Favorite AMVs of 2022 (#30-#21)

Surprise! I should have posted this five months ago but… better late than never? You already know what topped my list of my favorite AMVs from last year, but here’s the rest of my favorites that I never got around to finishing my thoughts on. Admittedly, many of these paragraphs can barely be described as “finished thoughts,” but sometimes someone’s work just speaks to me on a subconscious level and while I can’t quite articulate just what it is about it that’s so admirable or pleasing, I still hope that I can get at least one person to watch it who’s never seen it before. Maybe they, or you, will find something special here.

30. Eyes
editor: hilovids
anime: Big Eyes, various
music: Billie Eilish

I assume that almost any review or critique of “Eyes” will inevitably fixate on the editor’s use of masking and the occasional imperfections in this video that are somewhat difficult to ignore in a few of its scenes. I propose that, overall, the masking in this AMV is actually really good, as the “bad” masking is actually accomplishing exactly what hilovids wants it to and is provoking the precise viewer response that I’m pretty confident he’s aiming for. As for the masking that combines animation with live action footage to a more traditionally “successful” end, here it’s done with a subtlety and effectiveness that is so good it might go unnoticed, or at least unrecognized for how well it really does blend in to the scenes from Big Eyes (the last good Tim Burton movie… there, I said it). It’s rare to see anyone bothering with such a technique when it’s applied to a subject that’s not the front-and-center focus of a shot, so I can’t think of many other examples to compare the moments in this AMV where an anime character is masked deep into the distance or into an already slightly out of focus crowd (or viewed in the dual reflection of a windowpane, an absolutely audacious idea that I just don’t see any other editors even considering, let alone trying to pull it off). In this AMV, it’s all done exactly as well as it needs to be done. The live action editing that forms the foundation of this video is, perhaps, solid enough to stand on its own without any of the anime clips overlaid onto it at all, but fortunately this is an AMV and not just a simple fan edit of the film. I love AMVs that successfully meld a goofy idea with something else that’s rather serious by comparison, a recipe I’m continually compelled to try to follow in some of my own work, albeit with much more mixed results than this. “Eyes” is as goofy of an idea as you can get, probably a one-note joke on the surface, but I love how committed to the concept the editor really is and how surreal and fun the final results turned out to be.

29. Aimless
editor: Pablo Shoe
anime: various
music: Karmawin – “Tokyo Lounge”
VPR warning: strobing

I’m usually not a fan of these kind of effects. That’s the sort of statement I ought to back up with some examples, but besides the fact that I don’t want to use this occasion to specifically pick on other editors’ works (videos that in all likelihood, most of you would probably enjoy and not find any issues with), I don’t really commit those kind of videos to memory and couldn’t show you one right now if my life depended on it. But generally speaking, I just don’t find these kind of flashy, color-changing effects appealing or conducive to an AMV that’s supposed to be relaxing. And yet, well, this is one of the most effectively mellow videos that I watched in all of last year. Even the mild strobing doesn’t shake me from the mood this editor is building with these scenes and this music. Counterintuitively, the effect and its timing somehow draws me in deeper to the vibes at play and does as much work as the actual scene selection in locking in the pleasant mood that this video slowly overflows with as it plays. If I had it my way and dialed this one back according to my personal standards, oh boy, let’s just say that you probably wouldn’t be watching it right now, that’s for sure. Pablo Shoe is a master of capturing this sense of cool and this might be his most potent dose of it… yet.

28. Ataraxia
editor: Arrow
anime: Dance Dance Danseur
music: Igorrr & Ruby My Dear – “Barbecue”
VPR warning: all

If you’ve followed along with these lists over the years, then maybe you’ve noticed my preference for effects work that’s extremely subtle, or which generally favors the less-is-more approach. “Atraxia” is the total antithesis of that mentality, with effects that are, for lack of a better word, completely bonkers. Arrow follows the lead of this genre-mashing song, matching the finesse of the choreography and the complexity of the action with equally ambitious masking, compositing and manipulation of clip speed. It’s a ridiculously well-synced and visually expressive work that still manages to convey this anime’s conflict and the emotions of the characters in ways I wasn’t anticipating. It may be shocking to read how quickly he claims to have made this AMV, yet it’s not such a big surprise if you’ve been following him since his “Lightning Arrow” days. This is just what he does.

27. T.A.P.P.
editor: SilkAMV
anime: Magical Witch Purie-Chan
music: Smokey Robotic – “LORD”
VPR Warning: quick cuts, zooms

It’s been five months since I was supposed to publish this entry, as almost every AMV in this post collectively stymied my efforts to produce a response of any merit or to convincingly go through my usually reliable motions of churning out a verbose but substantially empty approximation of such a would-be analysis. And none of the AMVs here were as resistant to my rhetorical tactics than “T.A.P.P.,” a video I took for granted up until the year’s end because, hey, surely SilkAMV needed a year off to recover from his ridiculously prolific run of stellar works in 2021, right?

There’s solid editing techniques in here to be singled out and praised (and from front to back, they’re employed well enough to effortlessly string the viewer along in a way that allows the visual humor to progressively grow more and more extreme with each passing minute rather than being completely dumped up front like many creators would be tempted to), so it’s not like critiquing this AMV is a waste of time, but ultimately this is a video that defies the fussy tasting process I put everything through any time I write one of these puffed up lists. “T.A.P.P.” is crazy and hilarious and a totally unexpected surprise, juvenile and crass but in a way that feels… earned? There’s something to be said for working with an anime that pretty much none of your audience has any familiarity with or preconceived notions about, especially when it’s far too old for anyone today to really care about today, yet also still far too new to have any sense of retro appeal whatsoever. It’s certainly weird for a work this brash and unapologetically fun to feel like a “sleeper” of an AMV, but here we are.

26. Time Lapse
editor: vivafringe
anime: various
music: Bonobo – “Age of Phase”
VPR warning: flickering images

“Time Lapse” is the ultimate synthesis of sharp editing coupled with a thoughtful concept that’s followed consistently without falling victim to predictable repetition. What do I mean by “sharp editing”? Well, earlier this year I made a multi-source AMV of my own that was structured around a recurring visual motif, perhaps following a thought process similar to how vivafringe conceived of this AMV. You can watch that one to get a good understanding of what “sharp editing” is not, or what it can look like to maintain a sense of theme at the expense of good flow. So what do I mean by “good flow,” then? Well, here we go again. The best I can do for you is a “you’ll just know it when you see it”-kind of answer. But thankfully there’s a video embedded right here that illustrates that perfectly. “Time Lapse” is an AMV that maintains a constant feeling of forward momentum, synced with the unique rhythm of this song in interesting and compelling ways, clearly establishing an internal logic all its own that any viewer can effortlessly grasp within the space of only a handful of scene changes. In layman’s terms–let’s face it, that’s basically what you’ve been getting from these summaries all along here–that’s the essence of AMV editing at its absolute sharpest. Perhaps I’ve told you nothing at all here that can really prepare you for the experience of watching this. If that was my goal here then I know exactly how I’d try to go about it, but a clinical description of what this video is or why it works would do the experience no favors. Just watch it, feel it, think about it later. Hopefully you’ve already done that long before today.

25. manic laughter
editor: SadSack
anime: various
music: Christy Carlson Romano – “Say the Word”
VPR: flashing images

Are you getting tired of this kind of thing yet? Because I’m not! I don’t know if the song is here is a joke or if people of a certain age just rock this unironically. I don’t know if a video described as “secret santa meme time” was supposed to be taken seriously, but I love this AMV. I’ve heard people complain that videos like this are all the same. Well I don’t believe that one bit! Watch this one when you need to feel good. Wish I had a better short-term antidote to the inescapable dread of our post-truth world but until I find it, this will have to do. You’re welcome!

24. The Sound of Someone You Love Who’s Going Away And It Doesn’t Matter
editor: janken
anime: Ojamajo Doremi
music: Penguin Cafe Orchestra – “The Sound Of Someone You Love Who’s Going Away And It Doesn’t Matter”

Is there something about this anime that inspires instrumental AMVs that ooze with a quiet sense of melancholy and nostalgia? (What? Actually watch it to find out for myself? No way!) This AMV is the first from a relatively unknown editor who obviously has a knack for pairing sources and crafting character-focused videos with a rich sense of mood and ambience. This is a sweet little video that’s as relaxing as they come, save for the sense of something distressing lurking below its surface that’s brushed aside by a happy ending but perhaps never truly resolved. The scene changes feel natural, well-timed and unforced, and the bit of external sync introduced in this video’s final sequence really brings it to a satisfying close on an emotional high. I hope janken sticks around and continues releasing videos this year; I don’t know what it is but there’s something about editors who just kind of get it all just right on the first try that doesn’t bode well for a long “career” in AMV editing. How do you even set a bar for yourself when you come out of the gate like this?

23. Love Is Not a Victory March
editor: DopplerDo
anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena, Adolescence of Utena
music: Pentatonix – “Hallelujah”

I’d like to be upfront about my prejudices and preconceived notions that I have about certain kinds of AMVs or just certain sources, especially when it’s in service of trying to explain how hard an AMV had to work to overcome those negative attitudes to really win me over. So let’s not hold back: I’m suspicious of this song from the get go as it’s become a cheat code to convey a poetic profundity that used to be much harder-fought to achieve, and the last thing the song needs is a vocal treatment like this to inflate its sentimentality into gross extremes. Also: DopplerDo has already made a number of great Utena AMVs, but it’s 2022 and I’m hungry for something new. So yeah, this AMV had an uphill climb ahead of it, which is all on me and me alone, and I still loved every minute of the darn thing. Maybe not all at once, but from about 1:53 onwards, the editor’s vision suddenly snapped into focus for me and I was all-in. I can’t pin down anything particularly new about this video or any especially creative twist that DopplerDo puts on the material or any of his own techniques, yet it feels like his deepest exploration of this anime to date and certainly the most fulfilling encounter that I’ve had with any of his takes on it. “Love Is Not a Victory March” never set out to oblige my cravings, not even close, yet it’s of my favorite AMVs that this editor has ever made.

22. Ocean Male Grindset
editor: PantsAMV
anime: various
music: Ween – “Ocean Man”

With solid internal sync, subtle match cuts, scene selection that prioritizes fun and expressive animation over literal lyric sync (yet never feeling at odds with the song in the slightest) and effective but nearly invisible compositing in more scenes than you’ll even notice, Pants pulls out all the stops to bring this fun multi-source AMV to life. It’s not a “heartwarming” video or one that’s packed with Laugh Out Loud moments, but if this doesn’t leave you feeling sunny all over then please adjust your settings and try again. These two minutes are over in such a flash that watching this AMV feels like a form of time-travel. There’s a hyperactive sort of flow that runs throughout “Ocean Male Grindset” that’s definitely not the first approach that I would consider when editing to this kind of song, but repeated viewings prove the virtue of this strategy and how well it works without ever feeling too busy or overbearing. I rarely dig into AMVs on a shot-by-shot basis to try to understand how they work, instead just basking in the feeling they produce without much in the way of actually studying their mechanics. I doubt I’ll be making my own version of this video any time soon, but I found it extremely illuminating to try to look just a little close with this one to try to understand the process of how it’s actually working on me from cut to cut and even frame to frame.

21. Summer Youth
editor: Nekokitkat
anime: Summer Ghost
music: Daughter – “Youth”

With props to Ghosts Will Pass Through Here’s “September Unfading” and Synæsthesia Productions’ “Times Like These,” “Summer Youth” was my favorite edit of this movie from the past year. I suppose it doesn’t deviate too far from either of those two AMVs and their approaches to the material, but perhaps it’s inevitable that it doesn’t. There’s less than 40 minutes of material to work with here and a handful of signature shots that simply have to be in any video that’s made with the film, so if you’ve already seen a Summer Ghost AMV or two, I can’t guarantee that this one is going to be a novel experience for you. But here’s what I can guarantee: the mood and atmosphere in this video are simply sublime. The quiet and introspective passages of character-focused scenes are handled with a delicate touch that allows the video’s most cathartic moments to hit with a bigger and more meaningful sense of consequence than they otherwise ought to have any business delivering on their own. I’m sure this AMV can’t take the place of actually watching this movie, but it does a wonderful job in telling a fulfilling and surprising story.