Listed! Top 8 AMV (Including Western Animation)

The term AMV stands for Anime Music Video, although any animation is allowed in them, whether it originated in Japan or in the west.  Here is my own personal top eight AMVs that are currently found on YouTube.  It took me a long time to determine what order I wanted to put them in, since they’re all so good.

Do you have any favourites I missed?  List your own favourites in the comments below!

 

8) Beautiful Goodbye
Cardcaptor Sakura Movie 2: The Sealed Card
Song: Amanda Marshall

Using one of Amanda Marshall’s most powerful songs most effectively, Beautiful Goodbye tells the story of the second Cardcaptor Sakura movie, the conclusion to the entire series, so if you’re still working your way through the anime over on Netflix, there are spoilers in this video (although you might not know quite what’s going on).

Sakura’s battle against the Nothing, which gradually depowers her throughout the film by stealing her cards and erasing part of her world at the same time, is shown pretty much in its entirety, so feel free to skip this one if you do fear spoilers.

 

7) Dash’s Determination
My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Song: “Icarus” by Mythos

An early motivation of Rainbow Dash in this series was to join the Wonderbolts, an elite squad of pegasi who throughout the series, were shown to be a cross between the Air Force and barnstormers.  Apparently there was enough need for a military-style squadron of elite fliers but not so much that a separate group of stunt fliers were needed, and so the Wonderbolts filled both roles.

Here we have a video which, while it does feature footage from the series, is so heavily edited together that it might not qualify as an AMV, but it’s so well done that I just had to include it.

 

6) Hanging By A Moment
The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride
Song: Lifehouse

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ae-eVctpz4A

For some reason, the makers of the sequel to The Lion King had an obsession with the wind swirling around their lion characters and ruffling their manes, so the opening riff of this Lifehouse song fits the video well.

The video tells the story of Kovu and Kiara’s growing relationship, long before The Lion Guard tried to muddy the canon and is potentially the cutest of the videos listed today.

 

5) Hey Ya!
A Charlie Brown Christmas
Song: OutKast

If there’s one thing I like about AMVs, it’s when the creator goes out of their way to sync up the lip flaps.  You’ll notice as we get closer to the number one video that their creators put some effort into matching the song lyrics to the characters.  Well, here’s the Peanuts singing an OutKast song as if they were always meant to.

I also am almost 100% certain that I’ll have to watch this list closely in the future since this particular video has a reputation for copyright strikes.

 

4) Kiss Right Through The Night
Beastars!
Song: “What Am I” by Molly Shiveley

This is the most recent video on my list, created by the very talented Alpha Wolf Kodi.  As a tribute to the anime Beastars!, this video reframes the anime as a romance between Legosi and his roommate Jack.  After watching this for the first time, I found myself wishing that this version of the anime existed alongside the version we did get.  The video also uses my favourite cover version of a song originally by Why Don’t We.  I’m not ashamed to say that when I first discovered this video, I watched it over and over.

Legosi really is a silly woof!

 

3) Gravity of Love
Final Fantasy IX
Song: Enigma

It was very hard for me to figure out how to arrange my top three, but I think the AMV that synced up so well to the cutscenes of my favourite video game of all time only makes it in at number three.  This might change in the future, so know that if I were scoring these videos, there’s be tenths, maybe hundredths of a point difference between this video and the next two.  And to be honest, that’s true about the entire top eight.  If you rounded to the nearest whole number, I’d probably end up rating all of these videos exactly the same.

 

2) Fireflies
Animash (various animated films including Lady and the Tramp II: Scamp’s Adventure, Balto and Bolt)
Song: Owl City

It’s Alpha Wolf Kodi again!  You know someone’s talented when they appear on a list like this twice.

An “Animash” here is defined as an AMV that mashes together a lot of different properties into one video.  Like “Dash’s Determination” above, this video is very heavily edited, but that just makes it all the better.  It also uses one of my favourite songs of all time, so that’s a bonus, too.

 

1) Skittles
The Melancholy of Haruhi Suzumiya
Song: “CANDY POP” by Heartsdales feat. SOUL’d OUT

It turns out there’s only one video can beat two Alpha Wolf Kodi videos, and that’s this one.  Just like “Hey Ya” above, the creator of this video went out of their way to match lip flaps to the lyrics of this song, and there’s a lot of lyrics.  They also assigned a character to each of the singers who collaborated on the song.  This must’ve required a lot of work, but it was clearly worth it.  I’ve never seen a video as good as this one and I’m not sure I’ll ever find another one quite like it.