Watch it here.
Skit that goes along with it here.
This video was done for RICE 2026 where it won “Most Unsettling.” It was also submitted to Anime Boston 2026 in other (non-finalist), ConnectiCon 2026 in Drama (non-finalist), and Otakuthon 2026 in Originality (non-finalist).
You can see this work as a continuation of my other nuclear war AMV and, in a broader sense, with my other war themed amvs.
I also taped a little presentation on the context around this video. It is a bit rough, but it covers a lot of the historical and modern influence that went into this work.
The title comes from this book.
Director’s Commentary
00:00 – 01:06: The audio here is from the documentary Q.E.D.: A Guide to Armageddon. The director of this would go on to direct Threads. I tried a different intro with a ballet dancer here that I ended up not liking as much.
01:07 – 01:11: I really like how this title drop came out. I wanted some sort of title in the video itself to neatly separate the intro audio and the song that came after.
01:56: I wanted to draw a clear dichotomy between the violence and horror of the explosion compared to peaceful home scenes like this. This technique is designed to allow the viewer to create and imagine the horror for themselves and it is used extensively in both the Q.E.D. documentary and Threads. I also used it fairly often in this video.
02:48-02:49: I wanted to use one old source, Barefoot Gen (in 4:3) with a bunch of other modern widescreen sources. To do that I would have to go from the 4:3 aspect ratio to widescreen at some point. It made sense to me to use the same bombing event (in this case the attack on Nagasaki) which we see in both Barefoot Gen and then in Nagasaki 1945: Anjerasu no kane. My thinking was the explosion would “blow away” the frame as we switched into widescreen. I felt that was a very clever solution, but no one seemed to like it so oh well.
03:38: I really like the little synth synced up to the cowling on the missile falling away.
04:12 – I am a bit mixed on the Akira inclusion here. It looks a little different compared to my other modern sources and its not exactly a nuclear blast. I probably could have swapped it with something else, but I did not like my other options more so I kept it.
04:31 – 04:43: I added the air raid horn late. I was on the fence if it was a good addition or not, but it seemed to resonate well with people so mission accomplished.
Conclusion
I am very happy with how this all turned out. I really like a lot of the cuts from nuclear devastation to ordinary life. Probably my favorite AMV I have done so far.