AMV Hell Returns

Anime music videos or AMVs - fan-made cuts and edits of shows and sound - might be considered to be something of a relic of the more tactile and analogue days of the anime community, and the man reputed to be have created the first AMV, long-term Otakon organiser James Kaposztas, passed away earlier this year. Nonetheless, "AMV Hell" will be a name fondly remembered by many old-school anime fans. 

"AMV Hell" is a series of compilation movies comprised of rapid-fire gags and skits where anime scenes are re-edited alongside humorous musical commentaries or re-acting scenes from other comedies. It was the brainchild of Alan "Zarxrax" Clontz and Brian "SSGWNBTD" Moore, who assembled the first AMV Hell together and submitted it to the AMV contest at 2004's Otakon. AMV Hell was an instant sensation and won multiple prizes at Otakon that year, and from that point on grew into a major recurrent community event: the demand for more saw it expand into feature-length follow-ups, with Zarxrax and SSGWNBTD taking the chairs of directors and featuring hundreds of skits contributed by dozens of different editors selected from thousands of submissions - having your work featured in an AMV Hell was a genuine way to be noticed. Even though the golden age of AMVs may be some years behind us, AMV Hell endures as a staple of anime convention video rooms to this day.

AMV Hell eventually wound down after a decade of laughs and shocks, with the final full-length video AMV Hell 7 premiering in 2014 and the concurrent series of shorts, the AMV Hell Minis Challenges, wrapping up a few months later in 2015. There is more to AMV Hell than nostalgia now though: one of the original creators Zarxrax has gotten back into the groove of AMV creation in the last few years and this month both he and SSGWNBTD have announced the comeback of AMV Hell! The AMV Hell website has been restored and a new compilation titled AMV Hell 8: The Deepest Point is planned to premier at Otakon 2024 in Washington DC, the 20th anniversary of the original. Public submissions have been re-opened, and if you would like to take part but are new to video editing or your copy of Adobe Premier has been gathering dust over the years there's plenty of time to re-learn the craft, as there's a full year to compose contributions: the window runs until April 2024 before the final project is assembled in time for Otakon 2024.

Check out the trailer:

See the links below for more information:

Announcement thread on Twitter

AMV Hell website

Submission Guidelines and Entry Form

Video Editing Technical Guide from animemusicvideos.org

I myself was an active contributor to AMV Hell and had submissions featured in multiple entries of the series, so having a real blast from the past erupt around me is hugely exciting. I'm very eager to have competition from a new generation of AMV Editors to refine and hone my game against, so I hope to see many readers of the UK Anime Network joining in to put our stamp on an important community creation!