My Top AMVs of 2023, 30 - 21
Jan. 4th, 2024 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katranatQuick FYI before we get into it. I didn’t realise before starting this that YouTube has a daily upload limit for videos, which I can’t get rid of without giving Google far more personal information than I’m comfortable with, so a handful of my video comments from now on may have google drive links rather than YouTube links. I will be changing those over once I’m able to upload everything to YouTube.
30
Video title: Parallel Paradise
Editor: Animetrash AMVs
Anime: Flip Flappers
Song & Artist: Paradise - Great Good Fine Ok, Before you Exit
VPR: All
Video comments: Oh hey, it’s another Animetrash video, and this is “Parallel Paradise”. Which is one of the very first videos I watched from 2023, yeah it was uploaded 2nd of January 2023, so it was my first Animetrash experience of the year. And it’s continued to hold a happy place in my heart.
It’s a very cute video, I believe I’ve said in the past I’m not entirely sure it’s possible to not make a cute Flip Flappers video. This one’s very very cute. Animetrash does some interesting editing things as we’ve just seen that they don’t often do, like adding four images into the different corners of the screen (00:29), which is fine, it’s like I say, kinda cute. I think they possibly did it just to try and pack as many moments of these two characters as they could into the video as possible, which I don’t blame them for.
One of the many things I love about Animetrash is I love the way they sync to the vocals of the songs they choose, they match the way the singer's voice sounds as well as what they’re saying and it just completely adds to the levels of adorableness.
And yes, there are subtitles in this video, we just forget they’re there, just ignore them, it’s ok.
I think this bit is probably my most favourite (02:18), where the breakdown of the song happens. I believe these are interspersed clips of either the ending or the opening credits of the anime and it’s just so damn cute, this whole video is just too darn cute.
Short, sweet, simple cute, it makes me very happy whenever I watch it and it’s lasted me the whole year, and I’ve enjoyed it more and more every time I watch it
29
Video title: Transfiguration
Editor: Animetrix Videos
Anime: Various
Song & Artist: Howl - Florence and The Machine
VPR: All (major motion, major flashing)
Video comments: Here we’ve got “Transfiguration” by Animetrix Videos, and this is a multi source magical girl AMV. It’s one of those videos that takes advantage of all of the different parallels between magical girl shows and it’s just full of flashy stuff and match cuts galore, and all of those good things.
One thing that Animetrix Videos does which is interesting here is the video is constantly moving, they have a constant camera movement bouncing up and down and all around, on every single clip! It’s constantly there. And this didn’t really make sense until I watched this video on YouTube for the first time. I first came across this video as part of AWA’s Accolades contest, it was an entry in that contest, and I got this video as a local download file, and I would watch it in a video player on my computer, and the bouncing around was very distracting when I watched it in a video player. But on YouTube it makes a lot of sense because there’s all this empty black space and it makes the video more dynamic. It’s very unique to watch in that way, and I appreciate it a lot more for that.
It's one of these videos that effortlessly interweaves the themes that happen in these types of shows and the song is very perfect for that. There’s an inherent drama to it all and it works very well.
28
Video title: n̶͎̏͝õ̷̳̃i̷̳͊ṣ̶̄ẽ̵̟͒
Editor: Synæsthesia Productions
Anime: FLCL
Song & Artist: Shield for your eyes, a Beast in the well on your hand - Melt-Banana
VPR: Major All
Video comments: Here’s Synæsthesia Productions with a crazy fun video called “Noise” which uses the anime FLCL, and just a bunch of really fun editing and he just goes crazy with it.
The song is absolutely nuts and I really love the way that Syn edits to all of the weird noises in the song. There’s a lot of different noises that sound like stretching and in this beginning segment I just really love different ways Syn visualises that stretching noise - all of the different wipes, and actually stretching the picture and moving things in interesting ways.
And then you’ve got this bit here with multiple images on the screen and the motor scooter and it’s just a lot of fun.
It all goes by very quickly though, it kind of pummels into you. This is another one you’ve definitely gotta watch more than once because it hits you like a freight train and before you know it it’s over, so you gotta watch it again, to be like, “what? What did I just watch? what did I actually just see there?” I do love that obviously in the beginning segment it was just mainly noise and it was very well matching all of that noise and now that the singer comes into play most of the scenes are focusing on this girl - I can’t remember her name, but the crazy girl from FLCL.
Yep, just this video bludgeons you with a good time, is I think the best way to describe it.
27
Video title: Takes Two To Twine
Editor: SasukeChanx
Anime: Serial Experiments Lain
Song & Artist: VOID - Melanie Martinez
VPR: All
Video comments: We’ve reached Lain AMV number 3 on my top 50 list. This one is “Takes Two To Twine” by SasukeChan.
And SasukeChan says in the description for this video that they’ve had trouble understanding what Lain is about and that this is their own version of Lain’s story. And I find that very interesting, because ultimately for someone who says they had trouble understanding what Lain is about, this is an incredibly good characterisation of Lain. And it seems to be focusing mostly on the struggles that Lain has with herself throughout the show - and there’s a lot of really clever editing in this video by SasukeChan which underlines those themes. It’s all very cool.
There’s a lot of technical stuff going on here, and all of it helps the impact of the different scenes and the lyrics and it all works together very well. This is probably one of my favourite characterisations of Lain in an AMV ever.
There are some very visceral moments, like this particular moment here is one of my favourites (03:22) where the power cables are falling down and the singers talking about intestines - it’s a very interesting visual to that particular lyric, especially in the context of Serial Experiments Lain.
I do love the characterisation in this video a lot, SasukeChan I think really nailed it.
26
Video title: around the world
Editor: magicalliz
Anime: Various
Song & Artist:
VPR: All (major flashing)
Video comments: magicalliz is an editor I only found a couple months ago. I'm very glad I did because their videos are incredibly nostalgic and amazing and they’re just wonderful, all of them really. But obviously I could only fit so many into my top 50 list, and they can’t all be videos from the same editors, but anyway.
This video in particular is possibly the most nostalgic for me, first of all because of the song, which is Around The World, by ATC. It is a remix of it so that makes it slightly more fresh but this song is one that I’ve heard since I was very young and it’s embedded itself. And it’s also one that was used in a lot of AMVs of magical girls and magicalliz has just made their own ultimate version of this AMV trope and it’s just amazing. They use clips from all sorts of different magical girl shows, even western animated ones which is a lot of fun actually. Some of the clips are not the greatest quality, but honestly that’s fine, it actually adds to the nostalgia factor, it makes me think I’m watching videos back in 2007, even though this is actually much better quality than anything I would have watched back in 2007 on YouTube.
This is definitely a video that you’ve gotta watch more than once, or at least I had to watch more than once. Cause the first time I watched it, it’s an onslaught of just all of these sparkly ridiculously over the top movement scenes from magical girl shows with, you know, all the magic and the transformation scenes and all of that. When I first watched it at least, it’s kinda like yeah, this is just all happening. And it’s a lot of fun. And then when I watched it again, I realised that this isn't just bombarding with all of these scenes, magicalliz is actually put this together very carefully. There’s so many match cuts, it’s absolutely crazy, some of them are just so smooth you barely even realise that you’re watching two completely differently animated series cut together, it just goes from one to the other almost utterly seamlessly. It just flows so effortlessly, they’ve even done colour matching and whatnot throughout the video as well. It’s a very understatedly impressive bit of work - I think that’s how best to describe it. on the surface it doesn’t seem like something that has that much effort put into it, but when you look at it a bit closer and you can see, oh yeah, this is something serious here - well not serious, because ultimately I think magicalliz had a lot of fun making this but, there was a lot of concerted effort that went into making this, and that’s probably why it’s as good as it is and it feels so smooth when you watch it.
I think I just wanna shout out, this is probably one of my favourite match cuts here (02:07), it does help that both of the sources are anime, and they both have the same aspect ratio here. But where it goes from Princess Tutu into Sailor Moon, it doesn’t really compute in my brain at first that those are two completely different series, it's just like one continuous scene to my brain - that match cut is so good.
25
Video title: CRASHING
Editor: F-Zero TV
Anime: Devilman - The Birth
Song & Artist: Haunted - Laura Les
VPR: Major All
CW: Pixelated violence and gore
Video comments: So here we’ve got “Crashing” by F-Zero TV, this is a very short video so I’m probably going to talk about it quite a bit either before it starts or after it finishes.
It’s a super interesting video, it uses the original Devilman anime, or at least one of the original Devilman anime. It’s got a lot of datamoshing - datamoshing! So hot right now! In addition to datamoshing, the whole video has also got some level of pixelation to it, so we’ve two things messing up the visuals here. The effect is most of the video is almost completely unrecognisable, it’s very obviously still Devilman but what you’re actually seeing of Devilman is very *I dunno* - who knows what I’m looking at, at some points here. Which is fine because Devilman is very violent.
What I find interesting with it though is even with this intense level of degradation to the visuals, F-Zero does still manage to have quite an intense level of connection to the angst in the song even though you can’t quite see what's going on with the characters.
Let me go back a bit. Something that really adds to this connection I feel, is the way F-Zero uses the datamoshing in particular, right here (01:08) there is obviously, let me go forward a tiny bit, what is a skull that’s thrown into the mix here, and throughout this whole segment the skull persists while there’s chaos in the background. However the skull starts melting and it’s just very very cool and adds to the level of connectivity between it all. And then not too long afterwards there’s this moment (01:15) where this dude’s got his arms up over his head and it’s like he’s despairing about something and something similar happens to this dude that happened to the skull - he falls apart as his arms go down. I find that very poignant and compelling even among all this chaos going on.
Even though it's a video that doesn’t necessarily have any kind of actual narrative or even much to latch onto, I think the chaotic visuals work very well with the song and I enjoy it very much.
24
Video title: Ah, Poor Bird
Editor: Eccentric Fanboy
Anime: Liz and the Blue Bird
Song & Artist: Ah, Poor Bird - Anne Janelle & James Hall
VPR: Flickering, Flashes to black, Brightness & contrast
Video comments: This is “Ah, Poor Bird” by Eccentric Fanboy, and it's such a charmingly unusual song choice, and combining it with Liz and the Blue Bird is just so lovely and just beautiful, it’s an amazing AMV really.
You really don’t hear music like this in AMVs very often at all, it’s like a folkey round song that people sing and it’s really lovely. It fits the anime so well, and the way Eccentric Fanboy has put it together is just very charming and delightful and really emphasises how lovely this particular anime is.
I really love all of the obvious music sync in this with the musical instruments and also some of the tiny movements that the people make and it’s all very on the beat. Very in tune with the music, this video is, I think is what I’m trying to say. And obviously using the bird motif throughout the video and I like how they’ve chroma keyed it out across some of the scenes - I don’t know if that’s in the anime originally, I don’t think it is, it looks like Eccentric Fanboy has added that at least i hope they have and I’m not just completely stupid.
This is another one where I really just wanna sing when I watch it. Very pretty.
23
Video title: Distressed
Editor: BoxJoe
Anime: Various
Song & Artist: Locket - Crumb
VPR: Major all
CW: Violence
Video comments: So this is Distressed by Box Joe and this is one of these multi anime vibey AMVs that kind of build towards a particular theme, but in this case I don’t really know what exactly what that is. This is one of those ones where the mood is really hard to pin down, it’s really indefinable.
This bit at the beginning is a little bit interesting, this piano that Box Joe has show up every now and then. I didn’t realise until I looked up the song that this piano is from the original music video for this song and Box Joe has sort of stuck it in there as a little easter egg or reference to the original music video for this song, which is quite cool.
And yeah, and then we get into these sort of multitudes of layered images, it’s all very cool. Box Joe does some very interesting editing things throughout this video. And it all makes it meld together into a cohesive flowing video. And then this bit where it starts from the falling and then pretty much until the end it’s just one, one long sort of smooth ride. It’s a lot of really funky layering and edits. It’s really fascinating to watch.
This bit’s cool. I mean, there’s a lot of bits in here that are really cool. The whole AMV oozes cool generally throughout. It’s one of these videos that exists to be cool but it’s not pretentious, it strikes a very nice balance.
And I love that he uses that clip from Darker Than Black. I also love using that clip from Darker Than Black (02:27), it’s a fun clip.
Something else that’s very interesting - there’s all of these sort of, massively kinetic sakuga scenes going on at some points, but the song itself is relatively subdued, it creates a very interesting mood, which I don’t know quite what it is, but it’s fascinating nonetheless.
22
Video title: Fine Day Anthem
Editor: purple bell
Anime: Future GPX Cyber Formula Sin
Song & Artist: Fine Day Anthem - Skrillex & Boys Noize
VPR: All (major flashing)
Video comments: Fine Day Anthem. This video. This video is just pure eye candy and whatever the equivalent of ear candy would be - I have no idea.
This is another Purple Bell video, where the song is a remix of an older EDM song from the 90’s which I am familiar with, and this new remix is a lot of fun. And Purple Bell also seems to have had a lot of fun putting this together.
There’s just sync upon, sync upon, sync all the time. And it’s just so satisfying to watch, I don’t really think I could say much more. It’s one of those videos where it’s just very pleasing to the ears and to the eyes throughout the whole video.
And this swapping between scenes is a fun little editing thing. I really like how Purple Bell swaps between the different types of scenes to match the different types of sounds going on in the song throughout the video. And this bit, where he’s choosing scenes that have got those, those speed lines, when the echoey voice part of the song comes on.
It’s just great, it’s a true mastery of editing in this video. I love it a lot.
21
Video title: Deep Space Darlings
Editor: Animetrash AMVs
Anime: Diebuster
Song & Artist: Deep Down - Alok, Ella Eyre & Kenny Dope
VPR: All
CW: Nudity
Video comments: So this is now the 3rd Animetrash video on my top 50 list.
This editor does have quite the grip on my AMV viewing habits, as some of you may already know, but I do really really love their videos.
This one in particular is rather nostalgic for me, I think that’s possibly why I like it so much. I don’t necessarily have any nostalgia for the anime Diebuster itself, but as far as AMVs using Diebuster go, I do have massive nostalgia for those. Since they were sort of a staple of AMV culture since 2007 I think-ish? Plus the song they’re using is a modern remix of an older 90’s dance hit, which I am familiar with and combined together, it’s a good time for me basically.
And yeah, and again, it’s a really cute video. Animetrash has made a lot of cute videos this year. This one is obviously focusing on the 2 characters in Diebuster and, yeah, it’s very cute.
I also really like that Animetrash uses a lot of clips that you may not see in AMVs usually. When people make AMVs they tend to pick the best clips from the episodes, but Animetrash will chuck pretty much anything in that they seem to feel will fit the song. I don’t know, it makes videos really fresh. I’m not too hot on including the audio from the anime there (01:33), but it’s fine. It’s kind of fun. It’s a little bit silly, but it doesn’t really diminish my enjoyment of the video. So, it’s fine.
I really love how Animetrash…. Let me actually go back to that, just because it’s really fun. Where, yeah, they sync where the thing is going “miiiineeee”, they sync the mech twirling around (02:45). I don’t know what the things in Diebuster are actually called. That’s probably blasphemous of me, but whatever. I haven’t actually watched the anime, even though I’ve edited with it.
But yes, fun sync! We love the fun sync! As I said previously, in my comments on another Animetrash video, I love how they sync to the vocals.
So that was Deep Space Darlings. Another really fun, really cute video from Animetrash and it just makes me very happy.
