main menu

• Members Main Page
• Search for AMVs
• Forum
• How-To Guides
• Site FAQ
• About us
• Login

Information

• Member: SarahtheBoring
• Studio: Ultraviolet Light Productions
• Title: My Own True Love
• Premiered: 2004-05-21
• Categories:
  • Comedy
  • Character Profile
  • Fun
• Song:
  • Barenaked Ladies It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)
• Anime:
  • Revolutionary Girl Utena (TV)
• Comments: All right! There's a half-decent export/encode of this now, so let's go.
  
  Summary: An ode to narcissism, starring Kiryuu Touga, self-absorbed man-whore extraordinaire.
  
  Warnings: Rated PG13 for loads of shirtless-bishounen fanservice and more pervertedly bad visual jokes than you could wave a sword at.
  
  It's probably not what most people would call "humor," but parts of it make me laugh, and I get to decide - so there.
  
  
  
  Concept:
  Like I always say, find a good song and keep up. Originally, the lines about "the only parking spot that's free" reminded me of Touga and Akio and their automotive autoeroticism. After that, it snowballed; images I came across while looking through the source brought up more ideas along the main theme, and those were worked in as it went along.
  
  For the record, I do like Touga. His serious moments (only a few of which are shown here) make him an interesting character; it's just that his look-at-me-I'm-the-hottest-guy-in-the-universe attitude is so entertaining.
  
  It's also fun to play with this series. Most RGU AMVs are action, romance or drama, but the series has a very weird streak of humor as well. In the DVD commentary, the director said that the visuals of the Utena series were meant to be a "parody" of the shoujo style, meaning that they tend to be stereotypical-looking despite the original plotline; this video fits into this idea as well, playing up Touga's mold of Every Flowy-Haired Anime Prettyboy Ever.
  
  
  Song:
  As far as I know, "It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)" appears only on BNL's best-of, Disc One: All Their Greatest Hits. For some reason, this CD is innately very loud, so I hope the sound quality didn't suffer too much. It was ripped at the best quality I could get.
  
  It's a good disc. I highly recommend it.
  
  I realize that some of the lines were taken strangely; sometimes it just had to fit in with the visuals I had.
  
  Lyrics:
  "It's Only Me (The Wizard of Magicland)" - Barenaked Ladies
  
  Speaking as a guy who's really got it goin' on
  It's only natural
  It's only me
  Take it from a fella who's been 'round the block so many times
  He knows the only parking spot that's free
  It's only me
  
  You can say I've tried everything
  I'd save on the wedding ring
  Who knows me half as well as me?
  
  I'm not antisocial
  And it's nothing that's reproachful
  It's just natural
  It's only me
  
  I can't think of anybody else I'd rather spend some one-on-one time with
  It's not that hard to see
  It's only me
  
  I'm the "me" in monogamy
  I'm not asking a lot of me
  I give me R-E-S-P-E-C-T
  
  And if your heart is broken
  You can just do what you do best
  You can just do what you do
  When your heart is broken
  Trust in the one who will love you
  Never put others above you
  
  I thought I was using me to get to you
  But this is true love natural
  It's only me
  
  They say you'll never love another till you love yourself
  Well brother, I'm in love with everyone I see
  It's only me
  
  You could say I've tried everything
  I'd save on the wedding ring
  Who knows me half as well as me?
  I'm the "me" in monogamy
  I'm not asking a lot of me
  I give me R-E-S-P-E-C-T
  
  Awwww, yeah!
  
  ----------
  
  Technical:
  
  The song reminds me of a theme song for a sitcom, brash and over-colorful, with those guitar riffs and surf-music "oooWEEEooooo..."s - so I went for a brash and over-colorful effect in the visuals, with heavy borders and bright colors and so on. (Nearly all the colors in this vid are tweaked; the series is more pastel/muted normally.) The other watchword is "cheesy." Terribly cheesy, hence the spinny hearts and so on. This video is meant to jump into your face and well, possibly irritate you, but irritate you in a very upbeat, please-get-that-song-out-of-my-head kind of way.
  
  I hadn't planned on putting lipsync into this vid at first, but once a few clips were laid down to test things out, a few of the lines in the "got it goin' on" part almost fit, so I decided to go for it. I guess it helps the weird tone, anyway. Some of it is better than others, but I'm improving... err, slowly... over time.
  
  This is the shortest complete AMV and the most technically complicated AMV I've ever done. They probably aren't effects in most people's estimation - there's no rotoscoping involved, and I've never even seen AfterEffects - but I did more tweaking, overlaying, etc. than I'd done on anything before. Very, very few shots are without some sort of filter. I also discovered the many wonders of the "motion" setting, wheeeee...
  
  The subtitle on Anthy's TV is "it's only me," which is the line in the song at that moment, Babelfished into Japanese. I don't actually read Japanese, but it seemed like a cute throwaway joke.
  
  
  The end title is based on a scan from Empty Movement, http://ohtori.nu. As is virtually any Utena artbook-type art on the English-speaking segment of the web, quite frankly. The spinning chibi Touga head also came from that site's collection, although he has a body in the original. All the other images (the hearts, the rose frame - traced from the original with my lack of m4d art sk1llz) are my fault.
  
  The stinger audio comes from the English dub, because that whole made-up scenario of Anthy watching Akio's homemade pr0n amuses me to death. (In the original scene, she's watching a fashion show. Hence the line "How pretty!" I could have used the original audio, I guess, but then I would have had to subtitle it, and I am lazy. Particularly when it comes to something as minor as a stinger.)
  
  
  Thanks to everyone who gave advice on sound editing and filtering, or suffered through the endless string of betas. Thank you VERY much; I needed a lot of help with this one, and a lot of people were willing to give me a hand. Many thanks. And thanks for cheerleading as well, because as usual my motivation hangs by a thread. :P
  
  And an extra-special last-minute hallelujah thank you to anyone who helped me out with exporting this beast. Whew.
  
  Enjoy.