My Top AMVs of 2023, 20 - 11
Jan. 5th, 2024 08:35 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
katranat20
Video title: Worth
Editor: John
Anime: Made in Abyss
Song & Artist: Heal My head - Valleyheart
VPR: Peripherals, motion, flickering, flashes to black
CW: Violence
Video comments: I’ve been going over and over in my head trying to think about how I’m going to talk about this video. This is “Worth” by John, by the way, and it’s a Made in Abyss AMV. Made in Abyss is an anime that I really enjoyed the first season of and I wanted more of it so I then went and read all of the manga that was currently available for it, and then I lost interest, so I haven’t seen the 2nd season, but I do pretty much know what’s going on in this video.
Unfortunately a lot of what I feel about this video is pretty undefinable, or at least, for me in words. I guess if I want to be very basic about it I just really love the way John has edited the different aspects of drama in the series to this song. And John flicks back and forth quite a lot and quite dramatically between different points in time and different characters throughout this whole series, he doesn’t really keep to one specific bit of the story at all. It’s almost like random moments plucked from all of these different characters throughout the series and then put into an AMV, but the thematics that tie all these characters together are somehow there, and it works very well. Probably because everyone in this anime is having a rough time and they’re all pretty messed up, so they all come across in this video in a similar way, I dunno.
Some bits of editing in this are just absolutely glorious, like this section in particular (02:00 - 02:12).
19
Video title: find your way
Editor: SoccerRunnerAMV
Anime: My Hero Academia
Song & Artist: find your way - San Holo
VPR: Motion & patterns, peripherals, flashes to white, flickering
Video comments: So I haven’t watched or read any My Hero Academia, so I really really have no idea what’s going on in this AMV. It uses one of the more recent, yeah, season 6, it uses season 6 of MHA. Pretty much the only character I even recognise in this AMV is Izuku.
Saying that however, even though I know SoccerRunner here is sticking quite closely to a particular bit of the story line from this arc of the anime by the looks of things, I still enjoy this AMV a lot - just because of the way, first of all the way SoccerRunner has edited this.
It’s an EDM which I really love and SoccerRunner had edited this very simply and matched the deep emotional resonance between the two sources like, Izuku is obviously going through some stuff in whatever's going on in this arc, and I don’t particularly care necessarily what’s even happening, I don’t really watch this AMV to get any kind of insight into the story of MHA, I just purely enjoy it from an emotional point of view.
There’s something very pure about the way this has been put together, very clear cut. Overall it comes across as very lovely and heartfelt, it’s a very pure form of expression in the way that SoccerRunner's put it together and I enjoy it very much.
18
Video title: Steel-Heart Maidens
Editor: Animetrash AMVs
Anime: Gunbuster
Song & Artist: Somebody - Fenech-Soler
VPR: All (major flashing)
CW: Nudity
Video comments: Animetrash video number 4!
And this time we’ve got Steel Heart Maidens. Which is a Gunbuster video. I seem to be gravitating towards all of Animetrash’s mech, Gundam, etc. AMVs this year, but they’re a lot of fun, so here we are.
Now this uses a song by the artist Fenech-Soler, which Animetrash has used that artist before, and I really loved one of their previous videos with this artist and this video sort of pushed me over the edge - and now I am obsessed with Fenech-Soler the music artist. But that’s not really got anything to do with this video. It, I don’t know, I think I’m making the point here that Animetrash has had a very profound effect on, not only the way I watch AMVs, but also the way I make AMVs myself because I then went on to edit a video of my own using a song by this artist. And I wouldn’t have done that if I hadn’t come across some of it through Animetrash and enjoyed their work. So they are part of the process of inspiring me in my own AMVs, so I just wanted to put that out there
As far as this particular video goes, I’m really not sure I could say anything new about it. Again, I really love the way Animetrash has synced to the vocals of the song, possibly in this video they’ve, a bit more than the others we’ve had so far, they’ve really nailed the emotional impact of the words. They’ve done a very good job of matching the main character from Gunbuster here - the way she looks like she’s feeling to the way the singer sounds in the song, and it’s very profound.
Yeah, I love it very much. I love that bit of sync there. There’s so much good sync, Animetrash is just, they don’t edit how you think they’re going to edit - they don’t do things like, they hardly cut to the beats, but they somehow managed to get a lot of this really incredible sync, it’s,I really love their videos. I always want to sing along to this whenever I watch it as well. The, sort of, the emotions from the video and the song sort of elevate it and makes me want to join in. I don’t know, it’s weird.
Animetrash is obviously doing a lot of storytelling in this video as well. Which I’m not really going to touch upon because, again, I haven’t actually watched this anime. But even to me, to someone who hasn’t seen this anime, and only has context for it in other AMVs, I do love the way they’ve, it’s very obvious characterisation that they’ve done - what’s happening and the emotions is very plain to see. They’ve painted a very clear picture, even without knowing the story in the end. This is less of a cute video and more of a badass one. It’s very effective.
17
Video title: Rider's Joy
Editor: SilkAMV
Anime: Various
Song & Artist: Blooming - BAND-MAID
VPR: All (major motion)
Video comments: “Rider's Joy” by SilkAMV. This is one of those videos where I don’t think anything I have to say about it is going to be particularly meaningful, pretty much anyone who watches this will be able to discern quite immediately what exactly is awesome about this video.
It’s a massively multi source AMV, all about motorcycles and it’s just a constant joyous ride throughout. Yeah, there’s really not much else I can say about it.
Obviously there’s loads of excellent match cuts and Silk keeps the whole thing flowing throughout and yeah, it’s great. It’s a really fun adventure. And I would try pointing out which bits are my favourite bits, but like, all of the bits are my favourite bits! All of the edits are incredibly satisfying and just wonderful to watch, so there's really not much point, I’d be like - every single time code in this video is amazing. So yeah, it’s one that you just kinda have to sit back and just enjoy the whole show.
The dedication to finding all of these clips must have been absolutely crazy.
16
Video title: Shooting Star
Editor: RaikiriShadow
Anime: Bocchi the Rock
Song & Artist: Shooting Stars - Bag Raiders
VPR: Faces to black, glitching, textures & patterns, peripherals, flickering, motion, flashes to white
Video comments: This is “Shooting Star” by RaikiriShadow, and it’s a very lovely Bocchi the Rock AMV, and it warms my heart whenever I watch it.
There’s a beautiful simplicity to the way it’s edited. Especially this beginning half, I really love the way it goes through these different shots of Bocchi being anxious with these overtop reactions, and the song itself, especially the guitar line in the background is slowly escalating, and we get these shots of Bocchi also slowly escalating in her anxiety, and it works wonderfully well. And there’s also a wonderful literal lyric sync happening as well.
We’ve got the bit where she finally rocks out and it’s all really fun, and it’s great and we’ve broken free, and it’s all cool. Yeah, very cute video makes me very happy whenever I watch it. RaikiriShadow did a great job matching these two sources together.
15
Video title: It's Okay To Let The Train Pass
Editor: SQ
Anime: Various
Song & Artist: My Dog’s Eyes - Zammuto
VPR: Blurs, peripherals, fades to white, fades to black, bokeh, flickering, motion
Video comments: Here we’ve got “It's Okay To Let The Train Pass” by SQ, and before we start the video, I just wanna mention that I helped SQ find some clips of the moon for this video and in the description he says - thanks katranat for the moons. And I just love how that makes me sound like some kind of moon dealer now, that amuses me. Anyway.
Probably anything I say about this video is going to be terribly inadequate, but I’m going to try.
The song is a very interesting almost spoken word bit of audio that’s been turned into an experimental electronic track, that repeats this set of different phrases over and over again. And SQ is matching that with some very artistically inclined images, and all it really is, is just very literally matching the lyrics that are being said in this song. And yet somehow it’s incredibly powerful, it feels like it gives the words even more meaning, and more emphasis. Like these phrases are washing over you somehow. And of course it’s all building up to the ending with the train, and ultimately it’s probably a metaphor for a few different things, I honestly don’t really know what interpretation I prefer.
It’s a very unique and beautiful video, I don’t really know what else to say about it. You all should watch it yourselves and come up with your own feelings.
14
Video title: It’s Not So Impossible!
Editor: Zeal Makes Vids
Anime: Sarazanmai
Song & Artist: Impossible Soul - Sufjan Stevens
VPR: All
Video comments: “It’s Not So Impossible!” is a Sarazanmai vid from Zeal Makes Vids.
Probably the thing I appreciate about it the most is it’s the first Sarazanmai video I watched that made me actually look at the anime in a not jokey way. All of the other Sarazanmai videos I’ve seen were very much focused on the ridiculousness of whatever’s going on in this anime - stuff with kappa and what have you.
This video is very firmly about the friendship between what appears to be the three main characters in Sarazanmai, and the bonds that form between them, and teamwork! And friendship! And all of those, you know, silly things, but the video actually makes me believe those things is what I’m trying to say. And it’s very heartwarming and heartfelt. Not that there isn’t silly things in this video, of course there are, but it’s more of an all round more fair representation of this anime as a whole I believe. And it really shows the emotional heart of the story more than any other video I’ve come across so far.
Yeah there’s a lot of cute moments as well in the video - some literal lyric sync. It’s very much digging into the themes of the whole friendship overcoming adversity trope that gets used in anime a lot, but like I say, in this case I believe it.
13
Video title: constant repeat
Editor: sailormoonfreak
Anime: Sailor Moon
Song & Artist: Constant Repeat - Charli XCX
VPR: Major flickering, motion, peripherals, flashes to black, flashes to white, particles & patterns
Video comments: sailormoonfreak is an honest to goodness treasure in the AMV world. All of her videos are absolutely stunning and constant repeat is the only AMV she released in 2023, and it is a beautiful, wonderful gift to the world. It is obviously Sailor Moon, to a Charli XCX song, and yeah, it’s just, I really don’t know what to say about it other than it’s just completely beautiful.
The way sailormoonfreak syncs the motion of the anime to the sounds of the song, there’s almost a certain level of drama to it, that makes the whole video feel to the point of tragically beautiful, I wanna say. There’s so much drama just simply in the way these movements are to the music that it’s invoking tragedy in my mind, I really don’t know why, it’s just that gosh darn beautiful.
There’s obviously also the subject matter of the idea of this lost relationship in the song that does also permeate the undertone of the video, which probably sort of adds to the notion that this is a tragic video in my mind.
12
Video title: Pink Corvette
Editor: Ileia
Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion (rebuilds)
Song & Artist: Speed Drive - Charli XCX
VPR: Major all
CW: Violence
Video comments: So this is “Pink Corvette” by Ileia, which I hope I’m pronouncing correctly. This is another AMV which features a song which was popularised from the Barbie movie, and this is probably the song that I was hoping most would be turned into an AMV, and Ileia has granted that wish with this video, focusing on this particular character Evangelion, and it’s absolutely amazing.
I mean Ileia is a fairly well known AMV editor, and her Evangelion AMVs are kind of legendary. And yeah this one is a lot of fun, a lot a lot of fun. I mean it’s pretty obvious why this song is pretty perfect for this character, so I won’t go into that.
Probably the thing I love most about this AMV is just how above and beyond Ileia goes in the editing of this video. It’s an idea that probably would have worked regardless of how it was edited, these two, this character and this song, would’ve matched absolutely fine. But Ileia, Ileia just goes the extra mile, just adds all sorts of little bits and pieces into the mix that didn’t have to be there but they are and it’s amazing. Like here for example (01:06), where the skulls spray and there’s that clacking noise in the song, it just adds an extra fun level to this video. I don’t quite know how better to describe it.
11
Video title: simple and clean
Editor: magicalliz
Anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Song & Artist: Simple And Clean (Planitb Remix) - Utada Hikaru
VPR: All
Video comments: magicalliz has done the impossible, she’s made me love Utena again - which is an anime I got burnt on a couple years ago because I saw way too many Utena videos. And this one, this one has completely broken me out of that funk and I adore it so much.
So this is “simple and clean”, which uses a very interesting remix of the song Simple and Clean, which I love, it gives this new lease of life it possibly may not have had with the original song - which has been used in AMVs for many many many years, and it’s possibly a little bit overused. Something that’s really interesting about this song, and magicalliz just goes with and takes advantage of, is the intro to the song is ridiculously long; it's just an instrumental electronic build up for the first minute and a half! There’s a whole minute and a half before we even really get into the meat of the song properly. And magicalliz just completely runs with this, there’s so much amazing editing going on, even within this first minute and a half of what is just essentially meaningless noise for quite a bit of the song there’s no structure to it. And she keeps the momentum going quite beautifully really throughout that part.
And then obviously we get into the meat of the song and we get the whole, the proper Utena/Anthy interaction story that usually happens with Utena AMVs. And even now we’re getting some interesting little editing tidbits here and there that make it a little bit different. Gotta love these match cuts yo!
I really do love how magicalliz is taking advantage of all of the different interesting noises in the song and is just embracing all of the different editing possibilities with that. And all of it’s adding to the ultimate story happening in the video none of it’s detracting, it's adding these subtle undertones throughout the video to prop it all up.
And then the editing in the ending of the video is very similar to the beginning, it’s another relatively long instrumental section, and again magicalliz is just going crazy with syncing to the funky sounds in the song and keeping it all flowing very nicely and it all makes sense as a video, it never dips down. It’s really awesome to watch - and it’s made me love Utena again! Yay!
