Anime Music Videos

Submissions will be accepted starting May 1, 2026.
Submission deadline: September 6, 2026 by 11:59pm Pacific time.

1. Each person/studio may submit up to 3 AMV’s in total in 3 separate categories. NOTE: If you are part of a studio, you may submit AMV’s either as yourself or as the studio. You are still limited to the submission limits of each contest no matter which association you apply to each video.
   
   
2. Plagiarism of any kind will not be tolerated. Any attempt to submit work that is not your own will result in immediate disqualification and banning from competing in all future Anime USA contests. Note that the use of prompt-based Generative AI (such as language learning models, text to image/video generators, or any type of content generator where the tool used could have been trained in uncredited source material) is considered plagiarism and will result in the same consequences.
   
   
3. You may use footage from video games, anime, Japanese live action or any other content as well as animation you created yourself*. Your AMV must contain majority content from works inspired by Japanese video games or Japanese anime. Some examples of animation inspired by Japanese anime or video games would be the Netflix Voltron series, Avatar: The Last Airbender/The Legend of Korra, and Legend of Vox Machina. Submissions will be judged on a case by case basis. Videos that violate this rule may still be screened at a showcase per staff discretion.
   * Exception is the Live Action Category where you may use any sources of live action content and not just Japanese live action content. To qualify for this category you must have more than 60% live action content.
   
   
4. Your submission should not include the following:
   • Have any more than 20% of your total audio track consisting of dubbed audio from your source, in any language
   • Subtitled, Credits, or logos from your original sources. This includes game footage; a clean capture is required.
   • Your own bumpers or credits for your video.
   • Any commercial studio logos or other forms of watermarks that you did not create yourself as a parody of said logo or your own logo.
   • Any attempts to cover up watermarks or studio/television logos.
   • Any form of reference to the MPAA whatsoever.
   • Unaltered video from your audio selection’s official music video.
     
     
   • For the Main Contest: No nudity, offensive language or excessive violence or gore. The contest will have a general, all age audience. This will be evaluated during judging.
   • NSFW Contest: This rule is relaxed. Extremely offensive content may still be rejected at staff discretion. Live action videos are accepted in both the Nightmare and Naughty categories.
     
     
5. “Freshness Rule”: Videos must not be premiered before November 1, 2025. Further, regardless of premiere date, videos must not have won 3 or more major awards. Major awards are defined as Best of Category and Best in Show.
   
   
6. Submissions should be between one minute and six minutes in length. The sole exception is the trailer/parody category, where the minimum length is 30 seconds. If the trailer/parody category is combined with comedy, the exception will still be given.
   
   
7. All submissions must be attributed to an entry into the Google Docs form for submissions. The file name must match exactly to the question asking for the file name.
   
   
8. If any issues with your submission violating these rules are noticed before the submission window ends, you may be contacted at staff discretion to see if you can edit the video for submission.
   
   
9. We reserve the right to reject or disqualify any entry for any reason; all rules here are subject to change and will be applied equally to all submissions. All content submitted submissions may be used in panels or showcasing subsequent to the actual contest airing at staff discretion. Proper credit will always be given to the editor if it is used in any form whatsoever.
   
   
10. Anime USA AMV staff may alter the rules at any time. Any change that is enacted is retroactive to the beginning of the submission window and any submissions affected will be communicated to the Editor(s) at that time.
    
    
11. All decisions by Anime USA’s AMV staff are final.

If you have any questions please feel free to ask, as we strive to answer any question put to us no matter how trivial it may seem, by emailing sage.childress@animeusa.org.

The Main AMV Contest categories:

• Action
• Comedy
• Drama
• Trailer/Parody
• Upbeat
• Romance
• Live Action

The NSFW AMV Contest: (separate mature/18+ content contest)

• Nightmare (horror)
• Naughty

Please note: Categories of similar vibes may be combined if submissions are low, for example, Comedy and Trailer/Parody may be combined. Combination is at the discretion of AMV Staff.

Anime USA AMV Staff will judge the entries to determine the finalists, and then the finalists will be presented to the attendee audience to vote. Awards will be given to AMV’s that are Best in Category, Best in Show, Director’s choice and Judge’s choice. Second place will be announced and recorded. There may be other awards given at the discretion of the AMV staff.

The deadline for receipt of all forms of submissions is September 6, 2026 by 11:59 pm Pacific Time. Extensions will not be given unless the AUSA AMV Staff decides it is warranted, please let us know if there are problems and we will inform you if there is an extension warranted.

During judging of the submissions if there is an issue with your submission we will contact you to allow you to address or dispute the issue, and if you are able to correct or submit a different video, in place of the video with the issue, by the submission deadline that will be accepted. If you accidentally submit the wrong file, you may email the file to me and I can get it replaced within the Drive folder.

All submissions will be screened at 1080p. We accept most common file formats and codecs (eg. mp4, mkv, or avi). Every attempt will be made to convert file formats and codecs to be screened at the best possible quality. If we are unable to convert your video to our screening standard, we will do our best to contact you.

Files must be smaller than 1GB.