Announcement & discussion of Anime Music Video contests
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A while back I had a commentary about 18+ AMV contests, and one of the topics is about not being able to find videos post-showing. There were other topics, although I'll save those for other threads in the future.
HAMV Contest Veteran: Anime Boston
Below is an example of this problem looking at a convention that's been having Hentai Music Video contests for around two decades now: Anime Boston. It serves as a good example of a contest that's gone through staff changes, logistical changes, and how listings were carried out.
2015
The title for the 2015 HAMV listing was different/harder to locate. What's notable about this year is that it marked a much more organized format for actually providing the listing of HAMV contest submissions, despite links not being provided.
It's also worth noting this was the year when Snow Blower was submitted and won the contest, and it's become sort of a ritual to show Snow Blower at the end of Anime Boston's 18+ screening -- the audience gets a great laugh out of it, and my friends referred to this as the "Frosty the Snowman HMV".
This year had 12 submissions, 9 of which I don't know have an online link. List of Hentai AMV's
A note about 3 of the 12 submissions:
Spoiler :
By clicking the below spoiler, you agree to be at least 18 years of age.
Total since 2015: 66 submissions
Missing since 2015: 48 submissions
And this is just for what I could find back to 2015, assuming 2016 and 2018 didn't have an HAMV contest. Also keep in mind that not all of these submissions are actually HMVs, so there may be some that could be on YouTube or some other platform (#Just Girly Things and Horny Dance as an example).
Contest where videos could be watched outside the Con
The only instance of an HAMV contest I know of where all the links to the submissions were watchable afterwards was the Yunicon 2024 HMV Contest, which had 13 submissions, and even then it also wasn't from staff -- I had to go and reach out to people in German AMV discord servers and track down individual creators.
Example of a Con not providing a listing outside the Con
When looking up submissions, the creator name could end up just being a one-time use/throwaway, be a username that ends up with different search results, etc.
In some cases like ChaosProjects you can eventually land on "Chaotic Bad Raptor" after stumbling upon their YouTube page, although that's not the case for most of these submissions.
A fantastic HMV that's won contests in the past is "New Level" from IcyKuroi. His Twitter is dead, His PH account has a link to a different version, and his submission was under the name "Kyci" in FanicomeCon 2018, which nobody would be able to find either account with just Kyci.
Spoiler :
By clicking the below spoiler, you agree to be at least 18 years of age.
Spoiler :
The mega link that IcyKuroi had on their Pornhub account is not the full version. I ended up having to go to some long time HMV archivists to have the full version. New Level full version link
This is why I'd support another (optional) field on the form that indicates where someone can find the video after the con. Youmacon and Yunicon did this in 2024.
So where do I actually look?
The usual instinct is to go to YouTube to see if a creator is on there, and then search for links from there. However, for Hentai AMVs this approach fails for most cases.
Spoiler :
By clicking the below spoiler, you agree to be at least 18 years of age.
Spoiler :
Another common thought is to look at mainstream porn sites. However,
- these sites are very disorganized as to where the HMVs actually are.
- many user accounts that used to have uploads got vandalized in some form or another, whether through DMCA or malicious reporting.
- several sites turned to IRL verification which drove away creators that wanted safety and privacy.
- these sites rarely have the original creator.
Here are some to name a few.
Pornhub
This was considered a go-to site before the purge in December 2020. However, false DMCA reports were a large issue and led to user harassment and it still continues to this day -- it really depends how much a select few trolls on 4chan dislike you from the Hentai Music Videos thread. Several creators I know tried uploading here and their videos reached several hundred thousand views and one day everything vanished. Not good for persistence.
xvideos
Similar problem to Pornhub. Also tried forcing IRL verification for uploads.
xhamster
Similar problem to Pornhub. Also tried forcing IRL verification for uploads.
spankbang
This site got more traffic in 2021 from HMV creators after Pornhub's 2020 purge. However, it had a rampant false DMCA problem. Eventually, spankbang also tried forcing IRL verification for uploads.
Others
xnxx, eporner, tnaflix, noodlemagazine, etc. -- basically the wild west.
iwara
The most popular option for HMV creators as of today if they want privacy and somewhat decent treatment.
rule34video
Also another popular option only for sources not traditionally seen in 2D hentai (think material that is NOT from Poro, Studio Seven, Passione, T-Rex, etc.) due to the site owner seeing rampant DMCA abuse problems.
Here's another way I can put it: if Snow Blower or Ghosts 'N Gasms was uploaded there, it would be denied.
Scattered videos without having a clear way to search by video title or creator. Assumes you already know the creator's user account on said site, if that creator even has one in the first place.
Community sites
Think sites like Faphub or ngsilver. Both went under. Requires knowing about obscure sites in the first place.
So where do we go from here?
There may be concerns about convention staff publicly linking 18+ videos that could get the convention in trouble.
I'd be willing to work with convention staff to find a path forward on hosting without it being on behalf of the convention.
Spoiler :
By clicking the below spoiler, you agree to be at least 18 years of age.
Spoiler :
The NGSilver archive was put onto HMV Mania as the original site is no longer in service, and numerous other videos from previous HAMV contests are available on-site.
HMV Mania provides a listing of creators and has video posts in the format of [Creator] Video Title.
This would prevent the convention itself from having to host the videos themselves, and with the appropriate permission requests in the contest submission form, state that the video would not be hosted on their behalf. I'm sure there are ways to avoid liability for the convention here.
When it comes to the contest submission form, doing something like what Youmacon does where a video link can be specified for post-con viewing would help.
As a starting point, I could see the submission form specify at least these agreement terms:
- permission to make the video available outside the con.
- permission for the video to be available elsewhere NOT on the con's behalf (avoid liability for the convention, basically)
- stating where the video would be hosted if the submitting contestant is not hosting themselves (e.g. not sending a mega, dropbox, drive link)
- the creator name the user wants outside the con (privacy and safety reasons).
This is just an initial thought, and convention staff could weigh in more here about their thoughts.
Lost media has been a big problem for HMV creators and I think there is a great opportunity here to see how the situation can be handled.
As a researcher for the Lost Media departament I salute you my friend. It's kind of interesting to know how a single video could be watched in its moment and suddenly get lost
I think I have a unique perspective on this because I was ardently searching for HMVs from past contests just a month or two ago. I submitted an HMV to Anime Boston's 2025 HAMV contest and in the leadup to it, I was looking for examples of past winners/videos so I knew what level of content to expect. It was surprisingly (or maybe unsurprisingly) difficult to find a lot of the videos I was looking for even with the titles and editor names. I ended up reaching out to Tritio (who commented above me ^^) who led me in the right direction.
I did the same for Otakon's 18+ AMVs After Dark Panel from last year as I'm hoping to play my video there as well, but ran into similar issues. Both Anime Boston and Otakon (amvtheater.com) keep rather detailed records of the AMVs they show at all their AMV theater programming so relative to other cons, I actually probably had an easier time finding the videos I was searching for. It'd be nice to address some of the issues with the solutions you listed but would be tough to set in motion.
