main menu

• Members Main Page
• Search for AMVs
• Forum
• How-To Guides
• Site FAQ
• About us
• Login

Information

• Member: Arigatomina
• Studio: Forever Fornever
• Title: Dark Half
• Premiered: 2005-07-26
• Categories:
  • Drama
  • Other
  • Serious
  • Romance
• Song:
  • Evanescence Haunted
• Anime:
  • Inu Yasha (TV)
  • Naruto
  • Original Animation
  • Rurouni Kenshin (TV)
  • Yu Yu Hakusho
• Comments: WARNING: This video contains Yaoi and shonen ai content. If the idea of a male anime character hitting on another male anime character infuriates you, you probably shouldn’t watch this video.
  
  Slight warning – when I was making this video there were scenes that seemed absurd. I couldn’t help but laugh at them. I wouldn’t be surprised if this vid comes off as a strange parody for being silly and absurd. But if you like the characters, the humor should wane as you rewatch the video. I’ve seen it so many times now that it isn’t ‘silly’ anymore. I’m hoping fans of the pairings will have the same reaction – it just takes a viewing or two for the novelty to wear off and the story itself to hit you. It’ll still be original, but you’ll spend more time enjoying the story and footage, and less time laughing at my sad animation skills. ^.~
  
  Like the title implies, this amv looks at the dark aspects of certain pairings, namely Youko Kurama, Inuyasha’s demon side, Kyuubi, and Battousai. I’ve a penchant for angsty romance.
  
  The original idea of this video was to ‘animate’ a yaoi story using fan-illustrated frames as the ‘stock’ footage to maintain consistency between scenes and anime. I started with the Inuyasha section – which has a lot fewer frames and less movement despite it being placed in the middle of the video. Somewhere along the way of setting that footage to the audio track, the story shifted and I got better at putting movement (read: animation) into the vid. This is most evident in the YYH section. Just keep in mind that I didn’t make this video in the order the scenes appear, so the older scenes aren’t as detailed. This was something of a trial video.
  
  The footage used here comes from a number of sources. A lot of it is pure fanart, and the ‘clean’ versions of the main frames can be found on my deviantart account –
  http://arigatoumina.deviantart.com
  The rest is a mix of edited anime scenes (re-drawn for consistency) and colored/edited doujinshi and manga scans. Some of the doujinshi used include Arina Toshimi’s Hiyaku series (YYH), Tide’s Youko saga, (YYH), Erebus (RK), and Hanaoto (IY). All the ‘fanart’ found in this video is my own, or my remakes of official doujinshi, manga, and anime stock footage.
  
  ***
  If you use scenes from this video and host it on the org, please include a link to this page – the source of the original footage. I spent a lot of time making this footage, so I am very possessive of it, especially the YYH footage. Anyone curious about the source/inspiration of a specific scene can email me –
  arigatoumina@hotmail.com
  
  The art:
  I started working on the footage for this vid when I was ripping dvds for my ‘Ego Trip’ amv, so it took me a few months to put this together. The actual ‘hours’ spent on this video are more than the combined time I spent on Ego Trip, Gmen, and Denial (previously my longest projects). The frames were made in PhotoImpression4, drawn with a mouse – I would kill for a tablet, animated in VirtualDub, and edited in Windows Movie Maker 2.0 The video is an xvid encode, so if you have trouble viewing it on Windows Media Player, email me and I’ll help you out.
  
  Editing:
  I’m no stickler for beat-sync in this video. While I thought the YYH section came out better as far as editing (read: beat sync), I almost prefer the older IY section which isn’t nearly as forced and hasty. The animation is another problem – I’m not even an artist so trying to animate my own footage had silly results. Some parts are smoother than others, but don’t be surprised at some of the jilted movements. It’s a lot easier to create a stationary scene than it is to make consecutive scenes that will ‘animate’ smoothly. And I don’t think VirtualDub is the best way to animate frames… ^_^;;
  
  Effects:
  There are two ways to look at this – either the video is full of effects (basically an effect video), or it has no effects. I didn’t ‘add’ anything to this video – even the flashes and fades and layers are part of the ‘stock’ footage. On the other hand, if I’d added even a few frames from this video to an ‘anime-sourced’ vid, they would be considered ‘frame edited’ effects. Take it how you will. Me, I consider the footage a mix of effects (the sections that were taken directly from the anime and ‘redrawn’ to fit the vid), and fan-animation (dubbed original animation since there’s no ‘fanart’ option on the org).
  
  The song:
  Unoriginal? Find me another video that uses this song the way I do. When all of the footage in a video is original, I don’t care how often the song has been used. It fit the theme and I like the song. I’ve been wanting to match it to YYH since I first heard it.
  
  Pairings:
  Kurama/Hiei, Youko/Hiei, Inuyasha/Miroku, Sanosuke/Kenshin, Kenshin/Sano, slight Naruto/Sasuke. Nothing too explicit (rules of the org), but there’s some soft smut in there for the yaoi fans. ^.~
  
  Etc…
  Now that I have this project finished (finally), I fully intend to do another like it. I figure with more practice I’ll get better, and this is a way to make ‘real’ yaoi vids to non-yaoi anime – even better than mixing anime with stock dj pics like I did with Denial. It’s just a matter of settling on a song and anime. I may tackle DBZ next, after a few ‘soft’ projects to rest my wrist. Drawing with a mouse is painful. o_o;
  
  Inspiration:
  The IY section of this video was inspired by my fanfic ‘Exigency’ –
  http://www.fanfiction.net/s/1907809/1/
  The YYH section was inspired by Candid Ishida’s lovely KuramaxHiei flash fan-animated video ‘The New Zero’ –
  http://www.deviantart.com/view/8823017/