These are my fifty favorite AMVs of 2020.

I needed a little extra time to put this list together at the end of the year, which meant that I really couldn’t consider any AMVs released to the public after December 15. And circumstances being what they were in this ExTrAoRdInArY YEAR, this meant that there were quite a few new (or “new”) videos being released right at the end of the year, which I unfortunately had to cut from consideration. They will be eligible for next year’s list and, God-willing, you’ll see them here twelve months from now.

Likewise, there’s one or two videos from the tail-end of 2019 on this list. These are not a mistake!

I am not an AMV critic. I am an astoundingly simple person with inconsistent personal taste and I have no idea what makes an AMV objectively “good,” at least none that I would bother to write a manifesto about or force anyone to read at this point. Click the AMV Lists tab on the banner above for some precedent about what you’re getting into here.

I have a friend who’s much smarter and more articulate than me about this stuff. He’s writing his own list of his favorite AMVs of this year, which you must check out if you have any interest anime, music, videos or any combination thereof. Please consult him for all your AMV needs.

If you’re actually reading this post on the day it was published (January 4, 2021), please check back throughout the week as I will be posting this list in daily installments. Thank you again for reading!

50. a white bouquet
editor: Hazelnevertalks
anime: various
music: Sufjan Stevens – Carrie & Lowell

This is an AMV set to the entirety of Sufjan Stevens’ 2015 album Carrie & Lowell. You read that right. There’s a complete video here for every song on the album, each made with a different anime source (incidentally, all being productions from Kyoto Animation, which I assume was a purposeful decision even though the editor never explicitly points this out). At forty-four minutes in length, it’s a daunting commitment to actually watch from beginning to end, which is not a task I’m assigning anyone to actually do before proceeding with the rest of this list (I know, if I wanted to win over apprehensive readers right off the bat, this is probably one of the worst ways to do it). Rest assured that there’s really no filler or padding to be found in this, but if you’d rather not jump into it blindly, there’s an indexed list of sources and timestamps in the editor’s comments on the YouTube page, just in case there’s a particular series that strikes your fancy. “a white bouquet” doesn’t hint at most of what makes so much of Hazelnevertalks’ work so distinctive, not being as technically proficient or experimental or personally expressive as her AMVs so often are. But what’s here emotionally resonates with these songs on a very deep level and is a refreshing break from the noise and bombast that has come to define “anime music videos” for most people who possess a only casual familiarity with the hobby at the dawn of the 2020s. Maybe it’s “cheating” for me to include such a sprawling work on this list, or maybe I’m severely underrating it by placing it here at the very end. Either way, it’s a huge achievement that showcases the possibilities of AMV editing at its most simple and it’s deserving of your attention.

49. The Flower Was A Metaphor
editors: Joya AMV, imtakoyaki
anime: Wish Upon the Pleiades, Yurikuma Arashi
music: Poppy – “X”

You’re looking at the future of AMVs. I know it doesn’t look much different from the present day. But there’s some unknown thing out there that AMV creators and viewers are pining for and I’m convinced that it can and surely must be found in this video. imtakoyaki and Joya are at the top of their game here and are doing something that feels like that light at the end of the tunnel that we all needed, but in a shape we never saw coming. Collaboration between editors with complimentary visions can be a personally rewarding experience for the creators involved, but on top of that, it almost always leaves viewers with more to enjoy than the crowdsourced, assembly line-approach that came to define MEPs over the past decade. I kind of doubt that either of these editors put a great deal of planning into this, but I don’t think the final product would have benefited very much even if it had been excruciatingly storyboarded and beta tested. Sometimes the first thought, best thought process is the only way to capture the magic.

48. The Owarini Liveshow Tokyo
editor: keksi
anime: various
music: Wolfgang Gartner feat. Gene Noble – “Y.W.M.O”

There’s one or two little things in this video that really bug me to the point where I will often click right out of an AMV the second that I see them (not an admission I ought to make if I want to come across as a chill and likeable persona that you’re going to want to spend some time with here, I know). So the fact that you’re even reading about this at all here should probably tell you how much I still love this and how much I still want to ride for it. This was the first AMV I ever saw from keksi—I honestly have no idea how I ever found this in the first place, considering it was and still is unlisted—and it’s the strongest sample of the editor’s fondness for bright and colorful scenes with lots of moving parts. If there’s an overriding theme that these clips share outside of looking pretty and succeeding in establishing a really satisfying sense of flow, I’m having a hard time putting my finger on it. But sometimes that’s all you need and this video shows how it’s done.

47. Adolescence
editor: Silent Hero Studios
anime: Eureka Seven
music: Fall Out Boy – “Alone Together”

Eureka Seven is one of the best-looking anime ever made (screw the aspect ratio snobs, there is nothing wrong with 4:3) and SHS milks its colorful, stylized visuals for all they’re worth in this AMV. “Adolescence” captures the infectious joy and optimism of this anime and these characters, a spirit that was already radiating out of this song and finds a perfect match in these colorful, beautifully-animated clips. SHS isn’t hesitant to lean into E7‘s most ambitious and vibrant action scenes or its most moving moments of drama for maximum effect, and yeah, I know that forms the basis of most videos that anyone has ever tried to make with this series. But the end result of such an approach rarely comes out as streamlined and emotionally potent as this.

46. The Human Condition
editor: TheNanashi
anime: Macross Plus, Ghost in the Shell, Blade Runner: Black Out 2022
music: Thom Yorke – “Harrowdown Hill,” Thom Yorke – “Hearing Damage,” Radiohead – “Like Spinning Plates”

Most viewers would probably describe “The Human Condition” as a slow AMV. They’re not wrong! And it’s obvious why, as TheNanashi isn’t afraid to let a static shot linger onscreen for a few extra frames (or extra seconds) than most editors would dare, not to mention keeping momentum-establishing beat-sync to a minimum despite the generous opportunities that these songs provide. Again, this isn’t just a single slow video, but three AMVs compiled into a twelve-minute suite, which produces the sort of experience that’s as far removed from the fast-paced, effects-heavy style of editing that’s most associated with the hobby as you can possibly get. I love how unhurried each of these parts feels, which isn’t simply a function of fewer cuts but also occasional slow motion, color correction and other visual effects, which are relatively simple in their composition but are synced to the music in really interesting ways. Apparently this video was the result of the editor resurrecting a couple of unfinished projects that had been languishing on his computer for several years, and finally returning to them with fresh eyes and enough time on his hands to finally bring his original vision to fruition. The melancholy vibe and sense of stasis that runs through all these works feels genuine in a way that probably wouldn’t have been possible before 2020.

45. Paranoid Android
editor: junek50
anime: Naruto
music: Radiohead – “Paranoid Android”

I’m sure I’ve watched hundreds of Naruto AMVs at this point but few have surprised me as much as this one. Over the years, I’ve seen plenty that buck the recipe for the stereotypical action videos and tragic character profiles that most viewers associate with the series, but few of these outliers have felt as peculiarly nuanced and thoughtful as this one. With few effects aside from some camera zooms and crossfades, this is a pretty straightforward effort that could have been made ten or fifteen years ago. If it had been, I’m almost certain that it would have gotten lost in the daily dumps of loud and angst-focused videos that dominated the era. Sometimes you just can’t win! My only complaint about this AMV is that it leaves me wishing the editor had cut it to the entire song, which I realize is actually a pretty heavy request considering how long that song actually is. Not to get hung up on what could have been, but this video always leaves me wanting more. Considering that these early episodes of Naruto constitute some of the most-edited material of all time, I think it’s an impressively rare feat.

44. Above Water
editor: NekoKitKat
anime: Carole & Tuesday
music: Avril Lavigne – “Head Above Water”

Years of using A-M-V.org conditioned me to accept the “character profile” as a genre of AMVs and to eventually lament its decline over time. Videos like these are still widely made, but they take a certain kind of focus that’s not at the forefront of most editors’ interests and aren’t rewarded by viewers in the way they used to be. So when I see a thoughtful video like this that focuses on an individual character so intensely, finds a song that uniquely describes their goals or the conflicts they face and is edited in a way that makes those commonalities so easy to understand, it can leave a lasting impression on me in ways that typical action, comedy or drama videos rarely do. “Above Water” focuses on one of Carole & Tuesday’s most interesting characters, a sympathetic and complex antagonist whose struggles are (IMHO!) more compelling than the title characters’ quest for stardom. Emotional pop ballads like this aren’t really my thing, but NekoKitKat matches the song’s musical and emotional beats at every turn and weaves the material together for an impact that’s greater than the sum of its parts.

43. M4 Lema
editor: TRUTH CRAB
anime: Science Fiction New Century Lensman
music: Autechre – “M4 Lema”

Yeah, here’s another video that no one besides this editor was ever going to make. And it’s not going to be everyone’s cup of tea but, uh… what did you expect? Watching this AMV was the most meaningful reminder I’ve had in a while that the best way to enjoy this hobby is just to make what you want and not get lost in worrying how it’s going to be understood by the vast, general audience that it was never created for in the first place. I probably wouldn’t have finished one of the two AMVs I made this year if it wasn’t for stumbling across this video—and I say “stumbling across” because purposefully keeping up with everything this editor makes was a time commitment that I came nowhere close to fulfilling, there will always be a TRUTH CRAB video I still haven’t seen and that’s sort of comforting—which reassured me that an AMV doesn’t have to be perfect to justify its existence, just as long as those two or three cool or weird little moments that you’re hanging the rest of it on are truly as cool or weird as you can possibly make them. That doesn’t really explain what I love about this video–which I was also primed in advance for thanks to Kenny Lauderdale–but your approval isn’t required and that’s okay!

42. Trepidation
editor: Kireblue
anime: Cardcaptor Sakura: Clear Card
music: Panic! At the Disco – “Into the Unknown”

Kireblue can do edgy horror or comedy like nobody else, but there’s a sincere sense of wonder in some of his more sentimental work that always gets to me, and “Trepidation” takes that feeling to a whole new level. While I’m usually more drawn to AMVs that take a more intimate or subtle approach to their source material than this, Kireblue’s go-big-or-go-home attitude pays off huge rewards to the viewer who’s open to being bowled over by this combination of magical girl anime at its most gorgeous and the overwhelming pathos of this song. This is an AMV designed to provoke big emotions, but along the way its spectacular use of internal sync makes it an accidental masterpiece of action editing.

41. Hello Kitty
editor: TRUTH CRAB
anime: What’s Michael?
music: msliterate – “Hello Kitty”

This is probably the cutest and most violent video on this list. It was definitely the least-predictable AMV I watched this year, which is obviously a claim owed to the fact that I have absolutely no idea what this anime is. But I never enjoy a video this much simply because I’ve never seen what’s onscreen or never heard the audio that it’s paired with. The song is a perfect match for the adorable opening clips and sets a tone that naturally carries through to the back half of the video. Most editors could not handle this kind of scene transition with such subtlety, or would simply refuse to do so. This video is just a joy to watch, one I really don’t want to overanalyze or pontificate about. If you’re certain that “good editing” and more editing are the same thing, you should probably move on.