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Miku Hatsune! The best of the few that we saw. Props to her for enthusiasm and being so cute!
From long lines to… more long lines, we saw as much of the action that we could on the first day of Anime Expo 2008. Seriously though, people, the lines were rediculous… For the AMV contest (which was pretty bomb), we had to wait in line for 2 hours… to get a ticket… to wait in line again! Oh well, the high-quality AMVs totally made up for it as we were blown away by different types of AMV finalists from all over the country. We saw a couple from Sakura-con that made it to the finals of AX, so we were very happy to see some people representing our local con up in the northwest.
The exhibit hall was completely packed with people (as was the long line to get in) considering it’s enormous size. There was a huge variety of vendors there, including some companies advertising new and old games to anime fans (including Gravity, the creators of RO, hooray!). We tried to catch all of the cosplayers that stood out to us. My apologies if we took your picture and it didn’t show up on the website, it probably got blurred 
due to our failure as photographers.
We met up with Dancing Queen from howagirlfigures.com , but couldn’t get much time in as we had to hurry off to the AMV contest. But we did exchange phone numbers and hotel info, so we’ll definitely be getting in touch with them again for pictures and just to hang out!
On an awesome side note: California PIzza Kitchen totally misplaced our order, so to compensate they gave us our order for free + more free appetizers. It was awesome.
For more information on the AMV contest, Rho will be listing details further down later on today! Stay updated!
-Love, Ryo, Rho, Kazeryu, JMPspin
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Tsubaki owns. Too bad she didn’t have a Black Star friend.
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Pretty funny live-voice acting put on during the opening ceremony
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Mimi, an up and coming pop idol, dressed up as the cat girl from Catblue Dynamite. She did a live performance on the 4th that we missed. Very sexy!
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Ryo making a daring move…
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Ryo and JMPspin getting “Brokeback Anime” on their small shared bed.
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David Hayter @ opening ceremony… ZOMG SNAKE! “My mic… wasn’t working…” (I rofled) (I almost took off my pants, -Rho)
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Kamina and Yoko! Awesome.
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Working at the con >_<… *sigh* oh well. I love anyone who reads my stuff :).
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Stein! and Deathscythe!
Some highlights from the AMV contest:
Rho here, bringing you the highlights of the AX ‘08 AMV contest.
The contest, which started around 8pm or so at the Nokia Theater went for about 2 to 2 1/2 hours and included a handful of categories including Action, Drama, Comedy, and Pro. The AMVs that made it past an initial judging process before the con were numbered by 10’s (so the Actions were like so: entry 1, entry 2, entry 3, and Pros were like so: entry 31, entry 32, entry 33, etc.). There were 7 AMVs per category, and nearly all of them were quite impressive visually, so it was hard for us to really choose just a few favorites. I’ll list off a few of the ones were liked a lot:
ACTION
We arrived a bit late, so of the Action AMVs we only got to see a few. We did get to see a recap of the AMVs in the category (they did this for every category), and from what I saw, the AMV of Tengen Toppa with the Mulan song “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” probably won because Tengen Toppa is a popular anime, and everyone loves that Mulan song.
DRAMA
These are the seven that played for this category, in chronological order (Title, Anime, Song Artist “Song”): Apologies for missing information, I had to take all this info down myself by pen and paper
- Distance, 5 Cm Per Second, Vanessa Carlton, “1000 Miles”
- Amnesia, Utena Movie, ?, “Amnesia”
- Deadline 24, Gunslinger Girls, Gem, “24″
- Fix You, Howl’s Moving Castle, Coldplay, “Fix You”
- Falling Dreams, Kingdom Hearts, Within Temptation, “See Who I Am”
- ?, Saikano, James Blunt, “Goodbye My Lover”
- Escaping But Not Far, Death Note, The Used, “The Bird & The Worm”
The Lowdown
Let’s get some things down first. In my opinion, if you’re making an AMV to enter into a certain category in a competition, the anime, song, and editing style of the AMV should match whatever the category is. For example, you don’t put anything from Azumanga Diaoh into an AMV you’re going to turn in to the Drama category. That being said, even though an AMV may be visually stunning and unique, if it doesn’t fit into its designated category, I can’t really say it’s appropriate nor judgable. Also, if I can tell that too much effort was put into visual pyrotechnics without regard to how all the FX match with the anime or song (so, if the editor tried to hard to please), the AMV won’t get much points in my book. Finally, if the AMV looks too much like another AMV, or the style of editing and FX addition appears unoriginal, I won’t think the AMV is laudable (unoriginality, or even plagiarism is not acceptable).
With that said, I saw some amazing AMVs in this category. While “Distance” was not perfect, it had excellent editing that I could really appreciate. Unfortunately, the song “1000 Miles”…didn’t sit too well with me, for I have always thought of 5 Cm Per Second as more of a bittersweet story. The song was just a bit too happy/hopeful for this beautiful, yet poignant movie. If you know the song, the parts with the violin corresponded with several quick brightness changes in the AMV. I don’t know how to feel about this - on one hand it was done skillfully at times, yet sometimes it just seemed amateurish.
“Deadline 24″ with Gunslinger Girls had even more impressive FX, with occasional rectangular highlights going across the screen among other FX. The song, along with the editing made for a very badass AMV. Unfortunately, I have not seen the anime, so I don’t really know if the Drama category really fits this AMV.
“Fix You” with Howl’s Moving Castle…sigh. Heartwarming - everyone loves Miyazaki. That’s the advantage of making AMVs of anime that are really popular. Numerous scenes were too literal in their interpretation of the Coldplay’s lyrics. Overall pretty solid.
The Saikano AMV was impressive in my opinion, and really fit into the Drama category. While the song was a bit silly for an AMV, I still liked the AMV because I thought the song actually fit very well with the dramatic, poignant plot.
“Escaping But Not Far” with Death Note was well edited, with a fitting song. To be honest though, some scenes shown weren’t really fitting of the Drama category. The other members of the BrokenAnime staff liked the AMV though.
COMEDY
- Catch Me If You Can Zenigata, Lupin the III, Brad Paisley, “5th Gear”
- Ouran High School, Ouran High School Host Club, Bowling For Soup, “High School Never Ends”
- Life Sucks, Elfen Lied, Dennis Leary, “Life’s Gonna Suck”
- Anime Girls Need Mood Rings, Various, Reliant K, “Mood Rings”
- Nina’s Smile, Mobile Suit Gundam 0083, Steven Lynch, “Big Fat Friend”
- Bustin’, Final Fantasy Advent Children, ?, “Ghost Busters Theme”
- The Harassment of Kyon, The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya, Avril Lavigne, “Girlfriend”
Ahh…silly chase scenes from Lupin matched up with…country music? I chuckled maybe for a few scenes, but honestly the “losing the cops” joke got old quick…but went on for over a minute. Lupin certainly stole something well…and it wasn’t the crowd.
The Gundam AMV was quite funny throughout, mostly because of the song by Steven Lynch. While Gundam may not have been the best of matches for the song, the time when the “undiscriminating friend” showed up, and the PhotoShopped effect of the “big, fat friend” losing pounds after every gulp of a drink made me crack up.
Save the fact that the entire AMV relied on the humor of Cloud and the crew being Ghostbusters, the AMV with Final Fantasy Advent Children was well edited, with amusing FX of Cloud’s sword made incorporated into a Ghostbusters icon, news flashes of the gang saving the day, and others. If you were at Sakuracon ’08, the AMV received a warm reception over there too.
Funny, well-edited, and goofy, the AMV with Ouran High School Host Club was pleasantly comical, even though I haven’t even watched the show. While parts were a bit too literal, and the jokes weren’t particularly astounding nor original, this AMV was solid and one of the best in the category.
PRO
Here come some of the most impressively edited AMVs I’ve yet seen. These are the pure breeds:
- Distorted Lore, Petite Cossette, Skillet, “?”
- ?, Ah! Megami-sama, Michael Mansion, “Let Me In” Darwin Remix
- Mild Syndrome, Higurashi no Naku Koro ni, Chaotica, “Unstable”
- Rainbow Revolution, too many to count, Flair, “Brand New___”
- One-Eyed Fish, Mushishi, Nightwish, “Song of the___”
- All of the Otaku, Haruhi, Lucky Star, Others, ?, “The Game of Love” E=MC2 mix
- Condemned Memoir, Elfen Lied, Birthday Massacre, “Blue”
The second Pro AMV, the one about Ah! Megami-sama was sweet, cute, and had a soothingly beautiful coordination among the scenes, FX, and song. While the AMV had a lot of blue, which made Bell and Keichi seem to be…um…drowning, the song and editing really made the video seem “divine”, and did what all series-specific AMVs should do - invoke nostalgia about the best scenes of a an anime. Solid.
Perhaps the least flashy, the Mushishi AMV had a subtle, evanescently beautiful feel to its smooth transitions and entrancing scenes.
A moe explosion of crazy color and frenzied cut-outs Haruhi and others, “All of the Otaku” impressed me while also leaving me nauseated. Chickaboom, the editor, painted with all the colors of the wind and showed me a whole new world just beyond the river ben…wait. Haven’t I seen something like this before? Koop? Koop? Can I have some Skittles?
Wow. I thought I was tripping when I was watching “Rainbow Revolution”. With a solid command of FX, this AMV was definitely on par with “Rainbow Revolution,” and was perhaps even crazier with colors and images flying and merging everywhere. However, I could sense that the editor was trying a little too hard to please, sacrificing coherence between and within scenes to make the video visually stunning. With a myriad number of FX combining numerous clips from different anime, the focus of the AMV was never a exhibition of the editor’s interest in certain series. Instead, it was a devolved form of an impressive, yet random showcase of editing skill.
A strange way to end the series of mostly happy, jumpy Pro videos, the final AMV was a horror based display of intense editing and an even more intense anime. With FX like blood appearing as writing on a wall, pictures with moving images tacked on to another wall, and various others, this AMV was an impressive conclusion to a great series of masterpieces.
Well, now that my long review is over, I have to say that all in all, I was not disappointed by this year’s AX AMV Contest. Perhaps because of many entered videos, good filtering, or rising talent, these AMVs were excellent, and nothing short of entertaining. It was hard for me to choose favorites, but if I had to come up with only one favorite per category I watched, it’d be:
RHO’S PICKS
- DRAMA: The Saikano AMV
- COMEDY: “The Harassment of Kyon”
- PRO: The Ah! Megami-sama AMV
The other guys from BrokenAnime seemed to really like the DeathNote AMV for Drama, and “Condemned Memior” (Elfen Lied) for Pro. If you all get a chance, look these up on YouTube. There’s some good stuff out there that really made me want to make some AMVs of my own.
-Rho
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is there a Haurhi at the expo? afterall how can a expo/convention be without a Haruhi or Miku? ^^;
tons of haruhi zomg. too many to take one. but ill take one tomorrow just for you if i see a good one
I have toi say that as the years gio by the wigs get better… the FF chars in your pics have almost perfect/anime hair!
haha yup i agree.