyone else–this anime’s “dark” themes and subject matter get 99% of people’s attention, and I include myself in that count. This song plays into and wrings out the series’ most dreamy, magical undertones, with a gothic vibe that hints at an underlying darkness but doesn’t feel an urge to bask in it. The swirling, kaleidoscopic guitars are a perfect fit for the most colorful scenes in this video, and when TwigglyFiggly finds a drum beat to sync to or that perfect shot where the visuals and the music shimmer in time, it feels like a refreshing glimpse into a whole other side of the series.

19. La Croix
editor: UnluckyArtist
anime: various
music: Grimes & HANA – “We Appreciate Power”

If “La Croix” isn’t the best AMV that UnluckyArtist has ever released, it’s still the biggest and most ambitious-feeling experience he’s ever taken us on. A pileup of nine Trigger/Gainax action series, all boasting a bold color palette and gorgeous animation, this AMV pushes the abstract collage approach of a video like “Counter” into unexplored heights. It’s the perfect embodiment of countless editors’ ultimate goal and countless viewers’ ideal AMV: relying on the cumulative effect of cramming as many cool sources into one video to as possible for maximum sensory stimulation. “La Croix” does that, but I feel like the reason this video works when so many others don’t isn’t necessarily the scene selection or effects on their own, but the subtle transitions and match cuts that establish such an effortless and natural-feeling sense of flow from one shot to the next. If you’re familiar with this editor, it will probably go without saying that this AMV is another showcase in syncing via cuts and internal motion. It’s a hi-fi masterpiece from one of the most gifted editors in this hobby, a maximal, all-in effort from someone who’s always given us more and isn’t content to go through the motions.

18. The Great Curve
editor: Prostrate Constantly
anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion
music: Talking Heads – “The Great Curve”
*Epilepsy warning (strobe effects, flashing images)

“The Great Curve” is the most ambitious, most frantic video that Prostrate Constantly has released to date, certainly the most psychedelic by a long shot. It’s heavy on overlaid footage, but looks and feels nothing like “Pirouette” or anything else he’s ever made. There’s a urgent, nervous energy flowing through every second of it, a hyperactive collage approach that feels informed by the song’s anxious funk but taken to places that no other editor would have thought of let alone attempted with this material. The images flashing across the screen here are sync’ed to various elements of the song to a degree that seems too precise to be done by meticulous manual methods, but there’s a feeling of restraint and just enough unpredictability for it to never feel too repetitive or thoughtlessly applied. Scenes flicker past so quickly that fans familiar with the series may stitch together a sense of thematic congruity between the pace of the editing and these characters’ crumbling psychological well being, but whether that’s the editor’s intention or just an Eva fan’s take on this very abstract vision of the series is anyone’s guess.

Split screen effects and creative masking ramp the visual chaos of this video to another level, but in the second half of this AMV, effect use begins to tear the video apart. It’s an experience not unlike watching the series and its unexpected, narrative-breaking experimental animation in its final two episodes, in which everything we took for granted undergoes a process of annihilation and transformation. Countless editors and entire subcultures within this hobby have played around with the process of purposefully degrading footage to achieve a stylistic end, usually through use of filters to apply grain or various degrees of age-specific flaws to the video they’re editing with, but I’ve never seen anyone take the approach this far or use effects anything quite like the ones in this AMV. The slow breakdown of this video in its final minute is one of the weirdest passages you’ll ever see in an AMV, the antithesis of the crowd-pleasing motivation that most editors aspire to. But I don’t want to imply that this video is an endurance test or even a difficult piece of art that isn’t enjoyable on an escapist level, just embrace its chaos and enjoy the ride.

17. Wherever the Road Goes
editor: machina21
anime: Kino’s Journey
music: America – “A Horse with No Name”

Subtly incorporating scenes from both the original Kino’s Journey and the 2017 series into a single video, machina21 crafts a cohesive AMV where the fourteen year age gap between the sources, while undeniably noticeable, never really registered in my mind while watching it. “A Horse With No Name” is as perfect a fit for this anime as you’d expect, leaving me wondering just how the concept could have gone unused for so long. Nothing really “happens” in this AMV, save for following Kino and Hermes on their journeys, with most of the focus on the open road and the lands that lie in between their destinations. The mood is laid back but pensive, just as intriguing and mysterious as it is relaxing, the ideal balm AMV to unwind with at the end of the day. There are some heavy themes and intense scenes in this anime, but they’re all out of the frame for the duration of this video. Hopefully the laid back vibe will help you set your own troubles aside for a few minutes, while reminding you to find contentment and wonder wherever your travels take you.

16. Claustro
editor: TRUTH CRAB
anime: Perfect Blue
music: Burial – “Claustro”

The first video I watched from this editor was their mix of Perfect Blue with a fantastic Burial remix I’d never heard before. I was really thrilled that someone had actually made a Burial AMV (and certainly didn’t expect that there would be more to come), but there was something uncanny about how well the scenes were synced to the music, especially given how effortless the editing appeared to be on the surface. Possibly a product of that same editing session, TRUTH CRAB’s “Claustro” once again soundtracks Perfect Blue with another track from the reclusive British producer. The combination doesn’t merely reinforce the haunting loneliness that’s at the heart of both pieces (which it absolutely does, although this editor establishes this kind of tonal synchronicity in most of their works), but digs deeper into the themes of paranoia and obsession central to the narrative of the film. Without revisiting the entire film to confirm my assumptions, this plays out in a mostly linear fashion with most of the AMV comprised of shots from the last ten minutes of the film. These scenes are trimmed to precisely fit the song and the result is a video that feels every bit as cinematic and suspenseful as the film it’s based on.

15. Kizmet ✽ CoMix AmV
editor: UnluckyArtist
anime: various
music: The Knife – “Marble House”

I rarely hear CoMix Wave Films mentioned very often as an anime studio of note, but maybe that’s because it’s more or less synonymous with the work of Makoto Shinkai, one of the few auteurs in anime who need little introduction here in the west. Not to disregard their films’ many other admirable qualities, but CoMix Wave films are probably most recognized and remembered for their unforgettable animation and overall visual style, making them some of the most perennial material in existence for AMV editors to remix. Maybe this is kind of easy pickings, and yes, you’ve seen almost all of these scenes before in multiple AMVs, but I’ve never seen anyone bring them together into a single world as seamlessly as they’re woven together here. I’ll admit to a bit of personal bias for this video as I love this song, but believe me or not, I’d be disappointed if this edit was merely good, the sum of its pretty parts and nothing more. If it wasn’t made explicitly clear to viewers from the title, I’m not sure I’d immediately recognize what all these sources had in common (other than the cool and soothing color pallete that’s oddly common to every anime here), but I’m confident I’d still be amazed by how well they all work together, both in terms of feeling like they’re set in a singular world and how they capture the eerie but peaceful mood that oozes through it.

14. Where a Miracle Begins
editor: ycleped
anime: Clannad
music: Perfume – “Point”

I’ve never watched Clannad, but thanks to years of watching AMVs and just being an anime fan online, I feel like I have an unearned but decent understanding of its story and its characters. Having watched more than a couple of Clannad AMVs, I’ve grown somewhat used to how editors play with the series and handle its emotional bombshells for devastatingly sentimental effect. Still, I’ve never seen anyone work with this title in such a seemingly straightforward manner, never setting out to subvert its tone or put an attention-grabbing twist on it or anything, but still somehow working its heartbreaking story into something that feels unambiguously joyous and hopeful. An effervescent and cheerful song like this seems like a perfect fit for the idealized adolescent romance that defines the opening minute or so of this video, but of course this is a Clannad AMV, one that does not gloss over the series’ depiction of loss and grief in the slightest. ycleped does not compromise the emotional weight of these scenes, yet they’re somehow a perfect fit when edited in such an upbeat style. A pop song like this built over a sugar-coated drum ‘n bass rhythm gives ycleped plenty of opportunities to work perfectly-timed flourishes of quick cuts onto the timeline, always maintaining a sense of momentum that mirrors the characters’ perseverance and resolve to move forward even in the face of utter grief and despair.

13. TAKAKO MINEKAWA – MASTER RAYLIEN X WINDY TALES X AMVAR
editor: AMVAR
anime: Windy Tales
music: Takako Minekawa – “master rAylien”

My best advice for anyone getting started editing or anyone who feels stuck in a rut: just make something that no one else was ever going to make. I’ve never seen anyone edit a Windy Tales fanvid of any kind whatsoever. And even though Japanese experimental music is definitely a YouTube thing now, look, no one is making AMVs with it. AMVAR’s previous (and only) AMV flowed with a logic all its own, the rare Serial Experiments Lain video where the editing itself felt just as alien as the visuals did. This time around, both the music in this AMV as well as the unique animation style and character design of the anime both stand as outliers that don’t conform to anything you’ve ever seen or heard (unless you love this kind of thing, then by all means dive right in and you won’t be disappointed), but somehow just click with me in a way that makes total, immediate sense. Being completely unfamiliar with this series, I have no idea what kind of choices the editor had to make as this took shape, but it’s likely that AMVAR is operating so far outside my idea for what constitutes “normal editing” that I’d never really understand anyway. This video is another unexpected delight from an editor who’s still a total mystery to me. AMVAR, if you’re reading this, I hope you enjoy making this stuff even half as much as I love watching it.

12. Solvent
editor: Copycat Revolver
anime: Land of the Lustrous
music: Absofacto – “Dissolve”

Not every AMV I enjoy watching actually inspires me to try to become a better editor; most entertain or provoke some train of thought pertaining to their sources and how they relate, but few push me to think critically about why an editor made the choices they did or how a video actually works. “Solvent” doesn’t deviate far from any of Copycat Revolver’s most entertaining videos, but it’s an AMV I watch attentively, one that eggs me on to understand it, to not just acknowledge the energy and movement in each shot but to see how they fit together and form a bigger piece that works on a level far beyond the average AMV uploaded to YouTube every other second. This is the most rhythmic and the most fun AMV I’ve seen made with Land of the Lustrous, a mood piece that also has spot-on lyric sync, a showcase for the series’ abstract beauty and 3D animation that somehow looks even better now than it did when I first watched it two years ago. There’s no pivot away from the story’s most dramatic elements, but this is one of the most unexpectedly fun character profiles I’ve seen in a long time.

11. Dance Like It’s Your Life
editor: Synæsthesia Productions
anime: various
music: Thumpasaurus – “Dance Like It’s Your Life”

I’m an easily and endlessly distracted person. It’s why I don’t get projects like this list done on time, why I don’t finish more videos of my own, why I’ve progressed in my career at a snail’s pace and just spend more time thinking about things than actually doing them. Even in the simple and passive act of watching other people’s videos, I often find that my thoughts drift away without my control, or I get too preoccupied in trying to formulate a response that my brain doesn’t quite register half of what I’m seeing. I could blame the Internet for this, my genes, whatever. Even most “fun” AMVs have a hard time breaking down this programmed response and all the bad habits I have that encourage it. Am I really having fun when I watch these videos? Or am I too busy thinking about it?

“Dance Like It’s Your Life” is a “fun” AMV, but I mean that in a literal way, not just as a descriptor for the AMV that it’s trying to be. It’s one of my favorite dance AMVs ever made, a video that doesn’t just feature the requisite dance scenes to earn its place in the genre, but one that’s overflowing with rhythm, energy and good vibes. There’s actually not much in the way of highly choreographed, Haruhi ED-esque scenes here, none of the Perfect Blue or Idolmaster stage performances you’d expect, and many of the scenes in this video don’t even depict dancing at all, strictly speaking. But Synæsthesia has a good eye for scenes that fit and work in such a fast-paced video, utilizing effects and camera movements to add a kinetic sense of urgency to shots that might have fallen flat on their own. There’s an energy and unpredictability to everything happening on the screen that grabs your attention and holds it tight for… well, even just two minutes of living in the moment is two minutes well spent.

AMV chronicles #079: favorites of 2019 (#30-21)

30. Welcome to the Disco
editor: Jo-ha-Q
anime: various
music: Yung Bae feat. Macross 82-99 – “Welcome to the Disco”

This video shouldn’t work. You shouldn’t be able to string together scenes with nothing but straight cuts and create such a dazzling and fluid-feeling AMV. You really shouldn’t be able to freely mix 4:3 and widescreen material like this as if it just doesn’t matter and no one will care. There’s little thread connecting any of these sources together except that the editor liked the way they looked, and somehow their certainty that it would all blend together into a common aesthetic actually panned out. I usually complain when editors lean so much on opening and ending theme animation, but I’ve never been so totally won over by the approach. The overall quality of this video is excellent, a compliment that might come across as fairly redundant in 2019 when it’s easier than ever for editors to make AMVs that at least look fairly professional on the surface. But I’ve seen plenty of editors working in this zone and I can’t say that technical consistency is a big priority for most of them. This is one of those AMVs where I can’t just watch a couple seconds of it and turn it off. I literally need to drop everything I’m doing until it’s finished. Take that as a warning if you’re in the middle of something right now.

29. I’m Not In Love
editor: TRUTH CRAB
anime: Urban Square
music: Kelsey Lu – “I’m Not In Love”

Sure, it’s not grounds for praise on its own, but AMV source material doesn’t come much rarer than this. Urban Square is a very out of print OAV from the mid-80s. While there’s nothing particularly striking about its appearance, either in terms of character design or animation, it recalls a particular era of Cool Japan that was never really exported to the West and is still in the process of being slowly unearthed by the Internet. A haunting cover of 10cc’s “Not In Love” (one of those songs that everyone “knows,” even if they don’t know it) doesn’t exactly graft a coherent narrative onto the scenes that play out here, but adds a haunting shimmer of familiarity onto the visuals. Focusing on the source material is really all I have here, as once again I don’t really know how this editor is shaping this footage into such a compelling experience. There’s an element of cheese to all this that keeps me at arm’s length from taking it totally seriously, but there’s a beauty in that too. The intent and inspiration behind this is a total mystery to me, one that feeds into my enjoyment of this more than it ought to, but look… you could keep feeding the metrics of no-effort a e s t h e t i c editors, or you could watch this, and how that could be a difficult choice for anyone I’ll never understand.

28. I’m Exhausted, I’m Alone, I Just Want a Break; Please
editor: imtakoyaki
anime: Kare Kano
music: SXYE – “Little Space”

There’s a purity to Kare Kano that simply cannot be replicated, both in the imperfect beauty of its cel animation and the idealism and complexity in which it explores adolescent romance from the vantage point of a pre-Internet world. Sparse-sounding twee pop songs like this rarely make their way into AMVs, but this one feels like the perfect complement to both the anime’s look and as well as its characters’ sense of innocence and vulnerability. imtakoyaki has a good eye for clips that fit both the specific lyrics and the general mood of the song, striking a good balance between Kare Kano’s quirky visual humor and its darker themes. Even the Gainax jitter that’s ever present throughout the series suddenly feels like an essential part of this video’s appeal, with a flawed charm like a handmade collage made from torn paper and smudged photographs. This video feels like an antidote to the manufactured and toxic angst that’s usually passed off as “emotional” editing. It feels like it’s coming from a real place but was never intended to drag you down to experience it yourself. It’s an uplifting and charming work that will resonate with anyone who loved this series or is reading that title and thinking, “yeah, me too.”

27. Please Save My Earth – Signs
editor: katranat
anime: Please Save My Earth
music: Bloc Party – “Signs”

This AMV is comprised of the simplest cuts and crossfades, flows at the slow pace that you’d probably expect for a video made with a 27 year-old OVA and doesn’t do a whole lot to stand out or call attention to itself. Somehow, it’s one of the prettiest and most compelling things I’ve watched over the last year. The story here is too convoluted for me to follow, but the emotions of these scenes still come through with crystal clarity. Every shot here is a thing of beauty, not just radiating with that warmth of traditional cel animation that I love so much, but always an example of fantastic mise-en-scène that makes every moment of this video so eye-catching. There’s zero noticeable effects here, no Ken Burns zoom or anything at all that would give this material a fighting chance to look so eye pleasing this deep into the 21st century. katranat has edited with this anime a few times before, and I can only guess that deep familiarity with his source material helped give him the instinct to shape this into something truly special.

26. Chihiro In Wonderland
editor: Opner
anime: Spirited Away
music: Panic at the Disco and fun. – “C’mon”

Irresistibly catchy, disarmingly emotional, this AMV doesn’t transform the source material in any unexpected ways but somehow just resonates with me on a level that I wasn’t really anticipating. Being a Ghibli AMV, I had my defenses up for this one from the beginning. Opner burst right through them with this near-linear journey through the film, one that plays right into the big moments of the song in all the ways you’d expect and should see coming a mile away if you’ve seen this film or already watched its share of fan edits. Solely based on my personal reaction to this, it’s the most effective sentimental video I’ve seen in a while. I don’t know how this works so well, but it just flips a switch in me and that’s it, I’m gone.

25. Look For Heaven
editor: ShadyMacro
anime: Girls’ Last Tour
music: Bearson – “Look For Heaven”

Girls’ Last Tour follows two young soldiers on their reconnaissance mission into a strangely uninhabited land. There, they explore a strangely isolated place and begin to piece together clues about the fate of its inhabitants… and maybe even themselves! I actually have no idea if that’s the plot or not, but that’s the story I’ve deduced from this AMV. This is potentially bleak subject matter, but I assume it’s handled with a dose of irreverence and lighthearted hijinx. The upbeat vibe of the song introduces a casual, almost cheerful mood to these scenes, but ShadyMacro’s scene selection steadies the overall mood somewhere in the zone of solemn optimism. The interplay between the song lyrics and the journey we follow these characters on is as clever and thoughtful as any traditional lyric sync, not associated with the scenes in a literal fashion but functioning more as a thematic commentary on the narrative as a whole: find hope in something when things feel hopeless, appreciate the simple pleasures in life, and when you find yourself on a journey with nothing but your companions, appreciate them like you never have before.

24. Butterfly
editor: sailormoonfreak
anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion, End of Evangelion
music: LOONA – “Butterfly”

I can only think of a handful of AMVs I watched more over the past year than “Butterfly,” but despite the time I’ve spent with this video I still couldn’t tell you what it’s about or why I enjoy it as much as I do. This one does perk me up and leave me in a better headspace after I’ve finished watching it, but taking an inventory of what I’ve actually just seen (lots of footage from End of Evangelion, none of it especially optimistic), I can’t account for why this one is so thoroughly watchable while countless other AMVs with the same grisly scenes strike me as depressing or exploitative. I wouldn’t accuse the editor of setting up some ironic juxtaposition between all the morbid and apocalyptic visuals and such an upbeat, lush pop song. Even from the first time I watched “Butterfly,” nothing about the combination struck me as remotely twisted or dissonant. Maybe I just gravitate towards the weirdest Evangelion AMVs because I’m just burned out on everything else? Then again, I really wouldn’t describe this as “weird” at all (when the language barrier is the most impenetrable aspect of an AMV, it’s probably a sign that you’re still not in the weird part of YouTube). sailormoonfreak makes some great scene choices here, reacts to the changes in the song pretty much perfectly, switches character focus on a dime and somehow leaves you feeling like this huge mess is nothing less than a graceful and well deserved celebration.

23. Everybody Wants to Rule the Digital World
editor: GreyTanuki
anime: Digimon
music: Tears For Fears – “Everybody Wants to Rule the World”

The most unexpected surprise from this year’s Peer Review Online contest, “Everybody Wants To Rule the Digital World” is a mashup of the first six seasons of Digimon (possibly even more, I stopped keeping up with them all after a certain point and can’t be sure) along with scenes from the more recent Digimon Tri films. It’s not the first Digimon AMV to incorporate multiple series into a single video, but it feels extremely different from any of those nostalgia-focused tributes, with an unexpected emphasis on the human characters of the series that most editors don’t explore. Broadly or specifically, take your pick, I’m all about this concept in any way, shape or form imaginable. Just give me something that isn’t purely a montage of anthropomorphized tamagotchi transformation scenes and I’ll give you my full attention. GreyTanuki does just that, but their AMV goes beyond simply living up to my hopes, taking the material to strange new places I never imagined possible.

The editing here is fairly straightforward, mostly utilizing straight cuts and occasional zoom pump-effects to sync to the music, and there’s little attempt to hide the static nature of many of these scenes. The video jumps between series seemingly at random, but there’s always a visual or emotional link that justifies a cut from one shot to the next. There’s a broad mix of lighthearted and tragic scenes, and the way GreyTanuki arranges these amplifies their emotional impact and plays off the subtlest cues of the song to intriguing effect. Improbably, my favorite passage in this whole thing is its instrumental middle section, a part of the song that I’d never taken notice of before because this is not the version of the song that’s been played on the radio for decades, but a rare mix of it that just rides its riffs and melodies to nowhere in particular for a whole two minutes. This ought to be where most editors check out, not having any lyrics or big changes in the song to play off of whatsoever, but for some reason this is where things just take a magical turn for me and I’m completely pulled in. There are a few baffling moments of distorted aspect ratio weirdness, but even as a quality perfectionist I’m far less bothered by them than I’d ever expected. I feel like I’ve really only scratched the surface of this video, but any further analysis would probably be less about the video itself and more of a deep dive into my own psyche to try to understand why I’m reacting to it as I do. This is definitely a personal favorite for personal reasons, but also a stellar example of how to craft a truly epic-feeling AMV with the simplest of methods.

22. Breakdown
editor: TwigglyFiggly
anime: Your Name.
music: Vanessa Carlton – “A Thousand Miles”

I wouldn’t say that “Breakdown” gets off to a slow start or anything like that, but it definitely gets better and better with each passing minute in subtle ways you’re more likely to feel than to take conscious notice of. This is just about the least cool or trendy thing that anyone could make in 2019 and doesn’t have a whole lot of intangible things going for it that will pique too many viewers’ interest outside of being a Your Name video (the potential audience for this that hasn’t already seen a few other videos made with the film is pretty small, and I imagine that viewers who have seen a few are going to come to this one with a more critical eye than usual). And it’s pretty much what you’d expect it to be, not stepping far outside the sentimental zone that most Your Name AMVs work within to varying success. But there’s not a shot here that TwigglyFiggly takes for granted, with every scene and every cut synced in a meaningful way to the song or somehow serving to hone in the bittersweet feelings of separation and longing that the sources so vividly express. There are big moments in this song where the emotional payoff is delivered on above and beyond anything I thought possible, but in between, even shots as mundane as characters staring out a window or sitting at a desk carry an unexpected poignancy that lifts this AMV to another level. I wish I could be more specific about how and why this video succeeds at what it does or how it’s different from other editors’ efforts to accomplish the same ends. Is it a copout to say this is a good thing? See for yourself.

21. A Big Dead
editor: PikapwnAMVs
anime: Terra Formars
music: The Greatest Showman Cast – “This is Me”

There’s few experiences I enjoy in all of art and media more than the rare occasion of feeling completely confused by a creator’s intent. Even if it’s a passing sensation that only lasts for a few seconds, the sense of feeling totally adrift, of genuinely not knowing whether you’re supposed to laugh or cry, can be a startling reminder of just how little we really understand other people. A minute or two into this video, it was obvious that the whole thing was a joke of the highest order, but that’s so much harder to pull off than traditional parody as we’ve been conditioned to normally understand it. “A Big Dead” is that rare work of AMV parody (watch this first if you want in on the meta-humor), but it’s so absurd on its own that it succeeds purely as a work of high camp, playing off the serious self-empowerment message of the song. I don’t feel like the intent here was ever to mock “This Is Me” (this was an in-joke between editors, not a snarky critique of the song), as the video takes the song’s message to its literal extreme. I’m overthinking this, I know. Not my favorite video of the year, but the one I wish I could watch again for the first time.