Earlier today, ANN published Metropolis: The Lost Madhouse Masterpiece, about an anime film from the turn of the century that doesn’t get much discussion today… Probably because it’s not streaming anywhere and as AFIAK never did.
But it reminded of this… The first AMV I ever saw, long before I was into anime or knew what AMV’s even were.
Saw this sometime not long after the turn of the century, and regularly sought it out thereafter… It combines music from one of my favorite albums (ELO’s seminal album Time) with imagery from the anime for a stunning whole.
We rented the movie off of Netflix many years ago, back when we were starting to watch anime, but I don’t recall it all that well. Most that it seemed to be a bit tedious and had serious pacing problems.
Doing some searching about, seems there’s quite a few ELO AMV’s… And of course ELO’s Prologue + Twilight is the soundtrack to one of the earliest AMV’s – the Daicon IV Opening. May have to do a post someday.
Anyhow, just thought I’d share while it was on my mind. Feel free to drop a comment and let me know your thoughts!
Apprentice Mages Lounge. 
Oh, I love [i]Time[/i]. I don’t own the record myself; I only had a copy tape, and I didn’t hear those as often as the records I had myself. So the only songs I really know well are the three hits: Twilight, Hold on Tight, and Is This the Way Life’s Meant to Do. But one song I only know from the album and remember quite clearly because it left such an outstanding impression is Ticket to the Moon. Such a beautiful ballad, this.
Metropolis… I almost saw the film ones. I think it would have been in the early 2000s, when I went to Vienna where a small indipendent cinema had an anime weekend. I had to pick and choose when I was there (because I wouldn’t go to Vienna just for anime, and also because I didn’t go alone and the other people I went with had limited interest in anime). I saw Perfect Blue (German dub), Roujin Z (English dub with German subs) and Spirited Away (German dub – the new show). I’d have seen one other film, but they delivered the wrong reel, so a Wallace and Grommit film started instead, which they then didn’t play and gave a refund (I think it would have been Ghost in the Shell, a film I hadn’t seen yet, back then). I seriously considered Metropolis, but the timing was bad.
That said, after watching the AMV I’m not so sure Metropolis would have been a very good choice for me. Late 90ies/early 2000s saw a bunch of CGI experiments in anime, with shows like Blue Submarine No. 6 and Earth Girl Arjuna being typical examples, and the highly experimental Final Fantasy: the Spirits Within being a full CGI film – pretty well done back then (and now video games outdo it). Also, I’m not sure if that’s the film, or just the way the video’s cut, but some segments come dangerously close to giving me motion sickness – I’d have had to close my eyes looking at the big screen. Actually, sometimes looked away even from the tiny insert window (which I’m normally fine with).
It’s sort of interesting that all this starts with an album called “Time”. I definitely travelled back two decades there (and further back if you include ELO).
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Yeah, Ticket to the Moon is lovely indeed. The one I recommend to people that’s not one of the big hits is “Yours Truly 2095″…
From my memories of the film and what (little) I know of your susceptibility, I suspect you’re right.
We’re all gettin’ older! :)
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Aww, Yours Trule 2095 is a nice track. As soon as I clikced play on it, I started to remember it somewhat – but not enough to sing along. I think most of the tracks would be like that. I listened to the tape quite a lot.
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Please do! The Daicon III/IV OP was my first AMV… we used to spread nth generation VHS copies among ourselves back in the mid 80s.
Fun fact: The Daicon III video was made by amateurs on home equipment… by Daicon IV several of them had gone pro (Hideaki Anno worked on the Valkyrie animation in Macross and the God Warrior animation in Nausicaa) and soon enough they founded Gainax.
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I was talking more about a post with ELO AMV’s than Daicon specifically… But you can’t really do a post about ELO AMV’s without bringing in Daicon IV can you? And ELO is one of my favorite bands.
For the crowd I ran with in the 80’s, it was mostly Nth generation VHS copies of various SF movies and TV episodes. What was available (which wasn’t much!) was soooo damm expensive. And the myriad of one-lung (and often one-off) SF cons didn’t police their vendors the way they do today.
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