katranat

Hello everyone, and welcome to my top 50 AMVs of 2023!

I’ve made quite a few changes in how I’m doing this end of year process this time around.

Hello everyone, welcome to AMV roundup number Seven! 

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. 

I have another 10 videos for you this month, this time things have been shaken up a little bit. During the past month most of the newer videos which have crossed my eyes have come from well known members of the AMV community/AMV events, and as I prefer to highlight more unknown/underrated videos, the majority here are older uploads this time. 

Additionally, I’ve decided to include *gasp* a live action video in the lineup - I know I usually stick to AMVs, but my goodness do I love it, so it’s here.

I hope y’all find something to enjoy!

New for 2023

Video title: Taking Time Bomb

Editor: Stindu Wardo

Anime: Attack on Titan

Song & Artist: Time Only Takes - Demon Hunter

Comments: This is a really clever use of only opening sequences by Stindu Wardo here. “Taking Time Bomb” flows so well, and never does it feel like there were any footage limitations.      

VPR: All

CW: Violence, gore

Video title: simple and clean

Editor: magicalliz

Anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena

Song & Artist: Simple And Clean (Planitb Remix) - Utada Hikaru

Comments: I think magicalliz has fully broken me out of my Utena funk with “simple and clean”. I have been able to enjoy Utena AMVs again recently, but “simple and clean” is the first I’ve actively adored in well over a year. The version of the song used is one I’d not heard before, and magicalliz has synced so perfectly with all the different sounds, it’s a magnificent harmony of the music and visuals. 

VPR: All

Video title: Drifting, Falling

Editor: firegold763

Anime: Cowboy Bebop

Song & Artist: Drigint, Falling - The Ocean Blue

Comments:  “Drifting, Falling” is a Faye character profile AMV which doesn’t really feel like any other character profile video I’ve seen before. It’s oddly light and breezy, not especially following the story of the anime, but hitting enough of the notes so that we do get an idea of what makes up Faye’s character. The saxophone sync is also super satisfying.    

VPR: Flashes to white, minor motion & particles, VHS lines 

Video title: Kill V. Maim

Editor: Gemma Lemon AMV

Anime Movie: Spring Breakers

Song & Artist: Kill V. Maim - Grimes

Comments: One of my favourite AMV creators has added a separate account specifically for their music videos, with their main channel now being focused on their original animations. This was a great treat for me, because all their AMVs are now in one place and were uploaded in quick succession, so I had a wonderful time going and watching through them all again, adding them to playlists etc. Gemma Lemon has also made a number of live action fan videos, a few of which I decided to watch, and “Kill V. Maim” instantly got me hooked. I’ve not seen the film Spring Breakers, and I have a feeling after watching “Kill V. Maim”, I don’t really need to, as Gemma Lemon has quite succinctly distilled the chaos into this delightfully maniacal video.  

VPR: All (Major motion, Major flashing & strobing)

CW: Violence, nudity, sexual content

Older videos

Videos which premiered before 2023 that I’ve only recently found and have been enjoying. 

Video title: lain amv "komm süsser tod" (organ cover, reupload)

Editor: heris runs

Anime: Serial Experiments Lain

Song & Artist: komm süsser tod - music by Antonius Tertius, vocals by heris runs

Comments: Throughout the history of AMVs being uploaded to YouTube, there has always been the threat of copyright strikes resulting in the removal of these videos. Copyright strikes usually come in two forms; one type is for the anime content in the video, and the other for music. Music strikes are more common, and over the years, creators have developed many varied and interesting ways to try and get around these so that their videos will be able to stay available for people to watch. 

“komm süsser tod” was a video I originally collected a while ago in my Long AMVs YouTube playlist. I was going through the playlist earlier this month and I noticed a video had been removed, so I used archive.org’s wayback machine to try and find what it was. Thankfully the page had been preserved and I could see the video was "komm süsser tod". I went to the creators channel and found that they had re-uploaded it - hooray! I was so happy it hadn’t disappeared forever. The new audio wasn’t unexpected considering the video had been taken down due to a copyright strike, but the type of new audio is certainly unprecedented. 

Sure, people make AMVs to music they created themselves all the time, but never have I previously come across someone just straight up singing their own cover of a song to get around a copyright strike (with the assistance of another YouTuber’s organ track). It’s such an audacious move. Hats off to you heris runs, you courageous beautiful human you.  

VPR: High contrast scenes, fades to white, fades to black, flickering, patterns

Video title: Breathe Again

Editor: LEONHART

Anime: Re:Zero

Song & Artist: Thank You Mario But Our Princess Is In Another Castle - The Mountain Goats & Kaki King

Comments: I found “Breathe Again” while searching for The Mountain Goats AMVs for my previous post last month. I don’t personally have much fondness for either The Mountain Goats or Re:Zero, but this video slaps, and it’s living in relative obscurity when there’s several people out there who will no doubt appreciate it.        

VPR: All

CW: Violence

Video title: Ghost in the Shell x Crystal Castles - XXZXCUZX Me [AMV]

Editor: Paclac

Anime: Ghost in the Shell

Song & Artist: XXZXCUZX Me - Crystal Castles

Comments: This is one of those AMVs where I don’t completely vibe with the editing decisions, but it’s so gosh darn creative I can’t help but admire it. Honestly all of Paclac’s videos are worth watching simply for the artistic vision involved. Their videos also tend to contain a fair amount of datamoshing as well if you’re into that.       

VPR: Major All

CW: Violence, gore, nudity

Video title: Mercury

Editor: Kathleen Winter

Anime: Neon Genesis Evangelion 

Song & Artist: Mercury - Bloc Party

Comments: I was under the impression that I had searched out Bloc Party AMVs before, but I obviously must not have done a good job of it at the time, as I’d completely missed out on this absolutely glorious video. “Mercury” is stunning, using the full sync capacity of the Evangelion Rebuilds to wondrous effect. There’s just so much going on here, I really cannot applaud Kathleen Winter enough.         

VPR: Major All 

CW: Violence, gore

Video title: A Mermaid’s Hymn

Editor: MelyoraMel

Anime: Bubble

Song & Artist: Hymn for The Missing (Guillotine Remix) - RED

Comments: “A Mermaid’s Hymn” is the first Bubble AMV I think I’ve seen which has a definite romantic overtone. It’s very sweet, and lovely to watch.       

VPR: All (major motion & particles)

Video title: Out of touch

Editor: Dan Fingerman

Anime: Haibane Renmei

Song & Artist: Out of touch - Dan Fingerman

Comments: “Out of touch” is a video which the creator has made for one of their own songs. It’s always super neat to see what type of visuals music creators choose for their music, and in this case I really appreciate that they used Haibane Renmei.          

VPR: Minor motion, jump cuts, minor brightness & contrast, water shinies @01:52 

Hello everyone, welcome to AMV roundup number five!

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 are mostly 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.

A couple things of note - my comments are very paired down this month, I’ve been busy with other things and don’t have much brain left to write this. Also, why’s there so much Evangelion? Also also, what’s with so many people titling their videos with capital letters?

Anyway, here are another 10 videos for you this month, I hope you find something to enjoy!

Hello everyone, welcome to AMV roundup number three!

AMV roundup is where I’m highlighting any new AMV’s 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 are mostly AMV’s 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.

Last month was the Father’s Day special, so I’m a little bit behind on my normal schedule, but I do have yet another 10 videos for you this month. It seems like that number is going to become the norm.

I hope you find something to enjoy!

Hello everyone, and welcome to a new feature which I’m hoping to do once a month!

I had the idea for this near the end of 2022. I watch far too many AMV’s and have a strong desire to share them with people. If I shared every AMV I wanted to through usual means there would be far too many videos and I would completely flood any channels.

I also don’t often feel strongly enough about a lot of videos to be able to dedicate an entire blog post to only one video at a time.

Finally, while I will no doubt be sharing many videos at the beginning of next year, it seems like such a long time to be sitting and waiting to share things. Some of these I may also never get a chance to share otherwise.

Thus, AMV Roundup was born!

I would like for this to be a place where I can highlight any new AMV’s I’ve come across in the past month, as well as showcase any older videos I may find that I’d never encountered before.
I will mostly be focusing on any AMV’s that aren’t already well known in the AMV 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.

Ideally I wanted to start this at the beginning of the year at the end of January, but AMV fatigue hit me hard, in addition my attention became monopolised by the RICE contest. So this first post will be focusing on AMV’s that I found during the first quarter of the year.

Thankfully due to my attention being elsewhere there aren’t a huge amount I want to include here, additionally the majority of the AMV’s I watched over the past 3 months are fairly prominent within the AMV community.

I have 10 videos for you today. I hope you find something to enjoy!