Tsukino-Con AMV Contest 2026 - FINALISTS ANNOUNCED

[YourConscience]

THE FULL RULES

The Tsukino-Con AMV Contest is one of Tsukino-Con’s largest events, airing for about 2 hours at the con. The event is a showcase of fan-made music videos submitted directly by creators both local and from all over the world where you, the audience, get to vote on your favorites. The contest is open to anyone—amateurs, professionals, and everyone in between.

The deadline for submissions is: February 1st at 11:59pm PST

CATEGORIES:

Videos will be sorted into five categories:

1. Drama

2. Action

3. Fun/Upbeat

4. Romance/Sentimental

5. Best In BC

6. Comedy

Please note that these categories may be subject to adjustments depending on videos submitted.

GUIDELINES & REQUIREMENTS

Before you submit a video to the Tsukino-Con AMV Contest, please make sure it complies with our video requirements:

✦ Videos must be PG-13 and suitable for a con audience. Any songs with excessive swearing or anime footage with explicit nudity/violence/inappropriate themes will not be accepted.

✦ Videos released after January, 1, 2025 (that were not previously submitted to Tsukino-Con 2025) will be considered eligible for Tsukino-Con 2026

✦ All MEPS must have every creator credited who participated in the video.

✦ All art in AMVS, PMVS, etc, must not be slideshowed but have technical aspects within them in full-screen format.

✦ Videos must be between one (1) and six (6) minutes in length.

✦ Three (3) entries may be accepted per individual or group, to a maximum of one (1) per category. Submitting as part of a group counts as a submission for each individual.

✦ Videos must be 80% Japanese anime/manga, donghua or game footage.

✦ No credits, bumpers or trailers.

✦ No subtitles, watermarks, text, etc., exceptions may be made if they are added by the creator as part of the video.

✦ Voice overlays for dramatic effect are allowed as well as sound FX.

✦ All videos must be submitted by the original creator. Any submissions found to be in violation of this will not be accepted and you will be disqualified from participating in future contests.

✦ All AMVs must meet the technical requirements below.

✦ Any entries that use or are found to have used AI will not be accepted

TECHNICAL REQUIREMENTS

We will accept a variety of formats but recommend the following. If for whatever reason we’re not able to work with the format you’ve submitted, we’ll contact you as soon as possible so that you can re-submit. If you can’t re-submit within 48 hours of the deadline your submission will be disqualified.

☀ No low-resolution entries. 1280x720 or greater is suggested.

☀ No audio or video quality defects (interlacing, blurring, distortion, low sample rate, etc).

☀ Suggested container is MP4.

☀ Maximum file size of 500MB.

BEST OF BC REQUIREMENTS

Best of BC is a category exclusive to local AMV makers based in British Columbia. This category was created with the intent to help foster growth within our local community to create the next wave of AMV makers. This is an open category accepting all of the previously listed categories above. If you are a BC creator, you can choose to submit your video for its consideration in another category in addition to Best of BC. However, if your video is deemed a finalist in that category, it will not be considered a finalist in the Best Of BC category. If technical requirements aren’t met, however, we will try and email you back to get your submission in. (See requirements below.) Note: All BC videos will be shown during the exhibition. All AMV’s must meet these requirements for submission:

Techincal Requirements and Rules For Best Of BC:

Made by a resident living in British Columbia, Canada

Must meet the technical and the general requirements listed above.

Must not be a staff member working within the AMV contest circle for Tsukino-Con.

HOW TO SUBMIT

Complete the following form, or if you prefer, you can submit all videos directly to: amv@tsukinocon.com

Once we received your video we will send your confirmation that we have received it. If you do not receive confirmation within one week of sending your video in, please email us again.

JUDGING

Judging the entries for the AMV contest will consist of a panel of a minimum of three (3) to five (5) Tsukino-Con staff members. Of these members, the AMV Contest Coordinator must be in attendance. All categories must have a minimum of five (5) entries, no more than seven (7) entries will be permitted in a single category.

All videos that have been chosen by the judges will be shown at a panel and then judged by our lovely guests who choose to attend.

EXEMPTIONS

In the interest of fairness for all competitors, staff members who are involved with Tsukino-Con, are ineligible to submit videos for the contest.

AMV SMACKDOWN

AMVs that win contest awards will progress to the AMV Smackdown. Winning videos will compete head to head against winners in previous years to determine which winner is the current best in its respective categories. After audience voting, the winner of the head to head battle is crowned smackdown champion and will represent its winning category in the following Tsukino-Cons. If a Tsukino-Con 2026 winner wins both Best in Show and Best in Category, the video will represent Best in Show for the AMV Smackdown, while the runner up in the Best in Category will compete in the Best in Show's Category.



We're all looking forward to seeing all your videos, and hope to hear from you all soon. Happy Editing!

[YourConscience]

Good Evening editors!

We hope you all had a wonderful holiday season! We have just over a month to go before the deadline for submissions. Lots of time left and lots of room in every category for submissions!

We're looking forward to seeing more from you all!

Happy editing!

[YourConscience]

Good Morning, editors!

We have reached the three week remaining mark for submissions for Tsukino-Con's AMV contest! We're still looking for plenty of entries in all categories! You have until 11:59:59PM PST to submit, so keep up the hard work! We hope to see your videos real soon!

Happy Editing!

[JMI]

I submitted 3, thanks and I hope you get a good turn out.

[YourConscience]

I submitted 3, thanks and I hope you get a good turn out.

Thank you so much! It's greatly appreciated!


On that note, this is the Two Week Reminder for editors that we're nearing the deadline for Tsukino-Con's submissions! We're in the home stretch now so we at the convention are hoping that you're all having fun trimming, cutting, masking and editing all your videos! We'll be taking submissions until 11:59:59PM PST on February 1st so there is plenty of time to make any last minute adjustments! Next week, we'll be frequently editing the title to make sure you know how many days you have left!

We hope to see your videos soon!

Happy Editing!

[YourConscience]

Good evening, Editors!

Good to see that the site got back up pretty quickly. We're now one week away from the Tsukino-Con deadline, and we're excited to see what you bring to our table!

I'll be setting a countdown on the title so that you all know how much longer you have to submit. However, the key time to remember is 11:59:59 on Sunday, February 1st! I'll be up all evening that day to ensure your videos are screened!

Good luck, and happy editing!

[YourConscience]

Good Morning Editors!

It's Friday! And while normally you can get down on Friday, it is also important that you know that you have Three Days Remaining to submit videos!

Tsukino-Con is still accepting as I type this, and will be up until the bitter end at 11:59:59PM PST on February 1st ready to accept your videos!

We hope to see what you've created soon! Happy editing!

[YourConscience]

We're at the home stretch everyone! Two days left before we close up shop and work out who our finalists will be!

Best of luck on wrapping things up! We hope to hear from you soon!

Happy Editing!

[YourConscience]

And so, we're at Sunday! This is truly it! The last chance to dance!

Tsukino-Con is accepting entries all day until 11:59:59PM PST for all categories! It's already shaping to be our biggest year in terms of total submissions.

I'd like to thank you all for taking the time to submit! I'll be up all day to review all video submissions to make sure everything is reviewed! Make sure you've got the right file size version ready to go!

See you all tonight!

[YourConscience]

We've now passed the deadline for submissions! I want to thank everyone who submitted to Tsukino-Con this year! Because of all of you we've reached a new record of submissions of 165 entries!

We'll be judging through all entries over the course of this week, with a post announcing finalists expected by Saturday at the latest!

Thank you all once again for making Tsukino-Con's AMV Contest a smashing success! Good luck, everyone!