If you have known the world of anime since the 2000s, you have probably seen some AMV extension, videos popular especially on YouTube at the time and, to date, somewhat forgotten, which for many have become just a childhood memory. The AMVs (Anime Music Videos) are remixed videos that take scenes from various anime, accompanying them with one or more songs that can be adapted to the chosen sequences, and the creators usually aimed for an ever better sync between video and music.
You may also have heard the wording MAD (Music Anime Douga), which instead indicates music videos whose clips are taken from various media that are not strictly anime, such as live-action films and video games.
The most prolific creators of these videos were Westerners, and as AMVs evolved over the years, they greatly aided the discovery and rise in popularity of anime at that time. But exactly when were AMVs born?
“Visions dancing in my mind”
As far as we know, the first AMV ever made dates back to 1982created by Jim Kaposztas (disappeared just last February): in those years two recorders were needed to edit a video, the first to play the videotape and find the favorite scenes, while the second was used to record them by capturing the screen. For this AMV, Jim selected scenes from Star Blazers and the song “All you need is love” by Beatles.
In Japan however, in the early 80s, they came out Daicon III and Daicon IV, two short films created by a group of amateur animators, including Hideaki Anno and Hiroyuki Yamaga (who later founded the Gainax studio): the two shorts presented different elements of nerd culture in general, with a protagonist dressed as a Playboy bunny who faces various enemies from franchises such as Godzilla, Star Wars and Gundam, paying homage to many characters from American comics and manga of those years; all accompanied by the songs “Runaway” by Bill Conti (in Daicon III) and “Twilight” by the band Electric Light Orchestra (in Daicon IV).
In particular Daicon IV, the most elaborate, was considered years later the forerunner of the AMVs, since it was a clear inspiration for many videos of that kind in Japan; however, due to the use of music and characters without legal permission, the only way to see the two works was at the very first screenings of the shorts in events and fairs dedicated to otaku culture. Bypassing the copyright issues, a CD containing Daicon III and Daicon IV was released in physical version only as an attachment to an artbook or some magazines, and later also sold on VHS with additional shorts, making these items incredibly rare. With the advent of the Internet later, it was possible to see both shorts on all kinds of sites, although the quality of the uploads was always very poor.
One of the first sites where AMV could be shared on, other than YouTube, was AnimeMusicVideos.org, active since the 2000s, and managed to contribute to a very rapid growth in popularity of this type of video also in the West, which also coincided with a greater diffusion of anime on the web; for Japanese users, however, the platform was more popular Nico Nico Dougastill very active today. The official anime distributors took two different sides on the legal rights: some let it go, considering the distribution of AMVs as free advertising, while most decided to take down all the videos that infringed the copyright, as indeed they do all. Now.
“Believe”
Years go by and fans start sharing AMVs of their favorite series thanks to the spread of internet ea editing programs more accessible and easier to useas SonyVegas, After Effects And Windows Movie Maker, which allowed the addition of special effects and more elaborate and dynamic transitions. Some users worked to improve the synchronization between music and video, and still others merged characters from different works together to create a new story.
The 90s were a real Golden Age of AMV: At some trade shows, contests with judges began to be held to reward whoever made the best AMV, as well as allowing the public to see it on larger screens. Creators like Kevin Caldwell they created videos that are still remembered today for their excellent editing work, even managing to perform excellent lip-syncs that no one could replicate.
With the emergence of more and more illegal streaming sites and, above all, with the spread of FanSubs (i.e. translations of anime made by fans), AMVs finally became a way to discover new anime series and movies to watch. Some AMV creators decided to create even longer videos with compilations of many different works, but for which a particularly high level of editing was no longer necessary: curious people took a more comical path and that was how AMV Hell, the first of a long series of videos in which not only anime and songs of the moment were included, but also audio from films and commercials that could give a deliberately trashy tone to the chosen sequences. This series of AMVs became very popular at the time, so much so that other creators, more or less experienced, began to contribute, creating a real collection of short comedy videos one after the other.
Given the type of assembly, we can hypothesize that this kind of chaotic and nonsense comedy video has had a great influence on the so-called YouTube Poop (abbreviated as YTP), created right at that time. A few years later, the YTPM extensioncomedy videos with remixes of music and scenes from movies, anime, video games or talk shows, often done with excellent editing and with a frenetic pace.
“I tried so hard and got so far ”
Users’ creativity was much freer, and AMVs were no longer limited to only making better sync between video and music; in the 2000s the popularity of AMVs was therefore skyrocketingand there were numerous videos created by anime newbies who had very little skills with editing programs, thus leading to the creation of extravagant videos which, seen today, give an involuntary comic sense, and the first were just the now famous Dragon Ball Z AMVs with songs by Linkin Parksuch as “In The End” and “Numb”.
The reason for the combination between this anime and the band is, trivially, due to the extreme popularity of both in that precise period, and users who wanted to try their hand at AMVs therefore chose the two things that were more easily available, both musically and of animation. The “problem” was that the younger users didn’t have much video editing skills, and they mixed the songs and scenes from the anime in a very botched way; moreover, given the fame of DragonBall Z and Linkin Park, the amount of identical videos invaded every site dedicated to AMVsreaching, in the course of a few years, a number that was around 7000 results in the search bars.
Those who became passionate about anime in those years will probably have also discovered bands like System of a Down, Evanescence, Fall Out Boys or similar, whose songs were used above all when darker souls were chosen, however in turn generating other loads of low-level AMVs. This period was ironically labeled with the name of “LinkinBall Z”, since those of Dragon Ball were only the beginning of a new wave of AMVs where the quality of which dropped drastically, so as to be taken much less seriously by users outside the community, with some who decided to make us ironic by creating montages deliberately get hurt.
After nearly a decade of video with fluctuating qualitythe first examples of AMVs were seen which decided to return in a more elaborate way: one of the first was “Anime 404” by BakaOppai, who, despite the ironic video, demonstrated a decidedly above average editing skill; the AMV panorama was thus influenced again, this time fully embracing the culture of memes with comical and demented remixes, but without sacrificing quality, indicating them with names AMVs/Memes or AMV/Crack. In more modern works, AMVs have even been seen inserting 2D characters and effects into real footage, creating mixed media works.
Currently, AMVs continue to thrill both the Japanese and Western communities, although they are now less widespread, and some users even try their hand at real remakes of the old AMVs that made history. Like all forms of FanArt and Fan Works, AMVs they continue to be products and to have a solid niche of visitors who still keep the same forums born many years ago active.
Do you remember the years when AMVs were all the rage? What were your favourites? Let us know in the comments.
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