The world’s first anime AMV creator has passed away

James Kaposztas, the man behind the world first AMV (anime music video), passed away.

The death of Kaposztas was confirmed in a Tweet on Sunday by Michael Pinto, Editor and Co-Founder of Anime.com Inc. Accordingly Anime News NetworkKaposzas created his first AMV by connecting two VCRs together to dub scenes from the sci-fi anime Battleship Yamato with the Beatles song “All You Need Is Love” in 1982 when he was a 21-year-old college student. Kaposztas later uploaded footage of his first AMV and four other AMVs his YouTube channel. During his lifetime, Kaposztas was an employee Otakonone of the world’s largest anime and video game conventions, for 22 years LinkedIn profile.

“Loved by friends, Jim played a key role in supporting early anime fandom events in NYC and Philly, was an early cosplayer who dressed up as Star Blazers’ Captain Avatar and later became involved with Otakon,” Pinto wrote in a tweet. “What made me proud of Jim was that he took his love for anime and turned it into a professional video editing career for over two decades.”

AMV’s forever

The art of making AMVs has come a long way since Kaposztas first made his own in 1982. Instead of taking footage from a VCR recording and dubbing it to the tunes of a popular recording artist, today’s anime fans upload their AMVs to YouTube or TikTok in high quality. Sometimes modern AMVs are even rendered at 60 or 120 frames per second thanks to video software like Adobe Premiere Pro.

While the methods of contemporary AMVs have leapt far beyond Kaposzta’s inventive means of connecting two VCRs together, the spirit of why people create them remains the same: make a cool video that summarizes why you like an anime and that admiration with it to share the world with them.

“A communications major at the time [making AMVs] seemed [like] a way to share my hobby and at the same time get practice in editing,” Kaposztas said in a 2007 interview with The Japan Times (made visible via the Wayback Machine).

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In the spirit of Kaposztas, I’ll share some of my favorite anime AMVs below out of Neon Genesis Evangelion, AkiraAnd attack on Titanand I encourage you all to share some of yours as well.