(From ANN) Anime.com Inc. publisher and co-founder Michael Pinto reported on Twitter on Sunday that James (Jim) Kaposztas, a longtime Otakon staffer who was recognized in the U.S. anime fandom as the first known person to create an anime music video (AMV), has passed away.
In 1982 when he was a 21-year-old college student, Kaposztas hooked up two VCRs to each other and used scenes from Space Battleship Yamato synced to The Beatles song “All You Need Is Love” to create the first known anime music video.
Kaposztas has given several interviews about the experience to The Japan Times, AnimeCons.com, and the podcast Anime World Order.
Kaposztas also shared his account of creating the first known AMV on his Facebook page, which The Anime Encyclopedia co-author Helen McCarthy shared with permission on Twitter last November.
Kaposztas was also featured in the AMV DocuSeries, available on YouTube.
Kaposztas told The Japan Times he saw creating AMVs as a way to share his hobby and get practice with editing, as he was a communications major at the time. While not many fans would take the effort use VCRs to create anime music videos in the 80s and 90s, that changed in the early 2000s with both the rise of popularity of Japanese popular culture in the U.S. and the switch to digitally created AMVs. AMV screenings and contests are now a staple of U.S. anime conventions.
Kaposztas’ AMVs, including a second version of the “All You Need Is Love” AMV, are available to view on his YouTube channel.
According to Kaposztas’ LinkedIn profile, he worked in various positions at Otakon from video operations and technical operations to info desk and exhibitions for more than 20 years.
Source: Michael Pinto’s Twitter account
