2021 in retrospect: top 50 amvs (40 – 31)

40. TnAdct1 – Chasing the Dragon

Anime: Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid // Miss Kobayashi’s Dragon Maid S
Song: “There She Goes” by Sixpence None The Richer

Raise your hand if you’re not a sucker for adorable, sweet, innocent romance AMVs! Ok, now get the hell out of here! The rest of you, I’ve found what may be the most adorable, sweetest, most innocent love story in AMV form from the past year, and it’s called Chasing the Dragon, and it’s by TnAdct1, and okay I might be rambling because this video just shorts out my brain in a fit of happy, doe-eyed kawaii and I can’t get enough of it. There are Moments in this video — yeah, with a capital ‘M’ — that I can’t get out of my head, like Kanna kicking the bucket past Saikawa, or Kanna skateboarding up a quarter pipe, that are just synced so well and give this video a charm that is impossible to withstand. This is such a nice little video, all the way down to its punny title, and I want everyone — except those jerks who already left — to hit Play right now!

39. lamortnousguette – Chocolate Matter

Anime: FLCL
Song: “Chocolate Matter” by Sweet Trip

Lamortnousguette is an editor that there is literally next to no information about online. This video is the only one on their channel, they have four subscribers as of the time of this writing (and yours truly is one of them), Googling their username just leads to either the lyrics from a French song or this YouTube channel, yet this video has numerous comments on it — how did people find it? (You can direct that question at me as well but luckily for you, I have an answer — seasons showed it to me after he found it searching for AMVs using Sweet Trip songs. I guess it’s possible that the nearly 300 views this video has were from people doing the exact same thing!) It’s one of those frustrating instances where I want to know more, to get more context, but nothing exists so I have to make up my own kind of headcanon. On the other hand, it adds to the mystique of this video in a way that was probably never intended, and I kind of like that.

Not to discount the effort that went into this video, but it doesn’t take much for an FLCL video to hook me — it was one of the first anime I ever saw and it remains one of my favorites; in the case of this particular AMV, the song has such a fuzzy, nostalgic sound to it that linking the two was, regardless of anything else lamortnousguette did or didn’t do, going to fire off the neurons in my brain the make me feel safe and comfortable. Luckily, it’s edited competently enough to warrant inclusion on here on its own merits, but make no mistake — a huge part of why I like this is that it conjures up feelings in me that are tied to things other than anything editing-related. I love the way the video, like so many FLCL videos do, contrasts the mundane with the fantastic and boils it all together into a dreamy, dewey-eyed haze. I can’t say with any certainty that those feelings will translate to you as well, but do me a favor and check this video out, and then give the editor some love — I’m intensely curious to see what else they can come up with.

38. Synaesthesia Productions – Blossom

Anime: Wolf Children
Song: “Blossom” by Porter Robinson

Most Wolf Children AMVs, for good reason, put their focus squarely on Hana’s being a single mother, and her relationship with her two children. Typically her relationship with and the death of Ookami is added to give context, but rarely is it explored to the extent that Synaesthesia does here. Entirely a romance video, Blossom amps up the story’s root tragedy and spotlights it — every other Wolf Children video should be viewed through the lens of this one, because this is the one that really understands what it’s like to lose someone close to you, and while that’s a common theme in videos that use this source, this is one of a very few that is convincing. It’s simple from an editing perspective — hard cuts and crossfades, and the occasional light leak overlay are all this video has to its name, but the simplicity of the video is probably what makes it such an emotional gut punch. There’s nothing to buffer the difficult emotions that permeate, and the memories that trigger throughout the video. So, go on watch the video — those tears aren’t going to cry themselves!

37. Bimyou – somebody.

Anime: Tekkonkinkreet
Song: “I Wanted To Be Someone” by Soap

This video is a technical marvel, but you might not know it. Sure, sure, the editing — we’ll get to that — but there’s a lot going on in here from a technical perspective that is really quite impressive. The thing is, though, Bimyou knows one of the secrets of the trade that technical editors often seem to forget: the best effects are the ones that add to the video without the viewer even knowing it. And somebody. has this in spades — subtle lens flares; brief, sketchy outlines; quick blurs — but it all blends so seamlessly into Tekkonkinkreet’s world that unless you’re paying close attention, these things may completely pass you by. All of this serves the purpose of blurring the line between reality and the descent into madness the Kuro undergoes in the film, and the way it is presented to the viewer is just flawless.

But I don’t want to gloss over the editing, either — the relentless, almost metronomic beat sync in this video is extremely potent, giving the video a sharp, cutting edge that underlines the harsh realities of being a homeless kid on the streets. Everything in this video complements everything else in a way that can be difficult to find in the AMV world, much less actually do as an editor, but Bimyou pulls it off here without a hitch and the result is something else.

36. Lux – Queen Lizzy

Anime: Various
Song: “Queen Lizzy” by Charli XCX

AMVs built around using magical girl transformation sequences as the meat of the video will — say it with me now — never get old. Lux’s entry into that pool of videos is as strong as any of them, and maybe even outshines most — the song’s titanic percussion, dense synths, and Charli XCX’s impassioned vocal delivery demand visuals with the same heft, and Lux stresses the scene selection to the breaking point with the swirling, dramatic animation that makes up the most eye-catching portions of any magical girl anime. Lyrics are only occasionally given any attention, but in this case I could care less, because they’re as shallow as any of the visuals featured throughout this entire AMV — I’m not here to try to empathize with a pop star claiming she doesn’t care about material things, dammit, I’m here to watch magical girls transform, and the oblique references to clothes and rings are enough justification in my mind to make this combination work on the basest level. Lux runs with it and creates a mesmerizing AMV that, ironically, engages me in the most superficial way possible, and I couldn’t be happier about it.

35. angry apple lofi – n i g h t

Anime: Macross: Do You Remember Love?
Song: “Night (GFRIEND Remix)” by angry apple

“Vibes” is becoming an overused and meaningless word to describe exactly the kind of feeling that something like this gives off, but I’m just going to go with it here — bear with me. The vibes in this video are something else. There’s nothing new about putting a happy song to footage of spaceships blowing up — the very first AMV ever made did exactly this — but that doesn’t make it any less awesome when it’s done one more time. I love the way this video is edited — often when AMVs like this are put together, where the editor is also the person responsible for the creation of the song or mix, the editing gets a back seat, since the main purpose of the video is to show off the audio. In this case, though, angry apple lofi spared practically no expense. Yeah, it’s bare-bones from a technical perspective, but there’s a narrative thread, there’s tight sync, both internal and external, and there’s lip sync — all combining into a really potent mixture of joy and anxiety that pulls your emotional strings in unexpected, and often opposite, directions; what we’re left with is — you guessed it — vibes.

34. nakana – REBIRTH天の

Anime: Space Runaway Ideon: Be Invoked
Song: “REBIRTH天の [DOTNDS Remix]” by bliss3three

CW: Flashes/strobing

Where do you go to make your mark in a hobby that can be obsessed with visual quality, when upscaled and remastered and hyperfiltered rips are available everywhere to everyone at the low low cost of pirating? Some would say, well, nowhere, this is where I should be. But then you have niche editors like nakana, who rather seem to think that the new aesthetic should be 420p footage that has been ripped from a streaming site, after having been first downloaded off of another streaming site, recompressed, and reuploaded. The blown-out video quality, the datamoshing effects, the horribly aged animation — it’s all intentional, of course, and maybe nakana’s on to something here, because it looks like nothing else on this list, and practically nothing else I saw all of this year. For all intents and purposes, the look of this video works, at the very least as an occasional indulgence.

It’s a chaotic video, and it can be difficult at the best of times to make out what’s happening through all the visual noise. But nakana doesn’t just layer on degradation effects and call it a day — much of the time, those effects are synced in striking ways to the HexD track that backs the whole thing. It feels as though nakana is presenting us with the hacked-up remains of a relic from decades ago, once passed around the Internet but now forgotten, only to be shared by someone who came across it randomly on an old CD-ROM they decided to pop in their disc drive after leaving it laying around in a desk drawer for years, the origins and original context completely lost to time. Still, for all that, it’s endlessly intriguing, and I’ll make sure I still have it in ten years when it comes time to upload it again.

33. Cmoididi – Drifting

Anime: Various
Song: “Drifting” by NF

Stick around in the hobby long enough and you’ll start to collect certain editors or certain groups of editors or certain studios into buckets, brand them with some broad-stroked label, and then start pre-judging those people’s work before you ever even see it. I’m speaking from experience, as this is something I’ve done and still do to this very day — it’s been ingrained in me for a long time, but every year I make an intentional effort to seek out videos from corners of the hobby that I usually stay far away from, just to see if anything has changed, whether it’s my tastes or the style in question. Rarely is it worth my time, and in this particular case, I saw the video in an AMV contest, so it wasn’t something I actually went looking for. But it’s certainly a video that exists in a space of which I am typically very critical.

Drifting is edited in a style that, over the years, I have found increasingly off-putting. Usually, videos that are stylistically adjacent to Drifting get a bad rap from me because they are obnoxiously self-centered — at least, the experience I tend to have when I watch them is of them screaming in my face, “LOOK AT ME! LOOK AT WHAT I CAN DO WITH AFTER EFFECTS!! ISN’T THIS COOL?? AREN’T I COOL??!” It turns me off so much that I struggle to sit through even shorter ones without rolling my eyes and mentally tuning myself out until the credits roll.

Drifting, however, feels different — although it does a lot of technical things I shouldn’t like, the entire video feels a lot less concerned with what I as the viewer think of it, or its creator. It takes a much more introspective line: the use of multiple anime — something that usually feels like a lazy cop-out used to give these kinds of videos more visual variety because the editors know they won’t be able to keep viewers’ attention otherwise — here feels incredibly appropriate, allowing the viewer to insert themselves into the video much more easily. Cmoididi tackles the kind of existential dread that everyone feels at some point in their lives, and successfully captures those feelings from the multiple perspectives of the many characters he features, even if only briefly. Oh, and let’s not forget to mention just how frigging awesome the last 20 or so seconds are, as the video utterly ruptures at the seams in frustration and anger — the editing here is outstanding, a culmination of everything the rest of the video already did so well. Moral of the story? Don’t let your prejudices get in the way, and peek into those closed-off spaces every once in a while. You never know when you’ll find something that’ll blow your mind.

32. Synaesthesia Productions – Spellbound

Anime: Mahoutsukai no Yome
Song: “Tròdlabùndin (Trøllabundin)” by Eivør Pálsdóttir

Spellbound is a slow burn. In fact, it’s one of those videos you might have to kind of work at, especially if your musical tastes don’t include Faroese experimental folk. But please don’t write this one off if it doesn’t grab you in the first minute or so, because it’s an AMV that just keeps getting better the longer you stick with it. Synaesthesia’s editing is measured here, with a lot of slow crossfades and scenes that run on for seconds at a time…except when it’s not. These moments are some of the video’s best — Syn makes use of color effects and overlays to give the video a magical, subtly psychedelic feel, as well as to energize the narrative and provide a more nuanced drama to experience. Although only using a single episode from the anime, Spellbound feels huge and expansive and open, suggesting a much larger story taking place in the background, and by the time the video’s thunderous climax hits in the last 30 seconds, you’re invested beyond all hope of return. The video goes from being a quiet morning to a raging whirlwind in the space of less than five minutes, and it’s a breathlessly invigorating watch…if you give it a chance.

31. NameBrand__ – Yuuri and Me

Anime: Girls’ Last Tour
Song: “The Dead Next Door” by Billy Idol

I’ve seen a fair few Girls’ Last Tour videos over the last couple years, and all seem to take a similar slowed-down, chilled-out air. It doesn’t leave a whole lot of room for any emotion besides a vague, lingering melancholy, which up until now has suited me just fine — I haven’t seen the series, but given their tonal similarity these videos have all appeared to be right in line with the mood of the anime. Yuuri and Me, in contrast, injects a surprising amount of despondency into its presentation — where other GLT videos brush over any kind of reaction we as viewers are supposed to have to the post-apocalyptic landscape the two girls travel through, here there’s no avoiding the suffocating sadness that blankets all the broken-down machinery and rubble. This feeling is made almost tangible by the video’s glacial pacing and NameBrand__’s superb sync — one of the girls falling to her knees right as a subterranean bass beat hits drives home the utter hopelessness that permeates their world. The last scene is even more powerful, and strikes an echoing note of finality and sorrow that leaves a lasting impression in your brain. Normally when I come across this kind of video I’d say I want more like it, but Yuuri and Me is something I’d be happy to have all on its own, because it does what it does so well that no one else needs to try to do it better.