all time top ten AMVs on YouTube (August 2021)

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I attempted this twice before, once in 2017 and again in 2019. On both occasions I probably missed some videos that should have made the cut.

Several AMVs from previous lists have been removed from YouTube since those lists were made, including:
Pokemon AMV - Battle of Legends - Overkill (edited by Anime Lovers)
Undertale - Genocide - Animações (AMV) (edited by Iberis)
AMV Mmm Mmm yeah yeah! (editor unknown)
AMV | || Ahlam song || Emy Hetari | حلمي تحطم واختفى- اغنية مؤثرة وجميلة | (editor unknown)

Several of these have been reuploaded but there is no way to tell how many views the original uploads had at the tim ethey were removed, so we will consider the view count for all of those to be restarted at zero.

For the purposes of this list, videos edited with anime, video game footage or other animation are eligible. Live action "AMVs" are not. Videos made with original animation ("Shelter," etc.) are also not considered for these lists.

I may have missed some important AMVs that should have made the list. If this is the case, please let me know about it!

I'm listing the videos as being "uploaded by" the person who uploaded them rather than "edited by" because without the uploader expressly saying that they created the video, it can sometimes be difficult to tell who actually made it. So I'm not guessing or wasting time trying to play detective with each one of these.

Once again--surprise!--this will be a top 12 list so here goes.



12. Dragon Ball Super 「 AMV 」- Goku vs. Gohan - Centuries
uploaded by Mleczu
upload date: May 15, 2017

63,593,668 views

It's tough to tell if this video is really "edited" or not, or at least that's what I was thinking until the unexpected crossfade at 1:47. Tons of shaky scenes, orphan frames, subtitles, a shame since the video quality is actually really good. Hope you like Fall Out Boy. If you don't, you may have chosen the wrong hobby. There's some internal sync here, with so much punching it would be difficult for many not to land on a beat. Let me know if anyone else gets this at the end of the video or if it's just me.







11. Sonic Boom | My Demons
uploaded by Sonic's world
upload date: February 25, 2019

65,916,005 views

No credit given to the artist of the song and none of the usual autodetect from YouTube listing the music that appears in the video, but it's another video featuring "My Demons" by Starset. Footage ripped from malware-embedding free streaming service Kisscartoon (see upper left watermark) after it was originally ripped from Cartoon Network (see lower left watermark). My first impression was that this was all from a single episode, but further scenes containing a completely different watermark (Canal J, a French television channel devoted to children's programming) suggests otherwise. Lots and lots and lots of lip flap. No viewer comments are allowed on this particular video, so if you have anything to say about it, this might be your one and only chance! Judging by the recommended videos in the YouTube sidebar (and also the "Try YouTube Kids" link listed below the video) this has definitely been flagged as children's content, which would seem to be the kiss of death when it comes to being pushed by the algorithm outside of that segregated category, yet here we are.

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10. [AMV] Naruto Vs Pain - Sucker Believer (Imagine Dragons)
uploaded by Underneath The Underneath
upload date: February 13, 2019

70,930,630 views

Compared to the two previous AMVs, there's a lot of internal and external sync in this one, at least during the opening two minutes. There's two songs in this and the whole thing is almost seven minutes long, and the effort drops off exponentially with every passing minute. I understand the external audio that functions as a bridge between the two songs (and I kind of like it), but the only other case of the editor trying this (at 0:18) really sticks out and does not sound good at all. This is another Naruto vs. Pain video. You've probably seen this before.







9. U Got That | FULL VERSION [MMV]
uploaded by Pantsu Shot
upload date: October 11, 2018

71,950,611

This video is absolutely filthy. I had nothing like this when I was 10 and I simply cannot imagine what life would be like for the kids that have it now. Without digging too deeply into it, I've come across a couple other MMVs on other channels that have copied the quick cuts/zoom/looped scenes recipe that Pantsu Shot rode to success here. This might have been one of those low key seriously influential videos that's reshaped this hobby right under our nose without complete dorks like me even noticing it. This is really impressive on a technical level but kind of hollow in every other respect, but if you're actually trying to critique it then the joke is probably on you.

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8. Dragon Ball Super [AMV] - Courtesy Call
uploaded by Phantom
upload date: October 23, 2015

76,268,125 views

I hate it.







7. DBZ Tapion - Hay siempre un sentimiento muerto en un corazon roto [AMV]
uploaded by [AMV-By-Grochu]
upload date: January 31, 2013

82,745,030 views

This was not made for me so maybe I can keep my opinions to myself for once? Spanish rap by an artist who's actually released Dragonball-themed music, I can't understand any of this. It's okay. Footage taken from a 1995 DBZ movie, which looks absolutely beautiful compared to much more recent installments of the franchise, at least when taken out of context for a fan edit like this. The next time someone tells you to cut your songs for editing, show them this 8-minute AMV that has more views than all their favorite AMVs put together.

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6. Transformers Prime Bumblebee AMV Noots
uploaded by Rock Fire
upload date: April 6, 2013

94,708,779 views

When I first made a list like this back in 2017, this was the most-viewed AMV of all time. Maybe something with more views slipped through the cracks and it technically shouldn't have been, but yeah, here's your former #1 AMV ever! Rock Fire hasn't released any videos in six years and probably doesn't think about the mark they left on the world, but the comments left by viewers indicate that this video left a deep and lasting impression on a whole generation.








5. Sparkle | Your Name AMV
uploaded by Tranquility
upload date: June 5, 2018

109,208,145 views

There are some really good moments in this. Quite a few, really. And there's a couple of puzzling cuts that feel kinda random and drag this AMV down from the heights it's clearly aiming for. I was getting ready to praise this for its technical mastery, but it didn't take long for an orphan frame to shake that illusion (and the cut at 5:28, why?). For better or worse, this is Your Name: The AMV and if you have a soft spot in your heart for this film, you're probably going to like it. I have heard/seen people talk about this song like it's a divinely-inspired masterpiece of miraculous beauty. That's not an opinion I share but it works great in the film and hey, here it is again! "Even though this song was years ago, it still hits differently and you can feel a nostalgic feeling up in your minds," says one comment. I feel the same about Tiger King, I remember it like it was yesterday...

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4. Sonic // Monster // Skillet // AMV/GMV
uploaded by JACK THE KNIGHT
upload date: October 30, 2015

135,369,373 views

I still don't understand how this band got as big as they did, weathering years of failure and desperate trend-chasing only to somehow break the YouTube algorithm and touch the hearts of Sonic fans around the world. The transition from mid-tier Christian music festival band (look at these sweet children!) to middle aged Three Days Grace-ripoffs/Trump apologists is... I don't know what it is but of course we deserve it. "i used to watch this thinking i was emo when i was 6 ," says one comment. "when i was 3 i love this now im 9 still love" says another. The glitch in the algorithm that made those experiences possible is still with us and why your future kids will have their own stories to tell about losing their Sonic/Skillet virginity before they even started preschool.








3. you can be king again
uploaded by youlazybum
upload date: December 13, 2013

153,355,802 views

youlazybum was one of us and if we'd recognized a good thing when we had it, she might still be here today. But she did not stick around to announce her second AMV, and considering the success it had out in the wild, maybe that was for the best. I'm still astounded that this ever got as big as it did, not riding the popularity of a big anime title or a song that was ever going to get lots of hits. I have never watched Hotarubi No Mori E but I gather this AMV is a pretty straightforward telling of the film, and in that regard it works extremely well, condensing the narrative down into four minutes in a way that's immediately understandable and easy to follow. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking AMV, it makes absolutely no sense that it topped this list two years ago and is still appreciated by a general audience that almost never rewards patient editing or actual human emotion in music videos.

The kid at 3:01 is the most despicable villain in the history of anime.

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2. HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA
uploaded by ProtoOfSnagem
upload date: November 7, 2010

187,828,726 views

Were you expecting something else here?

Maybe this is common knowledge but this is new to me: this video is not the original/complete version of what everyone has come to know as the "He-Man Sings" meme. This video was created in 2005 and the original (and highest quality!) four and a half minute-long version of it was uploaded to YouTube in 2007 on the original creators' channel. The 2:06-length excerpt embedded above by ProtoOfSnagem--who to their credit does mention in the video description "please note I do not own this video"--is considerably lower in quality than the original and cuts out both the opening minute-plus and the end credits/post-credits scene. At the time of this post, the above video has 54 times as many views as the original creators' upload. But this is what the people wanted, I guess. Why is "Fabulous Secret Powers," "HEYYEYAAEYAAAEYAEYAA" or "He-Man Sings" never included in the discussion of seminal AMVs that made this hobby what it is? It probably did more to introduce the average person online to fan-created animated music videos than anything else in this stinking joint ever did

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1. MV | Jack Stauber - Buttercup
uploaded by lisuga
upload date: March 13, 2018

202,215,674 views

When I first began to wonder what the most-viewed AMV on YouTube was, I expected the results to confirm my suspicions: content related to popular search terms, popular anime and popular songs would rise to the top and dominate any remotely-accurate list I could put together. For the most part, with the exception of a video like "you can be king again," this is pretty much how it all shook out. But then you have this AMV, which couldn't possibly be any more different than most of the videos that I've listed here or on any of the previous attempts I'd made to chart this kind of thing.

I first noticed this AMV almost two years ago when it had 30 million views. Since then, it's been racking up almost two million views per week despite featuring footage from an independently-produced anime short that, despite its provocative content, is simply not going to be raking in the hits anywhere close to a work featuring Naruto, Dragonball Z or Transformers AMV. Jack Stauber, the artist behind the song in this video, has enjoyed a following on YouTube (and possibly TikTok, according to sources) that's more than what most artists of his status ever get (i.e. musicians who've never really charted), so while I don't want to say that he's a nobody, this is not a video that's getting hits from an artist who's already popular. How did this get so popular?

These creative decisions are not meant as an answer to the above question, they're just observations but I don't think they're insignificant. This is a lyric video for a song where the lyrics are occasionally a little hard to understand. And the editor (lisuga, not simply a reuploader but the actual creator of this AMV) has cropped the 16:9 footage to fit nicely into a square frame--which I thought would somehow make it perfect for viewing on a mobile device but that is not really how videos on YouTube work, it's still a 16:9 video with a solid color background that is constantly changing to match whatever the dominant/average color is on screen. This has got to be doing something for someone, but exactly what I'm really not sure. There's plenty of moments of great internal sync. The editing preserves the linear order of the scenes, cutting out most of the anime that doesn't feature the wrestling matches that begin and end the 13-minute short. If you're not familiar with Kick-Heart, as most people just aren't going to be, then you're probably going to assume this was an original and "official" music video. What else could it possibly be?

To the creator's credit, and this is going far above and beyond the credit that most editors try to give to the source materials they work with and the artists that created them, lisuga does not want to pull attention or praise away from Jack Stauber or Masaaki Yuasa. This comment was posted after the video had reached half a million views.



A Spanish-subtitled reupload of this video has over 9 million views, although it's likely an AMV that was re-created from scratch to match the original, except with a 16:9 aspect ratio and a fuzzy video filter slapped on top. I'm not factoring in those views to add to the total here, but it does speak to the unexpected reach and popularity of this AMV.

This is one of the weirder things that's ever happened in this hobby and I love it.

[SynaesthesiaVideos]

this is really interesting! and I really sympathize with the editor lisuga and having a little guilt for making a vido so popular that it might overshadow the music/anime artists. I've consciously avoided editing with songs that already have a really good music video by the artist, because I would hate to take away views from their original video

[guilherme_1988]

Interesting. I will make a topic with my top 10 amv soon.

[Katranat]

It was thoroughly entertaining reading your thoughts on some of these videos. It's also rather fascinating seeing the type of AMV's that get these astronomical amount of views, thank you for putting this together every couple of years!