I freaking love anime music videos. I remember going around to people’s dorm rooms to watch ones they’d downloaded, in the days before YouTube, and keeping a collection of my favorites burned to CD to free up precious disk space on my computer. (Many of these were back from the days when all I had for hard drive space was 12 gigabytes, spread across three hard drives… my cellphone has more storage space than that now!) These are just a handful of my favorites – not all of them are available anymore, and a handful of them, including a certain Pikachu-themed video some of my friends might remember that’s done to a Mindless Self Indulgence song, aren’t exactly family friendly – and I do try to keep it family friendly here, for the most part – so here, enjoy some anime music videos from days gone by!
Jinnai and the Bugrom
I first saw this one at Otakon back in 2005, during an AMV competition. The song promptly got stuck in my head for the next week. It was really well done – I remember scrambling to find some paper to write down the name of the video, so I could find it when I got home, haha.
Evangelion: Engel
This is one a friend of mine showed me back in 2001 – I was in awe of how amazing it was, especially with the meticulous attention to lip syncing and everything… it was great! Plus, the whole video is just… awesome. Definitely one of my most favorite videos.
No need for Polka!
Because what’s an anime music video roundup without some Tenchi Muyo done to Weird Al? 😀
Mini Goddess – Everybody Have Fun
I think this may have been my first introduction to Oh! My Goddess ever. I was… mildly curious, after seeing this – I knew it wasn’t the actual series, but I was all “hmm, just what the heck is that show about?” (Interesting tangent – the Oh! My Goddess movie was the first DVD I ever owned. I still have it, too!)
Sailor Moon on Jerry Springer!
What else can be said? It’s Sailor Moon. On Jerry Springer. Thanks to Weird Al. (Stick around and watch to the very end – there’s a pretty amusing mention of Save Our Sailors, a campaign to bring back Sailor Moon that many of the younger Sailor Moon fans may not remember (or even know about). SOS was a little out in left field, to say the least…
Daft Punk – One More Time
And this last one is actually an official anime music video – way back in the early part of the last decade (yikes, I feel so old just saying that!), Daft Punk had an entire anime movie made for their album Discovery, and this is the first part. The movie, for those curious, is Interstella 5555 – The 5tory of the 5ecret 5tar 5ystem. (yes, lots of fives) It’s really, really good, especially for what’s essentially an anime with no speaking roles.
Hope everyone enjoyed this peek into yesteryear – if anyone else has any favorite anime music videos they want to share, post them in the comments!