You can watch this AMV here.
This AMV was submitted to Anime Boston 2022 (not a finalist), Connecticon 2022 (contest cancelled), and PopCult Anime Con 2022 (not a finalist).
I really like how this one turned out, despite its lack of critical success. Eyeshield 21 is a very memorable anime to me and I have used it briefly several times (see “April 15, 2019” and “I got fired...”), so it was finally time for the limelight. I am a huge Patriots fan (and by extension Tom Brady fan) so it made perfect sense to meld that fandom and Eyeshield 21. This AMV is basically a highlight video except instead of the live action highlights I just swapped them out for anime. If you are curious what it looks like without the anime you can see that here. I like how this AMV provides a good arc of Tom Brady’s career, and there are a ton of famous plays in here for the devoted Patriot fan. I do admit that its appeal is limited to anime fans who are also football fans, which is not exactly a huge pool to draw from, but I hope to please that narrow fandom.
Director’s commentary
00:00 Pretty famously Tom Brady was drafted with pick 199 (out of 254). It is cool that we have the draft video, despite the low quality. Because of contest rules against watermarks I hid the ESPN logo in the bottom right corner along with a bunch of other watermarks throughout.
00:06 I am not particularly happy with the image of Hiruma here, but I could not get a better one.
00:16 This is Robert Kraft (Patriots owner) speaking in The Brady 6 documentary.
00:24 The drum beat when Kraft pauses was entirely unintentionally. I dropped the music track in place and it lined up perfectly.
00:40 This is the score bug from Super Bowl 36. Interestingly FOX had a see through score bug at the time so I had to blacken it in parts to hide the live action footage. I wanted to carry the bug through this whole sequence, but the translucent nature of it made that very difficult so we just have it here once to set the stage.
01:47 This audio is from the Tom vs Time documentary.
01:56 As an aside Troy Brown is my favorite Patriot after Brady. This audio is from his catch in OT to beat the Dolphins in 2003. Watch the play here.
02:10 I had a lot of difficulty conveying Brady’s ACL tear in 2008. The news clippings seem the best solution, but it is awkward.
02:14 The audio switch from game audio to post game interview with Belichick is not great, but I really needed both so I lived with it.
03:08 – 03:28 The ending here is a little odd. It almost seems like two endings. I like both of them so I kept it as is.
03:18 I really like how well mixed the interview and Brady chants are. I went through a lot of chants to get the right one.
03:32 I had to hide the SI logo so I flipped the NFL logo on the right side to the left. It looks odd, but only if you notice it and I suspect most would not.
03:36 I am quite chuffed with how well I was able to integrate Hiruma’s picture into the bar at the bottom.
03:40 A bit of an inside joke at the end for the Eyeshield faithful.