Anime Music Video Contest

Anime Central’s Anime Music Video Contest (AMV Contest) consists of fan-created music videos themes around anime created by talented video editors around the world.

• Action
• Drama
• Romance & Sentimental
• Upbeat/Fun
• Comedy
• Trailer/Parody
• Freestyle

Entries that are submitted to a certain category may be subject to recategorization. We will reach out to you if we believe this to be the case for your approval. If an entry is recategorized to a category that already received a submission from you, then we will contact you to let you know so a change is possible.

We will have a category winner, runner up, and honorable mention. We will also have a Judge’s Choice winner and a Best in Show winner.

The total number of winners may be reduced based on the number of entries received.

We will show all valid entries at con. All winners will be revealed at an award ceremony on Sunday.

1. You may submit up to 1 entry per category per person.
2. MEP projects are allowed but will count towards your number of entries for everyone involved.
3. Your video must not have premiered before May 19th, 2022.
4. Entries may not contain bumpers, title screens, self-promotions, references to other events, or credits. ACen staff will add uniform credits to all entries.
5. AMVs may not be shorter than 30 seconds and should not exceed 5 minutes.  Videos longer than 5 minutes will be judged more critically.
6. We will now accept footage from anime, western animation, video games, live action sources, etc. If there is any question about your video’s source footage, do not hesitate to ask!
7. No studio trademark logos.
8. No irrelevant subtitles unless they are added in with a creative purpose.
9. If you are caught submitting an AMV that is not your own, we will be banned from participating in all future ACen AMV contests. We will also report you to other AMV coordinators as a precaution.
10. All AMVs must be appropriate for a PG-13 audience. Please adhere to the CARA PG-13 rating standards found in the official ratings guideline. This includes excessive profanity, gore, or sexually explicit footage/lyrics. If you are not sure if the above rule means your entry will be disqualified e-mail
    Reyd.Nguyen@ACen.org and we can view the content in question and decide how to handle it.

1. Entries must be in either .mp4 or .mov formats. We strongly recommend that you submit videos as an .mp4.
2. We recommend H.264/AVC 8-bit codecs. Any newer generation codecs such as H.265 or 10-bit may result in playback issues.
3. Files must be under 400 MB in size. If you have any questions about your entry being too large, please consult the AMV 101 Encoding guide.
4. The following are technical issues that may result in disqualification:
   1. Interlacing.
   2. Squashed or stretched aspect ratios.
   3. Chunky/blocky video
   4. Color banding (Color gradients caused by video re-compression)
   5. Blurry video
   6. Line aliasing
   7. Audio distortions, clipping, or unintentionally pitch shifted.
5. If your video is too difficult to work with, we will consider it a technical issue. We will do our best to have your video accepted if it doesn’t follow the above requirements.

1. If we receive multiple entries from one person to one category, we will contact you to pick one video. If we do not hear back, we will watch only your first entered video.
2. In the interests of fairness, no entries will be accepted into the contest from current members of Anime Central’s Volunteer Staff or MAPS. Such videos are welcome and will be shown at the convention with other entries but will be ineligible for placement in any category.
3. Due to issues in the past, submitted works containing copyrighted material may require permission from the copyright owner(s). The participant is required to maintain the responsibility of securing the rights to the works they use.
4. By submitting to Anime Central, you permit the Midwest Animation Promotion Society the rights to use your media for promotional purposes for future uses. Entries will not be published, streamed, or recorded for any reason.
5. Entrants must be over the age of 13 to submit. Any entrant who is under 13 years of age are required to present proof of permission from a parent or guardian.
6. Contestants do not need to attend Anime Central 2023 to enter the contest but are recommended to.
7. Rules are subject to change at the discretion of the Anime Central staff for any reason needed.

All entries must be received by the end of the day on May 4th, 2023 to be considered for this years convention.

Our AMV room will be showcasing AMVs from old to new, but we are always looking for more videos! If you have something you want to share that doesn’t fit the contest, feel free to share the video here!

If you have any questions regarding our AMV contest, you can send them to Reyd.Nguyen@ACen.org.