My favorite AMV from Anime Boston
Now I’m not the biggest fan of fan-created anime music videos, but I was very impressed with what we were presented with at the AMV contest at Anime Boston last week. But one video in particular made a large impact on me.
Several months ago, I was shown the works of Makoto Shinkai, and I was blown away with this man’s imagination. He is able to use the medium of anime and Science Fiction to convey some of the most realistic human emotions I’ve ever seen on screen. So when I saw that his “The Place Promised in Our Early Days” was going to be the subject of this AMV, I was a little worried on how they would treat such a masterpiece.
As it turns out, the lyrics this song, “Change the World” by Anberlin, not only rightly symbolizes the power of Shinkai’s work, but also of the power of anime itself. As the prime example was being shown on the big screen, my whole philosophy on the medium was being sung out in a catchy tune. I got goose-bumps over it. Yes, I had the same reaction over an AMV as I did with the anime!
The funny thing is that I didn’t vote for the song at all in the contest. I felt that the one point in which the characters were lip-syncing to the song was very cheesy, so my vote went for my 2nd favorite video in the category. But then two days later, I attended the panel where they announced the winners. Thankfully everyone else voted for it, and it won for its category. They screened the video again, and as the goose-bumps came back, I knew I had made a mistake for not choosing this one. I immediately got on my laptop, logged onto iTunes, and downloaded the song right there via the convention’s wireless connection. I listened to the song several times on my way home from Boston, and have been singing the line “We are the lost ones” to myself all week long.
And now, through the miracle of the web 2.0 era, I present to you the AMV:
If you have yet to see “The Place Promised in Our Early Days” or Shinkai’s earlier work, “Voices of a Distant Star”, I strongly recommend you check out these fine works of art and storytelling.
