Remix This: Anime Gets Hijacked

There’s a great article by Patrick Macias on Anime Music Videos (AMVs) but for me the best part is seeing Jim Kaposztas getting some long overdue credit! I know I sound ancient but I remember watching Jim’s video at a monthly meeting of the New York City branch of the Cartoon/Fantasy Organization in the early 80s:

Remix this: anime gets hijacked
Fans defy copyright by ripping footage then ‘synching’ it to music

“According to geek lore, the first fan-edited music video was most likely made in the 1970s using footage from the original “Star Trek” TV show (though somehow no one remembers the choice of music). Then, in 1982, a 21-year-old college student named Jim Kaposztas hooked up two VCRs to each other and married violent scenes from the anime “Star Blazers” to “All You Need Is Love” by The Beatles to humorous effect. With that, the anime music video was born. “Being a communications major at the time,” Kaposztas remembers, “it seemed a way to share my hobby, as well as getting practice in editing.” With only a handful of fans like Kaposztas willing to take on the difficult challenge of producing clips on their VCRs, anime music videos spent most of the ’80s and ’90s as a novelty in the then-tiny anime market catering to U.S. fans.”