With that out of the way — welcome to the Honorable Mentions, which, as usual, marks the real start of the AMV stuff this year. 2023 was, for me anyway, probably the busiest I’ve ever been from an AMV perspective — or, at least, it certainly felt like it. My “break year” in 2022 must have left me incredibly energized to dive back into the AMV world in earnest, because I found that I was keeping up with AMVs for most of the year, an activity I (maybe surprisingly to some of my readers) tend to be pretty sporadic with — usually my AMV viewing over the course of a year becomes backloaded as time winds down to start prepping for my list, and I end up binging through a ton of AMVs in the weeks leading up to December. That did happen this year, kind of, but to a lesser extent than usual — it was a nice change of pace!
As I already mentioned in the intro post, I have been very prolific in my actual AMV output this year as well — having released 29 AMVs on my purple bell channel, it has been a success in every metric that is meaningful to me, most importantly in that it’s been the most fun I’ve had editing since I started in this hobby. I have many more thoughts on the development of that project which will hopefully get their own entry on this blog in the coming months, but it’s enough to say for now that despite being a lot of work, maintaining that channel and output has invigorated my creativity in ways that I did not anticipate, and has grown my love of the AMV medium as well.
- # of videos from 2023 entered into AMV Tracker: 330
- # of videos considered for this list: 151
- % of 2023 videos under consideration: 46%
- Avg personal rating (out of 10) of all 2023 videos in AMV Tracker: 6.39
- Total running time of all 2023 AMVs in AMV Tracker: 17h 20m 39s
This is the second-largest number of AMVs I have ever watched in a year since I started tracking it — the only year that was higher was 2020, with 350 videos entered then. The upshot for you all is that this is the largest list I’ve ever compiled — a Top 50, with 20 Honorable Mentions (which I guess is the same as my 2021 list, but that one had fewer ineligible videos). Truthfully, it has been excruciating trying to filter this list down to even that many — I really mean it when I say that the “gap” between my #50 video and my #1 video is smaller than it’s ever been. Ranking these videos has felt borderline arbitrary at times, just because I like so many of these videos practically evenly. The final rankings that you see here are about as close to correct as I could get them, but if you have the time, please don’t skip over any of them. All of the videos you are about to read about are just really, really good.
And that includes today’s offerings as well! The phrase “Honorable Mention” can, I fear, have a bit of a negative association with it, similar to “consolation prize”, but I really want to emphasize that this is not how I think of it, and that I found it equally painful to move some of these videos onto this list rather than putting them on my Top 50 proper, as I did cutting videos out altogether. As usual, I will stress that the videos below are not necessarily the ones I would rank #51 – 70, if the rankings were to be extended that far — these are videos that I find compelling for a multitude of reasons and about which I have a lot to say or just want to expose to a greater audience than they currently have, regardless of how much I like them compared with other videos that may or may not be anywhere in sight. Please check them out! Please also note that, just like the ineligible videos, these videos are not ranked, but rather are presented in alphabetical order by editor username.
Also, my typical disclaimer: The rankings and opinions expressed in all of these posts are mine and mine alone — I do not consult with any other editors/AMV enjoyers in determining how to construct my list, nor do I take anyone else’s opinions on any of these videos into consideration while putting all this together. I’m glad that so many people seem to like this, but I’m just one guy — and there are now plenty of other sources for Top AMV lists that you can consult to get a range of opinions on this topic. A non-exhaustive list:
- seasons’ blog
- katranat’s blog
- Synaesthesia’s Top 90 AMVs of 2023 (YouTube playlist)
- Seasaltmemories’ Top 15 AMVs of 2023 (YouTube playlist)
(1) At the end of the final post, I will provide a link to a spreadsheet showing all the videos that I took into consideration for my list, which includes the videos that didn’t make the cut. If there is any year where you’ll want to dig through such a list, this is that year.
(2) I will not be doing an Editor of the Year award this year…and maybe never again. As of when I’m typing these words, I still haven’t finished all of my video write-ups yet (I am very close though, I assure you) and the thought of doing one more big one is exhausting. Besides, you can guess who that editor would be based on the makeup of this list — and you might even be right!
(3) I stumbled across a lot of Revolutionary Girl Utena videos that were made by these completely unknown, new-ish editors with few subscribers. These videos actually ended up being mostly okay or good, but I got real sick of Utena videos this year as a result, and although a couple will show up in the next few days, I’m not going to pretend that it didn’t get to a point where use of this source ended up being something of a disadvantage to my liking certain videos. So, if/when you don’t see your favorite Utena video on this list (I don’t have a specific video in mind when I say that, but I’m sure you do), that’s probably why!
(4) If you have the means to alert editors you see anywhere on here or the upcoming posts that they are featured on this list, please do so! I want to make sure these editors know that their work has been seen and appreciated in a way that YouTube likes and comments typically don’t communicate, but I don’t always have the best means of pointing them in this direction. Your help is appreciated!
Okay, okay, enough — let’s get rolling!
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Anime: Angel’s Egg
Song: “To Watch” by Slowdive
The first proper AMV you’ll be reading about on this year’s list is one I came this close to excluding altogether, not because I don’t like it enough, but because I already talked about one Angel’s Egg video on yesterday’s post, and (minor spoiler alert) have another one coming sometime in the next few days. This is an anime that tends to engender a small handful of very specific feelings, and so these videos can all start to feel rather same-y after a while. The reason you’re reading about this video, though, is because it doesn’t really feel like any other Angel’s Egg video out there.
“To Watch” is a very quiet, sleepy track, a Slowdive deep cut that is pretty much the embodiment of ’90s dream pop. It doesn’t change much in its nearly six minutes, and 000TragicSolitude doesn’t really do much sync of any sort throughout this video. In a weird way, you don’t really notice this, or if you do, you probably don’t care, because there are no peaks or valleys to sync to. Instead, the scene selection just kind of floats along, stretching out for seconds upon seconds, soaking you in scenery and atmosphere. Unlike practically every other Angel’s Egg video in existence, though, Angel’s Egg & Slowdive (c’mon editors, you gotta give me something to work with when it comes to your video titles) swerves away from any scene or narrative development that might result in anything more than the tiniest blip on your emotional EKG — instead, this video drapes itself in vague mystery but never really suggests that it’s worth actually exploring. It has a deeply nocturnal texture, and is calming in a way that will be totally alien to you if you’ve watched even a single other video using this anime. There’s no threat, no horror just out of frame, nothing at all but a slow, relaxing walk through a deserted city at night. You could watch this before getting into bed for the evening and be guaranteed peaceful dreams and a restful night’s sleep. In fact, go ahead and do that — the remainder of these videos will still be here when you wake up.
Anime: I Want to Eat Your Pancreas
Song: “Never Meant” by American Football
Shortly after watching this video for the first time, I half-jokingly asked in an AMV Discord server I’m in if the dude in this movie ever smiles. Every AMV I’ve seen that uses this source makes him seem like the most unhappy anime MC of all time, which I think is part of the reason this AMV works as well as it does — “Never Meant” is a kind of flagship midwest emo song, mixing dreamy, sparkling guitar with a bones-deep nostalgic melancholy that gets on your clothes and follows you around for days after hearing it. It’s sad in a way that only this kind of music manages to be — a high school melodrama sad, but the kind you never fully outgrow, if you’re being completely honest. These Moments capitalizes on all this, forging a compelling relationship between the movie’s two leads, building it all up using a home movie film pastiche, imitation photo boards, and diary entries to communicate all the shared moments that are now just memories for our gloomy friend. In other words, this AMV is convincingly emo in every imaginable way — a perfect love letter to both the music genre and the anime it uses — and if you’re into that kind of thing, this is the video you’ve been searching for.
Anime: Weathering With You
Song: “All Eyes On Me” by Bo Burnham
My knowledge of Bo Burnham pretty much starts and ends with “he’s a musical comedian”, and every AMV I’ve seen that uses one of his songs leans into his brand of edgy humor…as you would expect with songs from a modern, edgy musical comedian. So the first time I saw Downpour, I essentially experienced three-and-a-half minutes of pure emotive whiplash, progressively more desperately wondering if a punchline was ever coming, or if I was missing some vital context to understanding why this song sounded so…unironically introspective? I can’t remember another AMV that has imposed as wild a disconnect between my expectations and reality as this one did, and the weird thrill of watching this for the first time is ultimately what’s landing this video here. This is otherwise a pretty standard story-recap AMV, although an ambiguous sort-of punchline does land at the video’s end — a moment of black humor that finally dovetailed with my initial expectations in an incredibly satisfying way. I like this more than most other Weathering With You videos I’ve seen — although I have no idea how this video will connect with people who are more pop-culturally savvy than me and have heard this song already. If it’s not for you, don’t worry, I have plenty of other videos coming on this list that probably won’t be, either.
Anime: NANA
Song: “November Rain” by Guns ‘N Roses
If you’re wondering where that “part 2” is coming from, this editor actually edited another NANA video to this song, profiling a different character from the series…seemingly a regular occurrence on this channel, which contains other instances of a single song getting multiple videos. Unusual though this kind of approach is (I actually don’t know of any other editors out there who repeatedly edit to the same song over and over, although I’m sure they exist somewhere), I found myself drawn into this AMV in a way I wasn’t expecting. As someone who very staunchly dislikes Guns ‘N Roses, this was always going to be an uphill battle, but it was a much gentler slope than anticipated — this video maintains a sharp narrative focus throughout, interspersed with beautiful moments of high melodrama and expulsions of angst. There’s an emotional catharsis unleashed in the video’s final minutes that feels like a perfectly contrasted bookend to its comparatively innocent start, and by then it seems like you really have experienced an entire anime’s worth of plot and passion in a mere nine minutes.
A “mere” nine minutes. Yeah, this is a long AMV, which alone might make it a hard sell, especially if your music tastes (or maybe more accurately, distastes) are similar to mine…but I really can’t recommend enough that you hang your hesitations at the door and dive right in.
Anime: Revolutionary Girl Utena
Song: “Afraid of Heights” by boygenius
This is a video that I don’t think I can fully appreciate from the outside — the top comment on YouTube notes that a specific lyric in the song synced up to two characters talking about a specific thing hits especially hard, but to someone like me who is unfamiliar with the anime, the gravity of that connection is completely lost without knowing the context — it’s just two girls talking (yes, lip flap and all). No, I like this video much more for its muted, abstract depictions of unfulfilled feelings and faded desolation than I do for whatever hyper-specific lyrical callouts are all but lost on my ignorance. Although so many of the scenes in this AMV are ones I’ve seen a million times in others, they pull emotion out of this song in a way that I wasn’t expecting. Understated sync and a quiet, patient pacing all work a peculiar magic to fight against the overwhelming tide of scrappy Utena videos I got so sick of this year, and to bring this one out near the top of the heap. If you’re in the other, bigger boat of AMV fans who love Utena AMVs seemingly unconditionally, well, pile afraid of heights on your collection (and then sub to this editor, because there’s a lot more where that came from).
Anime: Serial Experiments Lain // Toradora! // Various
Song: “Don’t Let Go (feat. Nanners)” by Lord Aethelstan
CW: Lots of flashing/color/glitch effects
I’m not going to lie here, I don’t fully buy into the crossover on display, although that might be because whatever narrative is being proposed is kinda getting lost in the noise — not hard to do when you layer your video in all sorts of color effects, half-transparent overlays, and literal noise filters. No, I’m in this one much more for the gritty aesthetic than anything — the Serial Experiments Lain scenes especially are very receptive to the look being experimented with here, but it all congeals into a blown-out display of dull neon and oppressive despondency. For every half-communicated idea, there are two moments of simply great editing and context-free emotive force, and I very much enjoy getting lost in it all, even though I don’t always quite know where I’m going.
Anime: Cream Lemon
Song: “Silver” by Pixies
CW: Nudity
If you’re not keeping score, Ethel Gumm is yet another pseudonym for the editor we all know and love as Prostrate Constantly / Abrogate Need / Zane Kordic /…well, the list kind of goes on. But it’s not hard to see that the videos on this channel are different even from the many different experiments this editor has indulged in over the years, curating here a high-contrast, black-and-white palette that turns every video into something that feels distinctly dark, bordering on disturbing. In dungeon girl, all detail is completely eliminated, and the video’s title even plays into this whole aesthetic, suggesting that most of the chosen scenes are taking place underground, away from all but the barest light source, unspeakable things happening to the various girls shown throughout the video. The slow, Gothic country song sheds this all in an equally foreboding, smothered light. Everything in this video feels unsafe and threatening, and although no villain is ever revealed besides through a mostly-static silhouette, you can’t help but feel like their shadow moves over every little corner of the spaces intimated throughout this video’s short runtime. Creepy, dreary stuff, this.
Anime: Cheeky Angel
Song: “Ecstasy (Apple of My Eye)” by Strawberry Switchblade
Certain anime are just hard to edit with. Especially when you choose a song like this — bouncy, expressive, full of personality — it can be difficult to use an anime which has little actual motion, instead relying on those budget animation techniques you find in specific strains of the medium such as drawn-out, choppy, imitation slow-mo, or slow pans/zooms on otherwise static scenes. Although I’m not familiar with Cheeky Angel specifically, this AMV suggests that it seems to be that type of anime, but Extraterrestrial Elephant works within the tight limitations of this kind of animation beautifully, still managing to convey all sorts of emotion, humor, and character development throughout. It’s a nice, endearing dose of easy fun, something that goes down smooth and which I can’t help but to quite simply enjoy from beginning to end, every time I hit play.
Anime: Sonny Boy
Song: “Everything Goes On (Star Guardian Version)” by Porter Robinson
Brought to my attention by this AMV’s making of vlog, which was shared in the AMV Discord server I frequent (a video very much worth your time if you are even the least bit interested in this hobby), Reach is editor Jay Morskoi’s first AMV, but you might not ever guess that if I didn’t say something, or you didn’t watch that linked video. While definitely rough around the edges, there’s a lot going on here that pulls at me and suggests a deeper understanding of the mechanics of AMV editing than I would expect a brand new editor to know. The emotional cues throughout are subtle, but I mean that in a good way — its visuals and storytelling get under the skin and never hit you over the head with the obvious, instead nudging you in different directions, giving you clues, urging you to piece it all together for yourself, or simply impose your own understanding on to it, if that’s easier for you. It’s not the mass appeal video I think the editor was originally hoping it would be, but those are rarely the videos that stick with me beyond their first few months of existence anyway. Meanwhile, videos like this — complex, nuanced, personal creative expressions that come fully into focus only under a magnifying glass — are the ones that intrigue me the most, and which I love exploring until I get close to understanding them.
Anime: Chainsaw Man
Song: “This Will Be Me” by Natalie Cole
I will probably never watch Chainsaw Man — sorry everybody, I guess I hate fun? But no, that can’t be entirely true, because then this video wouldn’t show up within a mile of this list. It’s such a subversion of everything I’m used to seeing with this source in AMVs, which is usually of the gory action variety (not to mention…whatever this is). Joya AMV flips all this though and makes something that could easily be called lighthearted and happy, although it does inevitably tilt into the morbid in its second half. But I’m always a fan of twisted takes on joyful audio, especially when done with the kind of elegant restraint that’s seen here, and anyway something tells me that there’s probably another layer to this that I’m missing completely by not having seen the anime…so those of you more familiar with these characters and their relationships may think, if anything, that I’m underrating this. For me though, the surface of this AMV is different enough from anything I was expecting that it immediately caught my attention, and is probably the closest any Chainsaw Man video has come to piquing my interest in the show. Take from that what you will, and take a crooked smile home with you after watching this one, while you’re at it.
Anime: Towards the Terra
Song: “re: Stacks” by Bon Iver
Re: Stacks certainly ranks among the most frustrating AMVs of the year to me. This is not an auspicious way to begin a write-up of a video that I supposedly like, but it’s impossible to pretend that the video’s single, major, persistently glaring flaw doesn’t exist: the hardsubbed footage. In a comment on the video, the editor confirmed that this was an artistic choice, but it baffles me to this day and I struggle to get past it. Please, Karmelin, if you’re reading this — release a version of this without hardsubs! It’s all I want in life!
Because if you take away that element, it’s entirely possible that this video would end up very near the absolute top of my list. There’s an omnipresent melancholy that undergirds this one, not just in the music but in the scene selection and sync. The video is slow and cryptic, suggesting story beats but never totally revealing them in a bright enough light to fill in the details. Nevertheless, it bleeds this aching regret that manifests in nearly every cut. Even the video’s final scenes — ostensibly happy and victorious — feel hard-won and undercut by some undulating sorrow. It’s a video I want to explore in so much more depth, limited at almost every turn by the needless distraction of the subs. In the moments when I am able to force my brain to look past them though…man, there weren’t many videos this year that were better.
Anime: Sousou no Frieren
Song: “What Will You Leave Behind” by Max LL
What Will You Leave Behind is a soft, slow, quiet little video about moving through grief and coming out the other side intact. There are no big moments in this AMV — it’s about as unassuming as can be, with a lighter-than-air touch from Lux, who seems much more interested in trying to delicately present difficult emotions to the viewer without distraction. I don’t have a whole lot to say about this video, because it speaks for itself in a way that kind of makes my thoughts on it redundant — it explores loss in a soothing way, wrapping around you like the arms of a friend who wants nothing more than to see you happy again, no matter how long it may take. It’s a fragile expression of simple beauty, and sometimes that’s enough.
Anime: Do It Yourself!!
Song: “Central Line” by Squarepusher
I admit that when I watch this AMV, I want more — more energy, more cuts, a more memorable title, more of pretty much everything. That said, what the video offers is tantalizing in itself, providing moment after moment of fun, borderline-funny internal sync and a carefree attitude that summons a smile to my face in spite of all the stuff I feel it’s lacking. It’s hard to hold too much against the editor here — it’s clear that this video is a kind of tongue-in-cheek experiment that isn’t meant to be taken seriously in the least, and which begs me to please just shut up and stop being so caught up in my incessant, annoying tendency to nitpick every little thing, as if my standards are what everyone should strive to meet. Who do I think I am?!
Yeah, I like this one, and I hope you do too.
Anime: Mob Psycho 100
Song: “Parallax” by Fatal FE
I can’t tell if this genre of music is awesome or if Noormuda is just slaying those drops with her scene selection, thus tricking me into thinking I like it more than I do, but regardless this bite-sized action AMV is a phenomenal slice of smooth editing and a crackling, volatile atmosphere. It’s full of indulgent internal sync and motion, explosive at nearly every turn. In its scant few moments of downtime, it’s merely amping itself up for the next cathartic release of energy, and it’s an easy video to let hit you like a meteorite over and over again. What it lacks in any kind of depth or substance, it makes up for in its lightning-quick delivery of electricity, straight to your central nervous system. Another shot of whatever this is, please!
Anime: FLCL
Song: “FBI” by Gee Tee
Punk is, maybe understandably, not a very popular genre to use when editing AMVs. It’s not too difficult to understand why, either, given that it’s usually intentionally raw and unpolished in its sound, not given to easy moments of sync or pacing, with vocalists that are off-putting in their delivery of lyrics that are often difficult to decipher and/or extremely pointed and specific in their content. It’s not surprising to me at all, then, that of the handful of videos I’ve entered into AMV Tracker which use punk songs, FLCL pops up as the corresponding anime more than any other.
INTERGALACTIC SEDUCTRESS FED is punk to its core — messily edited in a way that perfectly suits the lo-fi nature of the recording, loosely narrative and paying only occasional attention to the lyrics, which are themselves pasted to the bottom of the screen through added-in subtitles, it can feel like this video is trying to distance itself from anything and everything that is safe and expected. It’s a mishmash of scenes that sometimes relate to one another, sometimes don’t, goofy action and insanity forming into a blurry kind of pseudo-story that I wish could develop into something more fully realized — but then again, doing so would kind of turn this into just another, normal AMV, and that would defeat the purpose. This video is snotty and blistering, a rapid-fire machine gun magazine of sizzling fun and total disregard for your tastes. FLCL is a perfect fit for this, with its chaotic imagery feeling right at home next to all this fuzz and distortion. The more you actively try to like it, the less you will; but if you go in expecting to be shoved into a garbage can and flipped the bird, you’ll have a much better time.
Anime: Various
Song: “Daydream” by The Aces
Every so often I look through my AMV collection for something short and sweet, a quick pick-me-up in between tasks, or just to kill a minute or two before my next work call. SadSack’s don’t take the shiny away from my blorbo is exactly the kind of AMV to fill such a time slot, full of the most relentlessly upbeat, joy-inducing stuff you could pack into a mere minute-and-a-half. This video has no goal other than to force you to smile and instill happiness into whatever it is you’re about to do — wonderfully synced, full of primary colors, with non-stop internal motion and a host of great match cuts, SadSack is not doing their YouTube channel name anything approaching justice, but I ain’t complaining. Besides, “HappyBag” just doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Anime: Various
Song: “Everything’s Alright” by DJ Okawari
I’m going to say something that is maybe not the most encouraging way to start a write-up like this, but it has to be addressed: This MEP (multi-editor project, for those visiting who may not be up on the AMV slang) could have done with some more, or even any, quality control. Shortform MEPs like this live or die by their ability to feel stylistically consistent, at least in effects usage if not in everything else, too. To that end, there are sections of this video that stick out in an awkward, exasperating way because their unnecessarily technical approach seems so out of place compared to the more plentiful segments which take a simpler, more direct route.
But man, when the video is allowed to flow and breathe for a bit without egregious, superfluous text flying in your face, or vector shape vomit clogging up the screen, it embodies the relaxed, sunny melancholy of the song so well, summoning up a warmth that just feels wonderful. Given that each editor here has less than 20 seconds to work with, any narrative snippets that start to develop are whisked away before getting to any kind of resolution, but even those brief snapshots of character interactions lend this video a unique feeling of wistfulness that I just love. Yes, it can be a frustratingly uneven experience, but even knowing that I’ve watched through this video several times now and have thoroughly enjoyed each and every viewing. Who knows? Maybe in another year or so I’ll have wished I had put this on my Top 50 proper. Stranger things have happened!
Anime: Various
Song: “My Dog’s Eyes” by Zammuto
Obviously, the song used in this AMV is going to be the thing that your brain latches onto before anything else — an experimental track utilizing repeated synthetic (or at least heavily modulated) vocal loops, “My Dog’s Eyes” is the kind of thing you’ll either be unable to ignore or which will dull your senses into a meditative state. The latter is pretty clearly the intended effect, but if and when you get there, don’t allow yourself to just let this video wash over you without appreciating what SQ does throughout — the scene selection is often deadpan literal while still honing in on the barely-there emotion that the music evokes. Equal parts anxious and contemplative, this AMV was clearly edited with a personal meaning specific to SQ (who says as much in the video description), but it also seems like the kind of thing that everyone will experience and feel differently — I don’t think any two viewers will get the same thing out of it. And in spite of the AMV’s title, it is not okay to let this one pass you by, so please make sure you don’t!
Anime: Spy × Family
Song: “Hypnotize Me” by Taylor Berrett
Ever since becoming a father over a year and a half ago, I have become increasingly sentimental about AMVs that deal with fatherhood, or even more broadly, the importance of family. This stuff has always kind of hit me in the gut, but it’s even worse (better?) now. Found X Family is this year’s gut punch along these lines, showcasing the anime’s path from building a fake family out of necessity to sticking with that now-real family out of a discovered, genuine love. The editing shown throughout this video is just fantastic, with a strong emphasis on lyric sync which is maybe some of the best you’ll see over the next few days. There’s a strong case to make for this being on my actual Top 50, and maybe it really should be — if I liked this song more, you probably couldn’t stop it from shooting up pretty far in the rankings. But don’t take my entirely subjective taste in music as the final say in how this video compares with the 69 others I’ve written about — through the power of YouTube dot com, you have the ability to watch it and judge for yourself!
Anime: Inu-Oh
Song: “Body Was Made” by Ezra Furman
This is probably the weirdest dance video I’ve ever seen — the slinking but undeniably lively song feels like it was made for this bizarre footage, and while there’s a borderline sleaze that sits at the bottom of it all, it never manages to feel anything but good-natured and, well, fun. Dance videos these days are plentiful, and there’s no shortage of colorful, happy-looking and feeling footage to make yours blend in with all the rest, so slotting this one in to the same conversation as something like this feels more than a little deviant. It doesn’t have the same energy as your typical dance video, and yet it is edited as smartly as any of them, grooving to its own peculiar funk in a way that I just know other editors wish they could pull off so effortlessly and memorably. Besides, somehow it just feels right to slide this freaky thing in with the more straight-laced stuff and let it turn heads — as if that’s why it was made.
subculture diaries 
Think wordpress ate my previous comment, apologies if this is a repeat though:
Seeing others absorb the phenomenon that is the Utena AMV community from the outside is very amusing. While they weren’t my first exposure to a editing fandom specific to one show, they were kinda the push to actually get me editing lol.
They’re a very passionate bunch, rather than try and draw in an outside audience, a lot of their work tends to almost act as individual readings on the show, where you are expected to know not just the show plot, but even common fandom theories competing interpretations. Even as a fan myself, it can be a Lot, but even as I drift further away I find it very cool just to see how many ppl show up, support, and/or throw their own hat into this very niche ring
Also really enjoyed An Everlasting Love, as someone who has picked up more secondhand knowledge of the source, it does feel like a set up for an ironic punchline but it does the sincere set up so well that it is kinda nice just to stick with that for most of the vid.
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As an outsider to everything Utena, these channels definitely feel pretty opaque. It’s frustrating because there’s a lot of talent in the editors I’ve stumbled across but the exclusivity of the source usage is just a complete turn-off for me. I suspect that most of these editors wouldn’t care what I think though, and that’s okay! It’s not like they’re making bad videos, in any case.
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Massive kudos for having 20 honorable mentions wow!
I’ve come across quite a few of these already, but I must say, one of my favorite things about these lists over the past couple years is that even though I follow so many editors these days and try and watch as much as possible, you still manage to highlight videos which I absolutely should have seen and yet somehow I missed, so yeah, thank you so much for that.
One of those is “Downpour”, no idea how I missed it. And man is it such a weirdly good video. It’s kinda blown my mind, and completely reconfigured my expectations for Weathering With You AMVs. I also appreciate Cenit’s eclectic scene selection.
A couple others I want to mention which are new to me.
“Do It Yourself!! AMV” is a fun treat. I love videos edited like this even though it doesn’t quite stick the landing in a few places it’s still really neat to watch. The editor seems very interesting as well so someone new to follow!
I can see your frustrations with, “Everything’s Alright”. A lot of the parts do seem very tonally dissonant. I have no idea what goes into organising a MEP but perhaps the editors were given free rein, which can be a lot of fun to watch, but is a slightly strange choice with such a soft song – I feel it’s probably easier for less heavy handed editing styles to suit a more intense song than it is for the reverse. All that being said, it is rather lovely.
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Thanks, glad you’re discovering new stuff! That’s hard to do with you as so many of the videos that ended up on this list are from editors I discovered through your updates to the Sashimi Selects playlist, so it’s good to hear that I’m contributing something here.
Re: Everything’s Alright — I’m pretty sure this, as with so many MEPs like it, was just a fun little project for a group of editor friends to do whatever they wanted. I’m sure it wasn’t meant for someone like me to come along and pick it apart, so I can’t fault it too much. There are a lot of moments in this video that I do just love, and they cover over the stuff I don’t.
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