Anyone know about AMVs in Japan?

[Zarxrax]

The way it generally works is videos created within Japan are called MADs, and those created outside of japan are AMVs. Just like how animation from japan is called anime, and animation from anywhere else is just... animation or cartoons.

The term mad is also not exclusive to videos. It seems to be a rather generic term for just about any type of fan-work in Japan. I've seen audio clips, edited manga pages, and wallpapers referred to as Mads.

There are a TON of awesome mad creators in Japan, but its really hard to get ahold of there work. Only a few of them post their material here on the org, and there isn't any Japanese equivalent of the org. Additionally, most of them are hesitant to post their videos anywhere due to copyright laws. So generally, mads get passed from person to person, or you might find a couple hosted on a creators personal web site (though this is rare).

They hold contests and projects and stuff, and get-togethers just like we do. Right now, I think they have a sort of "newbie-contest" going on :p