Welcome to my AMV Review Blog. Another attempt at reviewing AMV's (Anime Music Videos), using my own brand of critiquing and knowledge. Reviews will happen randomly and without any set date in mind. This edition's video is Kiarrens's-Ouran Day and Songbird21's Unbreakable. Both videos were announced at AnimeMusicVideos.org this week, and I find them both as a supply of water in a drought of mediocrity and staleness. Both also have deep messages within their videos, and have a powerful emotional effect on viewers.



Review of Ouran Day:

Ouran Day was the winner of the Anime Boston Con Best Romance Category and I can easily see why. The Hauri/Tamaki romance was well portrayed with Vanessa Carlton's Ordinary day melody. The audio and video meld together to create a realm of a fairy-tale romance. The story (to me anyway) portrayed Haurhi as a girl who wanted more out of her life. Instead of her anime character's usual "strong willedness", I was struck with her being seen as the "weak and helpless" girl. The girl that needed a man in her life in order to make everything right (this is definitly evident with the picture of her mother being picked up by Tamaki). I personally liked this Haurhi persona. It makes it even better when she goes after her man, when he plans on leaving with another woman. Then we're back to the overall characterization of Tamki. I couldn't help but feel as though he was also WAY out of his usual character. Instead of his goofy/naiive persona, we're given this elegant and beautiful man whose kindness is like a waterfall continuesly flowing out. This is evident in him picking up Haruhi's wallet, picking up and being kind to the little girl, as well as his extended hand. I couldn't help but see this as a beautiful metaphor. Tamaki always extended his hand to those who needed him, and he always wanted to make everyone happy. I liked that. What made that even better was when Haurhi did the same thing to him at the ending with the horse carrige. Thus, I enjoyed the romantic story. However, we come to the central issue in the plotline. It's very cliche. It fits the Ouran High School Host Club cookie cutter mold. In fact, if I hadn't known any better, it was a lot like a ton of Ouran Videos out there. That's where the analyis of the editing comes in. *smiles* The editing Kiarrens chose was really quite nice. It melded a slow editing styles (for maximum visual effect) with a fast paced editing (for the dramatic flair) style. By combining the two, we have this video that can stand out (granted, a little) among the crowd. However, there was some fault with her scene selection. Kiarrens selected scenes in the romance based on the anime in areas that I felt were out of place. Most noticabley at the end. For a romance-based story, there sure were a lot of characters. I can understand at the beginning with Tamaki and the other characters, as it sets up Tamaki's character profile for the viewer to understand. However, at the end it looked out of place. After the carrige scene, I couldn't quite understand why Haurhi would want to dance with some random guy (Kyoga) when she's just had the most romantic sense of her life. Then again, I guess if you were basing this AMV off of the ouran plot, it would work, but I don't, so it didn't. Another thing that I found slightly aggrivating was the red headed girl. She was introducted into the
AMV so late that I was shocked as to why she was exactly there. I know the AMV had to have a climax, but I would have appriciated a more slowly intergrated plot conflict (like images of Haurhi and the girl having an argrument or the girl making her move on Tamaki). Again, we're stuck with the necessity of knowing the Ouran High School Host Club plot to understand the more intricate details of the overall concept. Moving on to more technical aspects (which I distaste :| ), Kiarrens did a great job with filtering and compressing. MP4 Compression was achieved well, and the video quality was gorgeous. Aspect Ratio was correct, and the audio was also well taken into account. Let's move on to another aspect of the video, shall we? We come to the lip sync intergrated into the video. Normally, I would not have minded, however, the fact that it was TAMAKI doing the lip syncing with a woman's voice as the audio, it buggedm e. Had it been Haruhi, it would have been fine, but I believe the lip sync took away from the overall video. Personally, I love this AMV. When I watched it the first time I got really irked that I'm without a girlfriend. :\ Thanks a lot for that one.

All kidding aside, here is the scores for Ouran Day.
Concept: 8/10 (Two points deducted for plot inconsistances)
Technical: 10/10 (Visually gorgeous)
Editing: 6/10(Two points deducted for scene selection inconsistancy & 2 points for lip sync)
Reaction: 8/10 (Two points deducted for negative reaction in lip sync)
Personal Points: 8/10 (Two points deducted for plot requiring knowledge of anime)

40/50 = 80% B



On to our second video!

Review of Unbreakable

Going through the video once, I had an adrenaline rush that made me want to make a weird Naruto hand sign and go beat the living shit out of something. Or get a demon sword and slice the crap out of some forest. But I digress. The reaction out of the video is enough to make me want to go "squee!". Songbird's selection of muliple sources was brilliant and well executed. To me, this was a brilliant use of many sources that would be considered "overused". Combining the high paced action of these anime, with the high paced beat of the song was a brilliiant combination. Now, I know thta there was a plot intended withtin the video, but to be completely honest, most viewers are going to disregard it. Either because they are assholes and see Naruto and go ewwww, or because they're like me and get caught up in the action of the video and enjoy it simply for its content rather than for it plot and concept. Now, here's where my review is going to head a little south. Ok, we're talking artic south where we all freeze our asses off, but I don't care. Bring a sweater. At the very climax of the video, naruto is rotoscoped and lipsynced. This is the biggest piece of trashy shit that I have seen in a LONG time. Naruto is blurry, and it looks like some kung fu dubbed movie. What's worse is that it covers up Keichi and Belldandy, where some other awesome effect could have been intergrated. We're talking serious failure here, people. I nearly quit watching the video simply because of that! Totally inneffective and annoying. Moving on..... *gets heart rate back down*. Some of the other digital effects were actually quite innovative and well executed. Lens flares at the beginning & color changes with shana foogtage at the end was well done, and well appriciated. Editing itself complimented the digital effects. The action was fast paced during the chorus, and slows down for a more plot-based section during the slower parts. And again, I am going to switch gears and make a total ass out of myself again. While to me it's insignifigant, I'm obliged to point out the fact that the aspect ratio in several of the sections are incorrect (though it doesn't take a damn thing away from the video :P) .



Concept: 8/10 (Two points deducted for plot inconsistances)
Technical: 10/10 (Visually gorgeous)
Editing: 6/10(Two points deducted for scene selection inconsistancy & 2 points for lip sync)
Reaction: 8/10 (Two points deducted for negative reaction in lip sync)
Personal Points: 8/10 (Two points deducted for plot requiring knowledge of anime)