I’ve been writing annual lists of my favorite AMVs since 2015. For most of 2022, I planned on taking a break from the process and regrouping next time around. I had a few personal reasons for that. But as you can see, we’re back again at the start of yet another countdown of my favorite AMVs of the year. There’s a few explanations I could give for this but the how and the why doesn’t matter much right now. This year’s countdown will be shorter than it’s been in quite a while. There’s a long story behind that but once again, I’ll spare you the details. If you want more AMVs than I’ve got listed here, I’ll set you up with a playlist or two at the end of all this.

So here we go again: this is a list of my favorite AMVs from 2022. One minor difference in this year’s list is I’m no longer building this list around a December 1st deadline. I always knew there was a good chance I was going to miss out on videos that people released in the last few weeks of the year, and it’s not exactly fair to the AMVs released in December that I always have to form a very quick opinion about for this January writing exercise, especially compared to other AMVs that I’ve watched several times over the span of a few months’ time. For example, last year’s list included videos released from December 1, 2020 to December 1, 2021 (with the exception of one AMV that landed on my special mentions list, somehow I always find a way to defy my own self-imposed rules) We’re not doing that this year or at any point going forward. So this year’s list does include AMVs released in December of 2022. Oh, it also includes AMVs from December of 2021, because those were frozen out of the list from last year. So this is actually a list of my favorite AMVs of the past 13 months: December 1, 2021 to December 31, 2022.

Because this list is much shorter than it usually is, many of you who have seen your videos appear on it in the past or were looking forward to seeing where they might appear on it this year might be disappointed not to find them anywhere on here at all. This does not mean I didn’t enjoy your AMVs from this past year. This doesn’t mean I don’t think you’re a good editor. This doesn’t mean that I’m not looking forward to what you’ll be sharing the future. I hope this is still fun for everyone to read. Please still be friends with me!

I am also trying just a little bit harder this year to flag videos that contain photosensitive content that might be triggering not just to viewers with epilepsy, but other sensory sensitivities that don’t get quite as much attention. I realize these warnings are still not up to the full standards of the Vidding Sensitivity Relay (VPR) guidelines, but we’re a little closer than we were last year and I think I deserve a pat on that back for that!

Most readers of this blog are already aware that katranat and crackthesky have published their own lists of their favorite AMVs of the past year. But if you’re new here or didn’t get the memo, please check both of those out!

As usual, I’m beginning this list with a rundown of a few videos that did not make my final list. These videos never had a chance! But not because I don’t love them. They’re just not videos I would put on that list, either because they’re not exactly AMVs, or they certainly are but aren’t ones I can think about in the same way as all the ones that I maddeningly tried to rank (which you will see posted in the next two days). Even here, they’re just alphabetical by title. These are experiments, trailers, live action edits, other ineligible works, or simply something else I wanted to share. My actual top 20 countdown will begin tomorrow. But enjoy these in the meantime!

Canadian Revenue Agency Hold Music
editor: Zane Kordic
anime: The Wind Rises
music: unknown

About a year ago I placed a call to Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois and spent about forty minutes on hold listening to a 30 second loop of uplifting Millennial stomp/clap music punctuated by prerecorded pleas to stay on the line. Endure this for long enough and your mind will drift places you never expected: eventually I found myself imagining what it might be like to edit an AMV with such music. I’m willing to bet that this editor had a similar experience, but whatever his inspiration, God bless him for following through on it and actually bringing it to life. Presenting the visuals in a phone-friendly vertical aspect ratio and completely obliterating the video resolution to reflect the horribly compressed audio of this recording takes what would be a goofy but worthy experiment on its own to some fascinating conceptual ends. Oh, by the way, the editing and scene selection of this piece is actually some of the best work I’ve ever seen done with this film in an AMV. If you squint hard enough, this might be one of the most majestic Ghibli AMVs you’ve ever seen.

Clint vs Anime!
editor: Farthest Ledge AMVs
anime/video: Girls und Panzer, Kelly’s Heroes
audio: Girls und Panzer, Kelly’s Heroes

I’ve seen a few videos like this in the course of my searching and it leaves me wondering if this is less of one editor’s inspired idea and more of a response to yet another meme that just flew over my head. Digging into that for answers will eventually lead you into the world of anime fans who are also World War II afficionados, German military otakus, the “I’m not a Nazi, I just love their fashion!”-people, and eventually… well, you can guess the rest. So no thanks, maybe I’m better off not knowing. That being said, this video and this editor have nothing to do with that world, and “Clint vs Anime!” is one of the best edited combinations of animation and live action that I’ve ever seen in a fan edit, proving that you absolutely can meld two such sources together into a single piece without a frame of the traditional character masking that you’d assume would be the first requirement to doing so. This is raw editing at its finest.

Drive
editor: Pablo Shoe
video: Drive
music: FynestLyk – “Noir Et Blanc Vie”

Perhaps no movie of the 2010s has been as influential on art and culture and our collective sense of cool as 2011’s Drive, so maybe it’s no surprise that it’s always punched above its weight in terms of how many fan edits have been made with it in the context of its status as a cult film (at least compared with the legions of videos devoted to Marvel or Star Wars). Most editors who’ve worked with the film have made the most out of either its dynamic action sequences or the moody, atmospheric and introverted tone that pervades most of its quieter scenes (in other words, the other 95% of the film that happens in between car chases). This is the first time I’ve seen an editor place their focus so squarely on its most relaxing scenes, or at least attempt to recontextualize the film in such warmly emotional terms. The dialog sprinkled throughout the video is a friendly reminder that the film is not just a vibe, but a story about people, and Pablo Shoe has a knack for using these samples sparsely and making sure that they fit perfectly and unobtrusively over the luscious laid-back funk of this [checks notes] royalty free instrumental music as heard on Nightly Juicy Memes. Ah, whatever. I’m watching this in the sick death of Midwestern winter and somehow I swear I can feel the LA sun on the back of my neck.

Flood
editor: Node of Contention
anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion
music: Jars of Clay – “Flood”

Putting this AMV on this list might come across as a back-handed compliment, seeing how I’m trying to focus on some unusual or AMV-tangential works before getting into my “real” list of favorite AMVs of the year, and this video is as straightforward of an AMV as you’ll ever get. My best explanation for this is that I’d never before had so much trouble whittling down my list of favorite videos of the year into a mere top 20 (note: at the time of writing this, I was dead set on making a top 50 list), knew this one simply wasn’t going to make the cut, but couldn’t bring myself to miss a chance to single it out for attention. Now that I’ve finally dragged it out here on stage with me, it’s difficult to ignore its faults or not apologize for them in advance. Yes, this is probably some of the most literal lyric sync you’ll ever see in your life. Yet I’m still sort of in awe that Node of Contention was able to find a fitting visual embodiment for nearly every line in this song. The sum total of this effort sometimes feels like a joke that’s never fully spelled-out. If you think it’s totally awesome or funny or just ridiculous, you’re probably right. I’m also ambivalent about the static feel of so many of these scenes. While I’m absolutely tired of videos where editors apply the Ken Burns zoom to every single clip, boy oh boy, there are certain shots in this video that are just screaming for… something to preserve the momentum of the song or break the illusion that the screen has suddenly frozen.

That’s a lot shit to talk about a video that I supposedly love so let’s fix that. Sure, this is absolutely a video where factors extrinsic to the editing itself are initially pulling me in: my love of Evangelion for sure, but definitely my nostalgia for and prevailing fondness and respect for this song. But I wouldn’t be repping this if it didn’t absolutely succeed on its own terms. This is a top-tier Evangelion edit that offers a solid and effective blend of action scenes and character focus. And while it’s never deeply explored in terms of a theme, the music and NoC’s simple but effective editing drapes the song with spiritual overtones that are there if you’re looking for them (of course, if you can’t find them then consult the AMV’s opening eight seconds, I guess). If my personal persuasions or history weren’t a factor in getting me on board with this, I’m confident that it would still grab my attention through its unpretentious sincerity alone. Also, the last ten seconds of this video might be the one of the best endings of any AMV I watched all year. Competition is fierce for that title but this AMV is absolutely in the mix for it. I have this creeping hunch that Node of Contention is going to be one of those AMV editors who appears out of nowhere and disappears just as suddenly. I hope putting that in writing helps ensure that they stick around for a long time to come.

frUitsbaSket
editor: Gina Nelson
anime: Fruits Basket
audio: Us trailer

Two statements I hold in the same time in my mind: (1) I love trailer AMVs. (2) Most are meaningless mashups of two sources that are being mixed together simply because they’re currently popular titles.

Not really a unique take since it’s an opinion that could just as easily be lobbed at the whole world of AMVs, if one felt so inclined, but if it’s a redundant statement then hopefully it’s a redundant statement that also helps reveal something about my feelings at work here. I like this video because it has a concept and it has layers. It’s a hyper-specific idea that would only work with these sources, not a general strategy that could be applied to any AMV made with a similar tone or in a similar genre, and the execution of said idea is delivered with near-perfect clarity. I guess it all sort of depends on knowing/remembering this movie (which I still haven’t seen) or its trailer (both from the sort-of-recent-but-also-distant past of four whole years years ago: a world really that may have been a very different place from “the one we’re living in now”!) and/or being a Fruits Basket fan, but you don’t need to really have any of that going in for these gags to still land with a perfect timing and an eye for ideal scene selection that might not spell out the concept right away but will still lead you there before the video is finished.

Kumoricon 2022 Contest Opener
editor: MinetChan, various
anime: various
music: Lizzo – “About Damn Time”

The last AMV contest I watched in person was in 2019. Walking out of the screening room after the announcement of the winners, the last thing on my mind was the possibility that it would be the last such contest that I’d ever see in person. Nearly four years later, for a combination of reasons both obvious and in need of a long-winded explanation that I’m not going to bother with here, I’m realizing there’s a solid non-zero chance that’s going to turn out to be the case! I haven’t participated in too many of these over the years and certainly never been “involved” in any of them, but the handful of times I’ve ever attended one have always felt like rare escapes from the real world into hyper-rare, nearly-personalized realms of obsession that I simply never encounter outside of the world behind my eyelids. So maybe it goes without saying that the AMV sub-genre of “contest intro videos” is one that I get an unusually heavy boost of vicarious enjoyment from watching.

It’s hard to evaluate or simply watch this one as a “normal” AMV, not with the thirty seconds of bits from various AMVs spliced into its midsection, but the whole video works as a fun and uplifting work that succeeds at its mission: beckoning you to relax and enjoy yourself, or if you feel like it, get hyped about the contest that’s about to begin (or not: by the time you watch this, the AMV has long since fulfilled its original purpose). MinetChan gets the job done here not with the usual all-encompassing rundown of every big and/or recent hit anime that’s been on everyone’s watchlist over the past year, but with a narrow selection of sources that yields a more focused aesthetic. There’s a lot on screen here that I don’t recognize one bit, but this lack of familiarity was no barrier to MinetChan and her mission: leaving the viewer feeling welcomed, included and a just a little more relaxed and at ease than they were just two minutes before.

Pick 199
editor: Paul Geromini
anime: Eyeshield 21
audio: The Brady 6, Tom vs Time, various NFL broadcasts

Of course an anime based on the most popular sport in the USA would have zero cultural presence here and a fanbase so small that I’ve still never come across anyone who watches it or reads it. Although I guess that last part isn’t really true any longer thanks to this video from Paul Geromini, an editor I’d never heard of before 2022 but will now be dropping everything I’m doing the second he releases his next AMV or whatever other “anime edit” he decides to make. This video, presumably a composite of a couple of Tom Brady documentaries or career retrospectives, this is less of an AMV than an exercise in lip syncing and scene selection. But those two elements are mastered so effectively that they carry this video and its surrogate protagonist in ridiculously convincing fashion. This editor’s approach to juxtaposing live action footage with anime scenes is both hilarious and convincing in the precise way that it needs to be. I love it when editors apply their skills to weird ideas like this that are so niche that most AMV fans probably don’t even know what to make of it, as if any of them have even laid eyes on it in the first place: as of the morning before I post this entry, this video has reaped a whole 25 views in the four months it’s been online. The system is completely broken, I tell you!

Save Me
editor: TRUTH CRAB
video: Jeu
music: Empress Of – “Save Me”
VPR Warning: motion, color contrast

With “only” ten or so videos released over the past year, TRUTH CRAB’s most recent year of editing was by far his least prolific since he started uploading AMVs to YouTube in 2019. Whether this and his silence over the past eight months represents the end of his channel and/or his AMV editing career, or turns out to just be a much-earned hiatus, it’s hard to deny that his interest in editing with anything resembling traditional anime seems to have been waning as of late. Most of the edits he released in 2022 were made from experimental animated shorts existing well outside of the bounds of anime or anything that even most “animation fans” watch for pleasure or enjoyment. But describing any of these anime animated music videos as difficult or unenjoyable would be as far off the mark as one could ever get.

“Save Me” is a relatively straightforward and minimal edit of a 2006 Swiss-made animated short titled “Jeu,” which is available on YouTube and worth watching for anyone craving something out of the ordinary or unexpected. TRUTH CRAB doesn’t introduce any cuts that break the linearity of the original work, but plays with framerate, adds occasional still frames or pauses and applies other tricks that effectively sync the original film to this song. These tricks are practically invisible without attempting to sync the original “Jeu” in a separate browser window just to see how this video is even working. The sync in this video is some of the best you will ever see and one of TRUTH CRAB’s most interesting works. Is it a video where he once again steps back to passively allow scenes to play out without any interruption, except when truly necessary? Or is this the most involved he’s ever been paying meticulous attention to a work on a frame by frame basis? I can’t imagine any AMV editor or animation fan who wouldn’t be captivated by these scenes, but how many would really have the vision to bring something like this video to life and pull it off so perfectly?

Super Loid Bros – (TODD ROGERS ANYA% SPEEDRUN DEATHLESS!?!?!!?!?!)
editor: SpuddStaaa
anime: SPY x FAMILY
audio: Super Mario Brothers (?)

I really ought to put in the research to understand the complete context of what I’m watching here, but sometimes I just don’t want to do that and I justify it by claiming that it would ruin the utter strangeness of a video like this. There might be something to that, but I get the feeling that this video was made for people who know all about this man and his hilarious infamy. This video is listed as the “AWA Thunderdome 2022 Winner” in its video description and… is it even possible to create a video like this in such a short time and under those conditions? Did that really happen? Or is this claim as far fetched as Todd Rodgers’ world records? If there are layers to this video that extend out into our 3D world, well then, this is a concept that simply hasn’t gotten its due. If that turns out to be the craziest and least-accurate interpretation of an AMV you’ve ever heard, then you can at least still enjoy this as one of the most impressively-synced edits of the year. The floating head might be a copyright-dodging device, but I find it so absurd that it’s just the perfect icing on the cake.

Thsnks
editor: Kirbygal
anime: Mob Psycho 100
music: lubalin – “is this available (attorney general) – internet drama part 1”

I have opinions about TikTok but I won’t be sharing them here. I will say that I’m usually a little dismayed when I come across a strange or especially funny AMV, only to find out that it’s a straightforward interpretation of a TikTok meme and not some off the wall idea that the editor brought to life on their own. Is there really a “good” reason to feel that way? Maybe, maybe not. I’m not even consistent with which editors or which videos impress or disappoint according to this arbitrary system of judgement. None of it’s fair at all and I’m beginning to suspect that it’s not the platform that’s inducing a mass psychosis onto society but my own entrenched attitudes that are the problem here. I did say I wasn’t going to be sharing my opinions on TikTok here, didn’t I?

For whatever reason, “Thsnks” passes the insane test my brain has set up for these kind of videos, and in the process, became one of those earworms and mental obsessions that I had to force myself to avoid for several months earlier this year just to get it out of my head. I think my gold standard for how well a comedy video truly succeeds is when an AMV editor’s take on it makes me laugh far harder or longer than the original that it’s based on. Because of the the strange obsession with originality and authenticity that I cling to more often than not, this is a tough hurdle to clear! I’ve watched the original TikTok this video is based on, I think it’s an original and funny piece of content creative work and I know there’s no Kirbygal video here on this list without its existence, but I know which one I have laughed harder at and which one has kept me up at night playing in my head while I struggle to fall asleep. There’s a real risk this will happen to you so if you haven’t already watched the embedded video above, maybe ask yourself if that’s worth it this week. I know warnings like that do more to tempt someone to watch than caution them to stay away, so I’ll just apologize now if I’ve lead you astray.