Bring Anime to the Next Level in the AMV Showings!

Calling all AMV Editors – join the DerpyCon AMV Contest and show off your talent, creativity, storytelling skills, and overall masterclass over the craft. Submitted videos will be put into the ultimate gauntlet in our AMV showings, including the DerpyCon AMV Showcase Contest and the Saturday Morning Cartoons Contest. If you are interested in submitting AMVs for showing in any of the contests, take a look at the rules below and fill out an application.

AMV Contest Applications are Open until September 6th, 2025 at 11:59:59pm EDT.

If you have any questions, please contact our Head of AMVs using our Help Desk.

Read the Following Rules and Apply Below

Categories

DerpyCon AMV Showcase:

• Action/Adventure
• Drama/Serious
• Romance/Sentimental
• Upbeat/Dance
• Comedy/Parody

Saturday Morning Cartoons:

• Cowabunga Pizza (Action)
• 4Kids4Ever (Comedy)
• Why Not Commercials (Trailers)

General Rules

• Entries will be accepted from July 3, 2025.
• Entries into the DerpyCon AMV Showcase may be no shorter than 1 minute and no longer than 6 minutes. Entries into the Saturday Morning Cartoons Contest may be no shorter than 30 seconds and no longer than 5 minutes.
• Entries must be family-friendly (appropriate for a PG-13 audience).
• For the DerpyCon AMV Showcase Contest:
• At-least 75% of each entry’s video content must consist of anime, manga, or video game derived content.
• None of the video content can be from live-action; entries with live-action will be rejected.
• At-least 75% of each entry’s audio content must be music.
• None of the audio content can be from the original source material or dub.
• For the Saturday Morning Cartoons Contest:
• At-least 75% of each entry’s video content must consist of anime or american cartoon derived content.
• None of the video content can be from live-action; entries with live-action will be rejected.
• At-least 75% of each entry’s audio content must be music.
• None of the audio content can be from the original source material or dub.
• This rule does not apply to entries submitted into the “Why Not Commercials”.
• Attendance as DerpyCon 2025 is not required for contest entry. Attendance at the convention has no effect on the judging process.
• Entries from DerpyCon 2025 Staff and Volunteers are not allowed.
• By submitting an entry, entrants agree that: they have read, understand, and will comply with all official rules and consent to their AMV, name, and information used for the purposes of promotion of the DerpyCon 2025 AMV Contest.
• By submitting an entry, entrants grant DerpyCon the rights to show the entry at DerpyCon 2025 and all future DerpyCon events including its streaming platform.

Technical Rules

• Entries shall not contain any watermarks, credits, bumpers, or information that is not directly related to the video content.
• Parody watermarks, bumpers, and corner info are allowed in entries submitted into the “Why Not Commercials” category in the Saturday Morning Cartoons Contest.
• Entries shall not contain subtitles that have not been created and added by the editor.
• Entries shall be MP4 encoded with x264/h264 codec.
• Entries should be in 1080p resolution and 29.97 fps format, if possible. All entrants will be scaled to this resolution.
• Leave 3 seconds of black space both before and after the entry.
• Do not include a title screen, or lead in/out bumpers; video information and credits will be added by DerpyCon.
• All video editing and concepts must have been made/designed/added by the entrant.

Submission Rules

• Each entrant is allowed to submit up to one (1) submission per category and up to three (3) submissions in total for the competition.
• Entries from multi-editor collaborations are allowed but will count as one submission for each member of the collaboration.
• Submissions will only be accepted via our file upload section of the form
• Links to YouTube or similar video service are not allowed.
• DerpyCon reserves the right to disqualify any submission for any of reason, without warning.
• Entries into the Saturday Morning Cartoons Contest are meant to capture the essence of watching Saturday morning cartoons in some fashion. DerpyCon reserves the right to move videos submitted to this Contest to the AMV Showcase Contest if deemed to not fit.

Past Winners