AMV Highlight – Light: Non-Objective Portrait of Karma

Note: This AMV DOES NOT contain spoilers. Also it may help to scroll down and read the lyrics first.

Contrary to somewhat popular belief, there are a whole lot of really great AMVs out there. Most of the celebrated ones involve intense digital editing and ridiculous high quality. However, there are some AMVs that succeed in simplicity. Today’s choice is a video that breaks several AMV taboos with great success.

Non-Objective Portrait of Karma by Circle Takes the Square and Death Note

This video does a lot of things that are wrong with AMVs out there. First of all, it has some sound from the show (which the second time used is actually not done well at all.) Secondly, all of the clips are from the first DVD, mostly the first episode. And thirdly, a lot of them are long clips. Ordinarily, this is a recipe for disaster.

However, somehow, it works. The show part is a perfect preface to the video, and the anime and song just seem meant for each-other. The message and emotional development are a perfect match. The song’s long intro has a contemplative intensity and slowly builds and explodes into action, just as Light carefully checks his emotions and makes sure he’s ready before he begins his crazy plan. The lyrics (see below) are biting with harsh disdain for society and sing of a brutal, non-objective karma – a perfect match for the series in question.

I do think that the AMV kind of falls apart near the end where the guy seemed to have run out of useful clips and just slapped in some action-y scenes from the first DVD to fill in the rest of the time. However, the rest of it gave me chills and I felt was very surprisingly good for being what it is.

Lyrics to Non-Objective Portrait of Karma:

Ignorance is bliss no wise woman’s failed to mention
and surely some koan suggests ‘neglect leads to perfection’
but the more I turn my face from the crowd
the more I feel my backs’ increasingly compelled
for the sake of escape, to turn a knife on itself,
a knife of relief, from all the petty insight
and finally I’ll sleep, I’ll sleep through the night
Bored as fuck with this street corner-cover.
study of a face in a figure. surveying this language as a game
surveillance of this language as the plague.
the dimension of persistence condemns.

This portrait of karma, crafted in accident
text book seduction, minus the text in the language of ghosts
and so we ran, like the wolves were biting,
the inhibitions of their prey kept them from screaming
“scratch my back and I will stab you in yours”
so I chose to live this life alone, without the teeth marks
but I predict, I’ll have to sink my fangs in someone else’s heart to heal my own.
just a victim’s split, one part for the wolves, one part for you.
but I’ll grow weary soon, weary of this fractal code,
wary of this hallway lined with ghosts.
just a scratch upon the skin, a drop of blood to let them in
their words will cause the sweetest fracture from a stone’s throw
just a scratch upon the skin, a drop of blood to welcome them
parasitic, viral critics, or lovers, like spirits mingling in the mist
that we crafted, a starving jury, let them eat shit from our trembling hands.

The heat for heat’s sake, on this Barnard block of Congress
deductively speaking, the polar of progress
well maybe I put too much faith in the accident
entranced, we danced toward the ripest display of escape
let the starving ghosts feast, from this flesh, from these bones,
let them all feast.In this chess game of language, forced to sit so I play all alone,
watch the bathos drift forth like the petals from a wild crafted rose.

If you want more Circle Takes the Square, go to their site.