AMV Roundup 06 - October 2023
Oct. 22nd, 2023 03:48 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katranatHello everyone, welcome to AMV roundup number six!
AMV roundup is where I’m highlighting any new AMVs I’ve come across in the past month, as well as showcasing any older videos I may find that I’d never encountered before.
The videos featured here will mostly be AMVs that aren’t already well known in the AMV community spaces I’m familiar with (unless I particularly want to gush about them for some reason). So hopefully a lot of these videos will be new to anyone reading.
Here are another 10 videos for you this month, I hope you find something to enjoy!
New for 2023
Video title: H E A V E N L Y. . . .
Editor: Saikoro
Anime: Heavenly Delusion
Song & Artist: ROLLING STONE - Brent Faiyaz
Comments: Saikoro has been on my radar since I found one of their AMVs via reddit last year - they have a knack for making videos which in other circumstances might put me off, but somehow they make work for me. I am referring of course to gratuitous use of twixtor among other things. I feel regardless of whatever editing choices Saikoro makes, they have a solid grasp of the heart of the sources they choose and a strong vision for their videos, so this is possibly why I enjoy their creations. Anyway, “H E A V E N L Y. . . .” is very lovely - it seems to be mostly using scenes from the opening sequence of this anime, but heck who cares these days anyways? I’d not even heard of or seen anything about this anime before this came up in my subscription feed, so thank you Saikoro for giving me new eye candy.
VPR: All
Video title: The Golden Age
Editor: Jacek Paszko AMV
Anime: Flip Flappers
Song & Artist: The Golden Age - The Asteroids Galaxy Tour
Comments: Not sure how much I can say about “The Golden Age” - it’s a really cute Flip Flappers AMV (is it even possible to create a not cute Flip Flappers AMV?), with a lot of excellent sync and a slightly unusual song. There’s an all around good time to be had watching this.
VPR: All
Video title: Look Who’s Inside Again
Editor: WellofHavoc
Anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Song & Artist: INSIDE - Bo Burnham
Comments: Oh hey, look who’s watching Utena AMVs again!
I feel I don’t completely get “Look Who’s Inside Again” as I haven’t seen all of Utena, but I do appreciate the overall theme here - it’s certainly an interesting subject to focus on.
VPR: Major flashes to black and red, flickering, red emphasis scenes
Video title: Satoru Gojo - I’m God
Editor: HDV AMV
Anime: Jujutsu Kaisen
Song & Artist: I’m God - Clams Casino
Comments: I would hope anyone who’s reading this will already be familiar with HDV, I’ve certainly gone on about their AMVs a lot in the past, and I’m adding this one to my list this month as I’m unsure if I’ll get a chance to talk about it otherwise.
First off I want to mention that I have a favourite AMV which uses this song. I bring this up because sometimes it can be hard to appreciate different AMV interpretations of a song if strong preferences have already been established. It can be even harder to resist drawing comparisons between any such videos. I’m not going to lie and say I haven’t fallen into these traps myself with this video, but it was easy to shrug them off quickly as HDV has made something completely different here (as HDV tends to do).
There’s no crazy editing to be found - as far as I can tell this is a very raw and more simplistic edit in comparison to other videos HDV has been making recently. The focus is mainly on the character of Gojo from Jujutsu Kaisen, who I don’t know much about, other than he’s supposedly stupidly overpowered, which would explain the choice of song “I’m God”. In this way it appears to be a fairly straightforward character profile AMV, with most of the clips seeming to be moments where Gojo is demonstrating his OPness, which would be expected from an AMV focusing on Gojo’s alleged Godliness. Which brings me back to the song “I’m God” - it’s evocative of this sentiment in title only, the mood of the music is mellow and slightly melancholy, it’s not something I would innately think to pair with shounen anime sakuga scenes. In my eyes this creates an odd dissonance between the sources - there are several wildly kinetic and highly violent scenes thrown around throughout this video, all the while in the background we have the remixed voice of Imogen Heap whisper singing “bite tongue, deep breaths” etc. This all brings rise to what is my favourite part of the video, and perhaps one of the most glorious things I’ve seen recently in an AMV period, between 00:58 - 01:15 - this right here is why I stubbornly continue to watch as many AMVs as I can kids. I have no idea what’s happening in the scene, but HDV has synced it so beautifully with the music, even though it’s one of the quieter parts of the song and one of the most visually dynamic scenes - for a moment, they join together as one, and the feeling is truly wondrous. Also shout out to 01:56 - 02:07, the hands overlaying is interesting.
I’m getting away with myself a bit, back to the dissonance - I can’t say I know what HDV was thinking putting this together (I would love to talk to them and better understand what makes their editing brain tick), but I feel somewhat that the dissonance is part of the point here. To someone who hasn’t seen this anime, there’s nothing obvious in the video which indicates any type of narrative, to me this is essentially random clips of Gojo. Despite that, there is something lurking under the surface here, some kind of magic amalgamation of the song and the way HDV has put this together, which gives the impression of a character who for all he might be Godlike, is realising (or has realised) that being at the top is not all it’s cracked up to be. There’s also a kind of inevitable finality which comes with the last scene in the AMV, where Gojo rips the head off a monster, which I feel calls up comparisons to sentiments like, “you’ve become the strongest, but at what cost, you are the monster now,” and there’s a weary acceptance on Gojo’s part of this.
I know, I know, this was a lot of thinking about an AMV which is essentially just a Gojo character profile, and honestly I have no idea how much of this is genuine intent from the video or just my brain making stuff up (which is actually something I half want to write a post about specifically at some point maybe). So I’m going to stop now.
VPR: All
CW: Gore, violence
Video title: bad guntank amv
Editor: reservoir
Anime: Various Gundam
Song & Artist: Rollin' (Air Raid Vehicle) - Limp Bizkit
Comments: reservoir may consider this a bad AMV, however this does not do anything to diminish my enjoyment of it. There’s something about someone making a tribute specifically for a particular mobile suit from Gundam just for fun which is endearing. The over the top censoring of the song, as well as the image/gif of the chibi guntank sometimes appearing, make this especially delightful.
I do feel slightly conflicted including this AMV here, considering the creators feelings towards it, however the video is public, and on the org, and I get the feeling not many people read these posts anyways so the amount of new eyes on the AMV will most likely be fairly negligible.
VPR: Major motion (lots of camera shake), explosions, flashes to white, full colour spectrum change at 03:16 - 03:18
Video title: Hellfire
Editor: cagayakegirlz
Anime: Hellsing Ultimate
Song & Artist: Rainy Day - Ice Nine Kills
Comments: I didn’t realise how much I was missing Hellsing AMVs to rock songs in my life until cagayakegirlz uploaded this. There’s something almost primal about this type of combination that’s never not going to be awesome.
VPR: All (major red)
CW: Gore, violence
Video title: Midnight City
Editor: Rex Et Astra
Anime: Royal Space Force: The Wings of Honnêamise
Song & Artist: Midnight City - M83
Comments: All of Rex Et Astra’s videos are wonderful to watch - while I was bingeing their channel, “Midnight City” stood out to me as one I particularly enjoyed. The source combination is especially reminiscent of both nostalgia and joy, and Rex Et Astra has put them together beautifully. I’m not sure how I feel about the audio clip at the end of the video, however it’s not jarring like these things often are.
VPR: All
Older videos
Videos which premiered before 2023 that I’ve only recently found and have been enjoying.
Video title: Meds
Editor: ElementalsVideos
Anime: Paprika
Song & Artist: Meds - Placebo
Comments: Okay, so first of all I gotta mention that ElementalsVideos is the channel of an editor who also goes by Anamorphic Productions on the org, and who made one of my all time favourite AMVs. I found “Meds” because the editor commented on an upload of their old video, and I was like “no way! Lets see if they’ve got any other AMVs on this channel”, and they did. “Meds” got my attention because it’s an awesome video, and also because I could have sworn I’ve seen it before - I feel like I’m going a bit crazy (hah!) trying to find any trace of it outside of this specific YouTube upload but I cannot. It’s not on the Org, I can’t find any other YouTube upload of it, my YouTube history doesn’t contain anything like it, it’s not on AMVnews… I’m at a loss honestly. Whatever, I’ll just have to ignore the massive sense of deja vu I get when I watch it and just enjoy it - and I hope y’all enjoy it as well!
VPR: All (major red)
Video title: Breaking The Habit
Editor: missbjane
Anime: Various Sailor Moon
Song & Artist: Breaking The Habit - Linkin Park
Comments: I can’t remember for sure how I came across this one - I think it was a YouTube recommendation. Initially when I clicked on this I was confused thinking, “someone made this combo in 2021, whaaat?”, however missbjane clarifies in the description that this was in fact edited in 2007, which makes a lot more sense. As it turns out, this is a stellar example of this type of video from that time. Honestly, actually this is probably one of the better Breaking The Habit AMVs I’ve seen - it has a lot of excellent sync and matches the dramatic tension of the song throughout the video very well. Also Sailor Moon is pretty. I’m sad it’s not in 4:3, but hey I can’t have everything.
VPR: All
Video title: is it weird i listened to im god by clams casino's when i lost my virginity?
Editor: Yvanne
Anime: Various
Song & Artist: was it weird i listened to im god by clams casino's when i lost my virginity - sewerslvt
Comments: This ended up in my recommendations after watching so many I’m God AMVs in quick succession. And yeah, this is pretty much exactly what you might expect from an AMV using a sewerlvt remix of this song - it’s wild, it’s flashy and uses a bunch of scenes typically found in more experimental edits (and some not). It’s the type of thing I enjoy zoning out to - just let the music and images merge into one and penetrate my brain.
VPR: Major All
CW: Violence, nudity
