Grievous

Video: Wolf's Rain, Trigun, Vision of Escaflowne, Neon Genesis Evangelion, K (TV), Made In Abyss, Princess Mononoke, 91 Days, Death Note, Death Parade, Grave of the Fireflies, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 3: Rebellion, Akira (movie), Death Note: Relight 2: L's Successors (movie), Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, Puella Magi Madoka Magica The Movie Part 1: Beginnings, DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything (webtoon)
Audio: The Everlove – Cruel
Premiere Date: 2019
Status: Downloadable, Streamable
Genre(s): Drama, Serious, Sentimental
Cons/Awards: n/a
Outside Links: .org
Categories: Music videos, Featured videos

Original description:

I had goals to make this more than just a compilation of cruel scenes from anime. Unfortunately, my story telling capabilities aren’t as good as I’d hoped.

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I’m not entirely happy with this, but I have let it sit for so long, I wanted to get it to “finished, not perfect” status so I could move on to other projects. (I started this September 2018.)

Personal goals:
– No blood
– No gore
– Don’t go the easy route (overused popular/obvious scenes)
– If I do use a popular scene/anime, infer most the action to avoid use of said specific scene. Or change it some way.
– Homage to some of my most liked moments in old anime
– Retain some semblance of story rather than just a cruel montage

I think I did okay. The blood thing proved especially limiting.
I wanted to avoid Death Note entirely in the beginning, but to focus on story I re-added it. I have avoided almost all the expected scenes, however.
I’ve remade portions of this at least 3 times, several anime were considered, added, then removed. In the end I am mostly happy with this. My biggest complaint is that the cruelty of the Dildandau character in Vision of Escaflowne (my favorite anime) is not conveyed well in animation and so likely gets lost among the madness of the AMV unless you’re familiar with the anime. This “implied cruelty” is the same for some other points, but I think those specific anime are so well-known that the message is clear anyway, even among those who have not seen those anime, they probably know what it refers to.

Overall, this was a challenge. It is my first full-length AMV in many years, and is also one of my first various anime AMVs. I think I will stick to single anime AMVs from now on, hah.

There is an unaccounted for video source in here. The “game start”, dice, game stat page things, and a couple random scenes are from a Korean webtoon called “DICE: The Cube That Changes Everything”.

Special thanks to Tirazel, Requiett, Replay, and Mango.

Below is the final video and the betas, if you’re interested in the creative process.