I’ve always been a big fan of AMVs. Years ago, I would find and archive my favorites and then show them to my buddies when we’d hang out at IHOP. It was always a great way to start conversations about music and anime. Over the years, my focus on AMVs has waned. Fortunately, that has now changed.

Lately, we’ve been having groups of friends over to the house frequently, and queuing up some AMV Hell on the HTPC is a great way to keep everyone entertained and talking. This has broken my fast and got me back into digging around for some great AMVs, and great AMVs are what I found. I had never Nostromo is my new-found favorite AMV creator. Checking out his deviantART page, I found that he’s from Paris, has a pretty sweet computer setup, creates some cool images, and is a fellow fan of The Big Bang Theory. Also, considering how he is younger than me by a few years and has created some awesome AMVs, I am incredibly jealous (even though I have no knack for creating AMVs and probably never will create one myself).

Nostromo, to you I tip my hat. You have some amazing work that not only has me hooked on AMVs again, but you also have me purchasing music because I enjoy your music selections so much. Thanks for introducing me to Watch Them Fall Down by DJ Spoke and Lifelight by Andy Hunter.

I’d have to say that two of his AMVs stick out as definite favorites of mine. I’ve included vids of them here so you can check them out.

Galaxy Bounce by Nostromo

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Auriga by Nostromo

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The Youtube vids don’t do adequate justice to the quality in his vids nor to the audio (even though I embedded the high-quality versions). You can find the full-quality versions of the videos on Anime Music Videos.org at the following links: Auriga and Galaxy Bounce.

If you haven’t been bitten by the AMV bug yet, what are you waiting for? Browse around the Anime Music Videos.org site.  You can search by song and by anime so you can find something that you are sure to enjoy quickly. After digging around for a while, start looking at random videos, you never know when you will find something that makes you want to watch an anime that you’ve never seen before or when you’ll discover an artist that you’ver never heard before.

Another great way to jump into AMVs is to watch the AMV Hell videos. Make sure you pay attention to the warnings as some of them have explicit content. AMV Hell 2 and 3 are definitely my favorites. They are huge movie-length videos that are composed of dozens of songs.

In closing, I leave with a short AMV that I enjoy that features scenes from Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence. The video is called Project Xanthium by Niotex and features You’ll be Under My Wheels by Prodigy

[youtube]oZcwdFdZ2Hc[/youtube]

Good news. I was contacted by someone with AnimeFest earlier today, and I got my registration taken care of.

So, let this be a lesson. If you having a hard time getting a group to contact you, call them repeatedly, send emails to every address you can find, post on the forum, and send PMs to every person on the forum who has a title.

So AnimeFest is about a month away. My friends and I have been planning on attending for about six months now, and we’re really getting excited. About three weeks ago, I tried to register and hit a big snag. The payment page apparently has problems since it refuses to try to process my card and tells me to call a number instead.

Fast-forward to today, and I have called that number many times and left a number of messages with callback details, I have sent multiple emails, and I have posted on the official forum. To date, I have not received a single call, email, or forum response. From looking at the forum, I’m not the only one having problems as artists and merchants are running into problems and pulling out their hair since no one will confirm or deny their registration, give them information that they require to be able to set up their table, or give them any type of response to their questions.

Worst case scenario, I have to pay for my registration when I get there. It won’t kill me, but my biggest concern is how this will affect the con in the long run. They obviously have some core logistical problems. If these problems aren’t dealt with in a timely manner, this might be a sign that AnimeFest is starting to fall apart.