Blog Like Grace Kelly

Honorable Mentions: Videos Uploaded in 2022 that I watched a lot in 2023

While sorting through the long list of videos (an Excel spreadsheet of approximately 2700 rows), a few AMVs rose to the top that weren’t uploaded in 2023. I thought it was important to write something small about these because 

1. I didn’t make a list last year
2. These AMVs have withstood the test of time to still be rewatchable and interesting the following year
3. AMVs uploaded later in the year get a spotlight when they would be punished with a numbers-based system
4. This is my list and I can do what I want.

My honorable mentions from 2022 are…

3. Counterfire by AllyKat AVR

I can be hit-or-miss with action AMVs, so when one hits me, it really hits me. This pairing is excellent and brings me a lot of joy. I keep coming back to this video because I keep showing it to other people. The video has just enough exposition that the characters are interesting and meaningful instead of just being a long-form fight sequence that some action vids gravitate towards. Wholly enjoyable from start to finish.

2. Derivative by ashen wind

This video is so far outside of my AMV wheelhouse that I’m not sure how to describe it. There’s such a crazy hatred for use of artificial intelligence because of the risk of removing the human element (i.e. capitalism ruins everything), but this shows how an artist can leverage AI tools to make something truly transformative. To me, this AMV feels like it could be the official music video for the song. The scenes are thoughtful, and the applied effects add a lot of depth and complexity that amplify the selections.

1. Orobouros by Standard Quip

I featured this video as my very first “underrated AMV” videos last year! I definitely rewatched it a lot for that blog post, and that video got an in-depth analysis. Read that blog post here. 

Top 10 from 2023!

While compiling this list, I noticed that a full half of the videos were from RICE. That competition has the benefit of being held in the first quarter of 2023. The time-based system of top 10 definitely benefits videos posted in the first half of the year, but I’m choosing to acknowledge that bias and move forward with flawed methodology.

10. Seemingly Simple by hamstar138

It’s not often that an AMV will make me watch the source it’s from, but this one definitely did. This AMV was so sweet and wholesome that I absolutely had to see the full story. The romance between Komi and Tadano is such a beautiful slow burn without excess mush. This video tells that story beautifully, the awkward high school romance beautifully encapsulated. The use of manga panels also adds a LOT to the storytelling. There’s an unspoken (well maybe occasionally spoken) bias against any text in AMVs. The manga panels not only help to tell the story with words, but they also add so much tenderness that would not have been possible with the show alone. This video never fails to make me smile.

9. Happy Fly by BoxJoe

I also wrote about this AMV for my Fun with Fonts Iron Chef. This video was made in a week with an assigned font, and the goal was to make the font choice look intentional rather than random. BoxJoe succeeded in spades, and this video made me a new Cosmo Sheldrake fan. The text work is really exceptional.  It includes a lot of extra text work besides the song lyrics to help set the tone. A lot of excellent masking also makes the text really pop. It’s only a minute thirty, so watch it twice.

8. Dancing Backwards by vivafringe

This video is the second AMV on the list from the Fun with Fonts Iron Chef. To contrast with BoxJoe and the highly integrated text work, vivafringe used the text to give credit to both the sources and the year they were released, more like a subtitle than an integral video element. This video is a fascinating retrospective, a historical time capsule for dance in anime. While this video is definitely a great watch, it was particularly exciting on stream when people had no idea how long the video was going to last. Since the video starts with 2023 footage, no one knew how long it would run. The scene transition at 1:30 from 16:9 footage to 4:3 is wonderful. Around 2:45 when the video hit 1990, everyone on the stream started asking “how long was this video, anyway?” The video goes all the way back to 1982, a solid 40 years of dance history in anime.

7. Booming Hearts by vivafringe

Vivafringe is the only editor to appear twice on my list and nearly was a third time with his Vox Machina video, Commune with Nature. Summer Festivals and fireworks are common in anime, and vivafringe’s masterful blending of multiple sources really shines through with this video about them. The video is cozy and brings me joy. It starts simple, builds beautifully, and ends with romance. The song is an instrumental, so the beautiful beat sync is the star of the video closely followed by the careful match cuts. A lovely video that makes me feel warm inside.

6. Cyberpunk Resurrections by Rider4Z

I love a well-executed trailer parody. I also really loved Cyberpunk Edgerunners, and I think combining it with The Matrix was truly inspired. The relationship between David and Lucy is a fitting parallel for Neo and Trinity. The sound effects are all carefully leveraged and some, I would guess, were added. The custom raining matrix code is a highly immersive element as well. The trailer is basically flawless, like most things Rider4Z makes.

5. Double Take by BecauseImBored1

I think this video may have appeared on almost everyone else’s top lists, and for good reason. This labor of love is genuinely funny and extremely well thought-out. “A lot of anime characters look like a lot of other anime characters” seems like a simple enough concept for a video, but BiB1 takes that and blows it completely out of the water. The interactions are nuanced and complex, and knowledge of the individual sources often add a lot of depth to the pairings. The amount of technical work alone elevates this video to top tier. I had the benefit of being at Otakon where this AMV debuted AND took Best in Show, and it probably wasn’t even a contest. Audiences went crazy for it. It’s upbeat, fun, and has enough unexpected humor to really hook people. And I admit, I have even confused some of these anime characters myself before.

4. Roaring 80s by seasaltmemories

I have a weakness for Panic! at the Disco. This specific video also uses it to outstanding effect. The editor herself described this video as “sync go brr” and I love it all the more for it. This is another action video that has me wondering about the characters, the world setting, and the gritty world of Yakuza. Great scene selection, great sync, just an entertaining watch.

3. Supersonic by CrackTheSky

I never anticipated a video featuring a flight simulator being this high on my list, but here we are. The song builds slowly, lots of beautiful establishing shots of planes help to set the stage. Then, the first drop hits somewhat abruptly at nearly a minute in, and the video really gets going. I really tell in love with this video during RICE, probably because I really love the pairing. I’ve been meaning to write a long form post about this video, and I had intended to make this one of my Underrated AMVs, but hopefully 3^rd slot in my top 10 is sufficient. I can (and would) watch this video over and over. The internal sync in the air combat is just lovely. The stutter frames add a lot of depth and visual interest; they’re carefully placed and judiciously used.

2. Prodigal by Tyken

Okay, MAYBE this one is cheating. Tyken is my wonderful husband, and it’s probably not completely fair that his video takes my #2 spot. But I said at the beginning that I was doing this straight by the numbers, and the numbers don’t lie. I have never watched any Samurai Jack, so when he told me that he was pairing that show with this song, I had absolutely no context for where he would go with it. As I slowly watched him build this video, I knew it would be something really special. I convinced him to submit it to RICE even though it kind of broke the rules… The run time limit was 5 minutes, and the scientist in me said that 5:23 rounded down to 5. If they wanted it to be 5:00 minutes, it should say that. Well the video performed well, being one of the five Best in Show finalists and taking the Character Profile award. This video expertly leverages long cinematic shots, well-placed montages, and strong reliance on internal sync. Tyken isn’t afraid to let the scenes do the work, leveraging predominately raw footage. His love of the source also shines through.

One hurdle that arose with this video was the format change—old episodes of the show were in 4:3, while the final season was in 16:9. Tyken decided in advance and knew exactly where he was going to make that change, and right about the 4 minute mark, he slowly widens the scene to fill the screen, a part that still gives me chills a year later. I’ve shown this video to tons of friends not just because Tyken made it, but also because it’s a beautiful video.

1. Killing Kind by Nekokitkat

Before running the numbers, I had guessed this would be #1, and I was right. While this video had the benefit of coming out in January of last year (January 6^th to be precise), the number of views gap between this and Prodigal isn’t exactly small. I previously gushed about how much I love Killing Kind here, but I am happy to elaborate given its #1 spot on my list.

I completely dismissed Toilet-Bound Hanako-kun when I first heard about it due entirely to its stupid name. Watching this MMV absolutely humbled me for judging something on a superficial trait. The video starts so calmly and just works its way into an absolute rush of thoughts and feelings. I had the opportunity to see the editor’s process and the number of small details she laced within the video is phenomenal. At 0:47, for example, the two characters on the sides have shadows, but the middle character doesn’t… because he’s a ghost and ghosts don’t cast shadows. That is just one example of the extreme attention to detail placed in this video. Making an MMV is *hard*, and making an *over four minute* MMV, especially with the level of detail, overlays, effects, and color correction, is absolutely mind boggling. This video takes my top spot not only for quality and impact, but also the insane love and effort poured into every frame.

People enter the video editing hobby usually due to love of a particular piece of media. While a good number of people start editing because of anime, as AMV is probably the best known acronym, the live action music videos (LAMV) are fairly popular as well. I don’t have a lot of details on the differences between these two types of editors and the editing culture surrounding the sources. I have only completed one LAMV, a fan work for Moulin Rouge, and I have plans and interest to do more.

First,  a high-level discussion about AMVs. Given that the primary readership of my blog (if any) is the AMV community thanks to Bentovid, I assume most of you have worked with anime to craft videos. I am going to use the term anime to use any piece of animated media as short hand, but for the most part, I mean all kinds of animated footage, whether from Japan or anywhere else in the world. Many people will say that anime is easiest to work with of the three sources. You have a lot of options to adjust the clip in some way, with clip speed, effects, and masking, which gives anime a lot of freedom. Clip speed for animation can usually be adjusted a fair bit, especially for scenes where there’s no people. There is a minimum speed that clips can be slowed down, and not all clips with time changes will render appropriately, but for the most part anime is very forgiving when you play it slower or faster. Video editing programs come with a broad range of effects, and effects work can really bring out the best of a video. I tend not to do effects-heavy videos, but I appreciate their additions when done well.

Masking is its own beast for editing. Masking is a way to cut out shapes to expose what is underneath. They are somewhat like turning an image into a sticker, where you are able to place whatever you have cut out on top of any background. You can also use masks to remove parts of a scene that you don’t want. With anime, if you like a certain scene, but someone is talking, you can typically mask out the mouths so that it stops moving, which avoids the dreaded lip flap (people talking when you don’t want them to). Or, if you want to have someone say the words of a song or other audio, you can mask in mouth shapes so that a character says whatever you want. There are also mask transitions, when you can use a shape to move between two scenes.

How do live action sources compare to anime? Well, the usual tool kit for editing AMVs kind of goes out the window. Some people will say that editing with live action sources is more difficult, I basically feel that it’s just different. Scene selection is very important in live action because 1. you can’t really time remap live action sources because it can look weird 2. fewer effects can be added to live action footage because it can look weird 3. Masking is really tricky, and most masking, especially mouths, can look really weird. Time remapping is a challenging piece to lose in the editor tool kit because a lot of internal sync relies heavily on the speed a clip plays. I kind of like that I can’t use effects on live action footage, because it saves me from worrying too much if I should be using effects (since I typically don’t). In my single live action edit, I have exactly one mask transition, and I only thought of it because it is also a mask transition in the movie. I just made my own mask to make it go to the scene that I wanted instead of the scene the move moves to. I think editing with live action is a good exercise in scene selection, so I highly recommend it to everyone. The different approach required to achieve good flow is definitely transferrable to AMVs.

Finally, working with manga is completely unlike the other two. You don’t time remap manga because it doesn’t move. All sync in MMVs must be constructed—there is no beat sync, no internal sync, without the MMV editor forcing it to happen. A strong grasp of effects is also highly valuable to an MMV. And masking is inarguably the most important piece of an MMV tool kit. There’s traditional masking (using the masking steps within video editing software), but there’s also chroma keying, which is turning the background to be removed a specific color so that the software can subtract it (i.e. green screen). MMV editing is HARD. You start with a jumble of images that tell a story, then you have to translate those images into motion to achieve a logical flow. Nothing moves unless you tell it to move. MMV editing is far more like animation than AMV editing.

I hope to debut my MMV on my blog later this month, and I hope to do an extensive post about the entire process for that video and my key takeaways. For now, enjoy this fun table.

Relative Importance of Various Tools to the Music Video Editing Process

++ Very important

+ Important

o optional

- Not important

 (this table is completely my opinion!)