AMV Contest

The Animethon 2025 Anime Music Video (AMV) Contest is a chance for fans to showcase their creative talents in the form of music videos. It is open to anyone who wishes to enter.

DEADLINE: Saturday, June 21, 2025

 

Quick Rules Summary

• The duration limits for each submission are as follows:
  • AMV Entries: 90 seconds minimum, 6 minutes maximum.
  • Trailers, Commercials or Intros: 30 seconds minimum, 3 minutes & 30 seconds maximum.
  • Shorts: 30 seconds minimum, 90 seconds maximum.
• No more than 2 entries per person/group. NO limits for "shorts"
• No subtitles, watermarks, logos, text, or credits.
• Must not have premiered before September 1st, 2024.
• All animation is now accepted, including manga and personally created animation (AI Animation not accepted).
• The audio content of all AMV entries must primarily be music. (ONLY Trailers, Commercials, and Intros are exempt).
• Must be age 14+ appropriate.
• AMV-Hell style entries will not be accepted.
• Must satisfy our technical requirements.
• No music and/or dialogue generated by voice-cloning technologies (deepfake audio).
• Entries created using Machine Learning technologies (AI) and not the creation of the entrant may be disqualified.
• Must satisfy our technical requirements.

Go to the following link to register to participate

Sign Up Form

As the contest will be two hours in length, all accepted entries will be judged by a panel of judges to determine the finalists. If you have any questions on any of the rules or submission guidelines, please e-mail us at amv@animethon.org and we will get back to you as soon as possible

Summary of Awards

AMV fixed categories have been eliminated and replaced with a larger number of elements that make up the essence of the AMV (i.e. Dramatic, Artistic, Parody, Trailer, Effect Oriented, etc) found on the entry form. Once all entries have be received after the deadline, all the selected elements will be tabulated and all accepted entries will be grouped into the top six most common categories for judging. This year we will be introducing a ”shorts” category. Any entry may be recategorized if preliminary judges deem it better suited elsewhere.
 

Category Awards

Up to six Awards. Categories will be determined after the submission deadline
 

AMV Contest Coordinator Choice Award

Awarded to a video selected by the AMV Contest Coordinator
 

Grand Prize Awards

Best in Show
Audience Favourite
 

Best “Made in Alberta” Award

Awarded to a video entry made in the province of Alberta

Official Contest Rules

• 1. The duration limits for each submission are as follows:
  • AMV Entries: minimum of 90 seconds and maximum of 6 minutes.
  • Trailers, Commercials or Intros: 30 seconds minimum, 3 minutes & 30 seconds maximum.
  • Shorts: 30 seconds minimum, 90 seconds maximum.
• 2. Only two (2) entries will be accepted per individual or group regardless if submitted as part of a group or not unless otherwise noted. There is no submission limit for entire categorized as “shorts”
• 3. Previously released videos (i.e. AMVs shown publicly at other contests or downloadable on the internet) must not have premiered prior to September 1, 2024 to qualify.
• 4. Dishonesty, plagiarism of other AMVs (in whole or in part), or any actions that cause grief or dishonour to the event or to others may result in the offender being excluded from future Animethon AMV activities. Severe cases may result in banishment from all ASAPA events.
• 5. The content and context of each entry must be suitable for an age 14+ audience. This includes (but is not limited to) gore, vulgar language, nudity, heavy sexual innuendo, and material that is demeaning, demoralizing or debasing.
• 6. Entries that use footage containing subtitles, watermarks, text, studio logos or graphic overlays may be disqualified. Exceptions may be granted if such usage is intentional and plainly necessary to the video’s concept.
• 7. Entries that include any inextricable credits, bumpers or slates will be disqualified. Animethon will create custom-designed titles.
• 8. All animation is now accepted, including manga and personally created animation. NOTE: AI generated animation is strictly prohibited (Refer to Rule #13)
• 9. The audio content of all AMV entries must primarily be music. A music video consisting of mostly dialogue, or dialogue layered on top of background music may be disqualified. ONLY Trailers, Commercials, and Intros are exempt from this rule.
• 10. Entries that are primarily a reel of multiple unrelated and random micro-AMVs (AKA: AMV-Hell styled entries) are not eligible.
• 11. All entries must meet the requirements listed in the Technical Requirements section below.
• 12. No music and/or dialogue generated by voice-cloning technologies (deepfake audio) will be accepted.
• 13. Entries created using Machine Learning technologies (AI) and not the creation of the entrant will be disqualified unless satisfactory details on how it was used are provided. Anyone found to have used AI in their video without disclosing it to us will have all submissions DQ’d from the current year.
• 14. Animethon AMV staff and contest judges are ineligible to compete.
• 15. You unconditionally grant us eternal, irrevocable, and limitless permission to use, copy, share, and exhibit your submission(s) in any way including for purposes and usages outside of or unrelated to this event, and you grant this permission with no expectation of compensation, remuneration, or any form of obligation from us of any kind.
• 16. The AMV Contest Coordinator and Judges’ interpretation and implementation of the rules and contest winners are final. All judging methods and decisions are final. Animethon reserves the right not to show entries for any reason.

Technical Requirements

• 1. Use the MP4 file format with H.264/AVC 8-bit video codec.
• 2. Do not use next-gen codecs such as 10-bit, AV1, H.265/HEVC, or HDR.
• 3. Do not upscale your entries to 4K resolution as we present everything in 1080p
• 4. We recommend file sizes of 450 MB or smaller. We reserve the right to reject or re-encode files that we deem to be excessively large.
• 5. We recommend inserting one second of empty black silence to the start and end of each entry.

*BE ADVISED: For the convenience of our judges, we reserve the right to transcode any entries to fit the above recommendations.

Quality Metrics

• 1. The following video issues shall be considered technical flaws:
  • Interlacing
  • Squashed or stretched aspect ratios, or improper letterboxing/matting
  • Chunky/blocky video
  • Colour banding (i.e. Colour gradients caused by video re-compression)
  • Heavily aliased/jagged lines
  • Low-resolution entries
    • 720p is the minimum if using sources that were officially released in HD
    • 480p is the minimum if using sources that were never officially released in HD.
• 2. The following audio issues shall be considered technical flaws:
  • Audible distortion
  • Levels that are overdriven or clipped
  • Levels that are too low. We recommend normalizing to -0.5db peak
  • Low sample-rate/bitrate
  • Audible discontinuities or jumps caused by flawed audio edits
  • Pitch-shifted or speed-adjusted audio (unless by obvious artistic necessity)

Entries that require a strange or unusual degree of difficulty to work with shall be considered technically flawed If you have questions regarding these technical requirements, please contact us at amv@animethon.org.

Submission Methods

In order to enter and submit your entry/entries, you will need to enter all the required information into the online form and provide a link for us to download your video. Videos may be accepted via third party upload sites (i.e.: web links, Goggle Drive, Dropbox, Sendspace, etc.) so long as they do not need to be “signed up” to access. Links to streaming sites only such as YouTube will not be accepted. Please provide the URL link in the space provided on the form.

Note:
IF entering the “Shorts” category, ensure to choose “Shorts” for the video type in the dropdown menu on the form.
The form allows you to submit up to 2 entries at a time. If you wish to submit Shorts, and it brings you over the 2 entries per form, please submit additional forms.

If you have questions, please contact us at amv@animethon.org.