Why AMVs Suck

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This post was written by Dark_Sage. He is Dark_Sage.

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So, I really like AMVs. This is a problem because nearly all AMVs suck. Here are the reasons:

  • Absolute disconnect between the music and the anime. I’m sure you thought mixing “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor” with “Beyblade” was an awesome idea. It’s not.
  • Shit musical taste. If I wanted to listen to Jay-Z, I’d stick my face in a blender and turn it on until I collapsed from blood loss. Why? Because a world in which I actually want to listen to Jay-Z is not a world worth living in. You may substitute Jay-Z with anything in the Billboard Top 100. It’s not shit because it’s popular. It’s popular because it’s shit.
Number of artists on the charts worth listening to
  • Re-used scenes. AMVs are like three fucking minutes. I don’t think you need to recycle content that badly.
  • “Dance” videos with Yogurting, TMoHS OP/ED, and the Lucky Star OP. Stop. Just fucking stop. No AMV can be good if you do this.
  • Subtitles. Hey, dipshits. Stop making AMVs with hardsubbed scripts. If you’re deadset on making your shitty AMVs with hardsubbed scripts, at least make sure they’re in English and not reversed. Yes, I have seen AMVs with Spanish subtitles that were reversed. I had to scrub my eyes with sandpaper afterwards to get the fail off.
  • AMV stands for Anime Music Video. Stop including pictures of yourselves, clips from actual music videos, video game cutscenes, and American cartoons in your videos. Those things are shit, so it makes the AMV shit.
Dear fat lesbians, keep your pictures outta my goddamn AMVs
  • Stop throwing effects around like they’re candy and you’re a pedophile on an elementary school playground. When I see a spazz-out of effects in the beginning of an AMV, I know my eyes are going to get raped worse than women in Africa are. I want to watch an AMV, not a lights show in your creepy father’s basement. (Thank Euphoria for starting this shitty trend.)
  • Multi-anime AMVs. Now, sometimes this can be done right. Like in… Uhh, give me a moment. I’ll think of one. Nope. Can’t. Trust me though, sometimes they’re good. But most of the time it’s just random splices of animes that leads to “My AMV is better because I have more animes in it.” Follow the Anal Principle on this one.

Anal Principle: One dick in an ass is fine. Similarly, one anime in an AMV is fine. It’s kind of hard to make it work well with two in there, but it can be done. When you start getting to three or more, that’s when the trouble starts.

  • Betas. I don’t give a shit about the 30 seconds of the AMV that you have finished. Why would I ever want to watch a 30-second AMV?
  • “AMV Hell”. This series is just Betas strung together by the worst AMV editors around. Who the fuck watches this shit?

You may be wondering if there are any good AMVs left. There are, but they’re all on amvnews.ru… which is Russian. Looks like the Communists won. :(

64 thoughts on “Why AMVs Suck”

    • Let’s see here. I checked out the Dance playlist.

      Danger Days – It’s okay. They certainly picked the right anime for this song. They deserve credit for that at least. But a number of the scenes don’t mesh right and it seems the editor thought he/she could get away with it as long as some of the scenes worked right. Not really, but nice try.

      Cololor – Just shit. I’m glad the editor knows how to use effects, but he didn’t use them to any purpose. I want my time back.

      We Dream We Can – Nothing good about this. It’s an up-tempo song set to K-On. How is this any different from any other K-On AMV? The scenes transition nicely, which is about the best compliment I can give to this vapid attempt.

      Say WTF – Unique only in that it tries to ape the success of Bad Apple, but with none of the effort because it only uses outlines. But I like the idea, and it’s simplistically enjoyable, so I’ll give it a pass.

      How is this any better than some other random jerkoff’s playlist? Not that I hate you for linking me to this. I’ll certainly be able to find some diamonds in this rubble. But it’s not a very good playlist, all considered.

      Reply

      • You don’t exactly come across as somebody who gives a damn about amvs tbh, personally though i actually like the mad playlists best.

        If you don’t find many in them you like, then theres probably not much hope for you, there all the winners and high rankers from the biggest amv contests, not that am saying that automatically means everyone of them is good…but you won’t find playlists with better consistency.

        …but if you do, lemmie know =p.

        Reply

        • I will. I’ll go through it with a fine-toothed comb.

          As for AMVs, I’m actually quite serious about loving them. They’re the primary way I find new music and my personal collection is meticulously-organized.

          Reply

          • If he’s the guy who owned the “BestAMVsOfAllTime” account, he probably wouldn’t be interested in helping me out. Pretty sure I was blocked (which means banned from commenting on Youtube) from three similarly-named accounts. XD

            Reply

  5. Needs more lolis. Lolis make everything better and I mean real lolis not pseudo lolis, who are really just short flat chested girls in high-school e.g. most of the cast of Lucky Star.

    Reply

  6. I agree that 99% of AMVs suck. There are only a handful worth
    watching.

    I used to have a collection of about 800 AMVs on my old hard drive which died a while ago. AMVs were my primary way of finding new anime to watch and music to listen to back in the day.

    Off the top of my head, here are some of the ones I liked best:

    Auriga (Multiple) – This video is the reason I watched Diebuster. Hadn’t heard of it until I this. Good editing and effects. http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=160388

    Dark Sun (Death Note) – Great editing and sick music from E Nomine makes Kira writing names in his book a good AMV.
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=178394

    Whisper of the Beast (Naruto) – Probably my favorite video of all time. Old school Naruto. Groundbreaking 2D editing for an AMV of its time. Added effects greatly improve some scenes over the originals.
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=55493

    From the Ashes (FMA) – Editing flows well with the music. Really enjoy this video.
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=129345

    Toushi (Naruto) – My favorite mindless action AMV. Probably watched it a hundred times over the years.
    http://www.animemusicvideos.org/members/members_videoinfo.php?v=34358

    Reply

  9. I actually prefer multi-anime AMVs. Granted, that’s mostly because I’m tired of all the Bleach and Naruto AMVs out there. I figure that if it’s multiple anime, I have a chance at liking it.

    But yeah, I agree, the vast majority of AMVs are trash of the highest level.

    Reply

  12. Then why don’t you make a page on all the good AMV’s? I listened to some of the above in the comments, some were good, most were shit.

    So what are the good ones in your opinion D_S?

    Reply

  15. > Shit musical taste. If I wanted to listen to Jay-Z, I’d stick my face in a blender and turn it on until I collapsed from blood loss. Why? Because a world in which I actually want to listen to Jay-Z is not a world worth living in. You may substitute Jay-Z with anything in the Billboard Top 100. It’s not shit because it’s popular. It’s popular because it’s shit.

    ^
    QFT’ed.
    The same reason why I really mad when [gg] changed Sacred7 episode 05 OP with that Chamillionaire’s shit.

    Reply

  20. I couldn’t agree more. To be honest, I don’t really like AMV’s and I believe that my dislike comes from one of your points: disconnection with the music and the anime. It would also help if people could ACTUALLY edit and well, wouldn’t do such a shitty job overall. I do agree that there are a few gems among the cluster fuck of horrid AMV’s, but whatever.

    On a side note, I hate how “AMV” isn’t in the title but rather a misleading “OP”, which is what I searched for. Also, tagging an AMV with popular tags that have nothing to do with said AMV, isn’t going to give you a significant view count boost. For example: If I search for anime X and get results for your shitty AMV of anime Y, I’m not going to watch your AMV, dude. /end rant

    Reply

  27. This is kind of funny. AMV hardly means “Anime Music Video”.

    What a real .AMV is a proprietary video format that is a variant of .MPG with fixed quantisation tables and with 16bit audio samples encoded at 22050bps.

    Lol, why do people choose to use acronyms for layout styles /forms/etc that are already used withing the subject or whatever?

    /inb4 Old post and what I said is hardly related, but IDGAF. This just makes Anime Music Videos suck ass even more.

    Reply

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