#(also considered translations a lot... i used official translations from funimation/bilibili/catchplay/bang zoom!)

[marshmallowgoop]

Thank you so much for all the support and kind comments on this video!! I really put a lot into this one, and hearing that it resonated with others is very reassuring.

Hope it's not too much of a social faux pas to address multiple threads at once!

From @caliowl333:

OMG @marshmallowgoop this is absolutely STUNNING! I had no idea you were gonna go all out like this! This video is absolutely gorgeous, and you added so many amazing details and special effects! <3 <3 <3 I love how you mixed the manga and anime so smoothly and created amazing collages in the backgrounds with their own effects! My mind is blown! :D That must have taken so long to do! I bow before your incredible editing skills! Also you totally nailed my music taste! XD You're the best! <3 <3 <3 I can't believe you checked out my videos for this! I hope they weren't too boring ^^; I really love how you include a breakdown of your thoughts on your videos! I totally get what you're going for, here, and I thought you did it splendidly! The ideas came through loud and clear! :D I agree totally that Shinichi just straight up enjoys spending time with Heiji, deducing mysteries together and talking about their shared interests as peers. There's definitely more to their relationship than Heiji being one of the few who know Conan is Shinichi! Also, Heiji having to see Shinichi in pain and choosing to put himself in danger for him time and time again… dreamy sigh I just love these two so MUCH! XD Thank you so much for participating in my silly event! You definitely made it extra special for me! Also, I PROMISE if I hold another event to add AMVs to the list of offerings along with fanfics and fanart XD; I hope if I do it again we get lots of videos! :D Thank you, thank you, thank you SO MUCH for my gift! I'm over the moon with it! :D I'm off to watch it another 100+ times :D You're an incredible artist and such a skilled editor! Thank you again for participating and helping make this event so memorable! <3 This sparked, like, CRAZY AMOUNTS OF JOY XDDD <3

First of all, I want to say that I am so relieved that you liked the video!! I've mentioned it in a few reblogs of my AMVs recently (which you always responded so kindly to, thank you!!), and it's touched upon a bit in this post, too, but I've been struggling with editing lately. Technically, I feel like I've made so many strides, and I've been just eager to share what I think are improvements with everyone... but then I do, and embarrassment follows. Just because something is technically impressive doesn't mean it resonates, and I've feared that my videos are becoming more and more unenjoyable to fans of Detective Conan—something I definitely didn't want for an exchange AMV for a Detective Conan fan!

So, receiving such an encouraging, enthusiastic comment after I posted... it was so heartening. Thank you so much.

I also enjoyed watching your AMVs when I was figuring out what I was gonna do for this one!! Banger song choices, and I super appreciate the captioning work you're doing now. AMVs are such a varied art form, and I love seeing how others tackle it; your HeiShin AMVs have been such an inspiration for me. Still in awe of folks who can make AMVs over 2.5 minutes!

I'm really glad the ideas in my video came through! And to be told that my work has rewatchability is such a high compliment! Excited for any future events with videos included from the start, and I'm still very grateful that I was able to participate in this one. Thank you so much!!

From @birdmenmanga:

#THE SCREAM I SCRUMPT......#I didn't notice that you used the JP dub lines until halfway through the conan monologue section and I was like huh??#something's different about this one...#I was like hm it's kinda like a partner piece to the no thoughts just hattori heiji video where it's all heiji saying kudo#and then I realized what you were going for w the fucking cruise episode GOD the drop was INSANEEEE#the audio editing is so good the flawless balancing hitting the beats god. everything about this is insane#I've watched this like 10 times and EVERY time it drops I have to laugh out loud it brings me SO much joy#I think you did such a great job with integrating the effects this time.#I think you're really improving on the front of the compositions!#I didn't even notice the sort of film strips on the side until I watched the comparison and I was like WOW that's such a good solution#to the like. dimensional differences between the old and new versions of the anime#I also noticed you changed the color of heiji's shirt in the like. fashion fits. and that was such a good choice#your color balancing was excellent the whole video was super cohesive in that sense#I also really like the weight of the movement for a lot of the physics#like when the 5 pictures slide up at the end of STAY. the weight on those are really really nice.#you always have THE most spot on Shinichi POV videos it's CRAZY#I know you're not trans goop but I think everything you wrote about really cleanly summarizes why I do often think of Shinichi as trans#like... the other side in the sense of a world after he can come out if that makes sense.#ahhh I really want to make a cool video of them now too...

And from @mirrorfalls:

Some say the Perfect AMV is one that can make manga and anime look like indispensable pieces of each other. This does that. Some say the Perfect AMV is one that can whip between 4:3 and 16:9 clips like the most natural thing in the world. This does that. Some say the Perfect AMV is one that can have official ports, scanlations, and out-and-out raws playing nice. Look no further. (And oh yeah, what feels like all the soul HeiShin has and ever will have distilled into less than two minutes of song. I don't know how you keep doing this but I pray you'll never stop.)

Okay, I really want to see that video you have in mind, Soh!!

But thank you so much, both of you. These are such amazingly nice comments.

Regarding the use of the Japanese dub, I would have loved to edit with the FUNimation English dub, but I know that not everyone loves it as much as I do, and perhaps more significantly, the FUNi dub drastically limits what I'm able to use, given that they only dubbed the first 123 episodes and six films (well, and The Mirapolis Investigation, the Wii game, sort of). Sure, I've somewhat faked a potential FUNi dub for Episode 174 (the cruise ship episode) in a video before by splicing together unrelated voice lines, but I didn't really want to do that here... and I would have had to do that for practically everything in this AMV. Because FUNi only dubbed the lines of Conan asking Heiji if he's okay in Movie 3!

(As a bit of an aside, I did splice a clip from the end of Episode 118 and Episode 174 together, but FUNi actually didn't even dub that because it's from the after-credits scene of Episode 118! Which is actually another thing that got me about this video... I intended to use real VHS or Laserdisc footage for the parts with the film strips, but I just totally ran out of time to digitize my Laserdisc for 118. And I couldn't even use DVD footage for it because my only DVD copy of the episode is FUNi's DVD—and they didn't include the after-credits scene at all, which is what I needed for the video! I had to screw up my Blu-ray footage because I just didn't have anything more low quality on hand. And while it's such a small detail, I am devoted to the bit and still regret I couldn't get that Laserdisc digitized in time. For the next one! But all the other footage used in those sections is real VHS footage!)

All that said: I'm glad the audio mixing hit!! I tried some different techniques with this one (like isolating one of the surround sound channels for the films and Episode 345 to better remove background noise and music (but alas those cicadas lol they were included with the voices for Movie 13 and didn't come out with AI vocal isolation and I just had to add more cicadas because I purposefully cut voice lines in pieces to fit beats and so otherwise there would have been blank spaces without cicadas if I didn't add more)), and I'm super happy it worked out okay!

Regarding the coloring, I've really come to like the coloring method described in this video from L e s h k a n, starting here. I made a few adjustments here; rather than apply the nodes to the clip itself, I applied said nodes to an Adjustment Clip over the entire video. Then, since it ends up a little dark (and this AMV in particular has a lot of night scenes), I created another Adjustment Clip over it, went to Fusion, and added a BrightnessContrast node, where I increased the Lift and Contrast to my liking.

(Guess I forgot to name the second Adjustment Clip "coloring 2" this time, though, whoops!)

While I have to admit that the change in Heiji's shirt color wasn't exactly intentional, I'm glad it helped with the cohesion!

And on that note, regarding the official, non-manga art used in this video, while I'm still working on getting this video up on YouTube with a full source list, YouTube recently revoked my ability to post external links, so I wouldn't even be able properly link these sources anyway. I used the following merchandise artworks:

Heiji and Shinichi

Heiji and Conan

Heiji and Shinichi

Japanese DVD covers from my collection here

And also this Laserdisc cover from my collection:

Regarding the manga, I really contemplated how I was gonna handle it! No official English versions exist for most of the movie manga (but Movies 23 and 25 have translations not from Viz, without the FUNimation dub name changes!), and I wondered if I should just leave movie manga panels (gotten from BookWalker, which is a great place to buy Japanese ebooks without a Japanese address!) raw. I thought it worked okay to leave it raw for the opening, where the words were literally being spoken by the characters, but for the Movie 7 manga later, I edited in the English dialogue myself, using Bilibili's English translation for the film and FUNimation's terminology for the alcohol (though I probably should have used Viz's, in retrospect...), thinking it'd be unfitting to mix Japanese and English panels in the rest of the video. This of course created the question of if I should use "Harley" instead of "Hattori," as seen in some other panels, but ehh, if the movie manga was officially translated in English, it would probably use the Japanese names, lol. Glad to hear it came out fairly cohesive, despite everything!

Regarding the aspect ratios, I usually try to make my videos a consistent 16:9 or 4:3, and anything not natively those ratios will be scaled and cropped to fit. But for this one, I was very inspired by AMVs that deliberately use differing aspect ratios as part of the concept, like katranat's "Here It Goes Again" and Joker Troupe's "Future Nostalgia" MEP, and I decided to give that a try, too! I thought it could also fit with my concept because I think a 4:3 aspect ratio rather represents the past (I've seen it used for flashbacks in 16:9 series), which adds to the idea of the journey to the "other side" being long. But Heiji will stick around no matter how long it takes!

Speaking of long, I know this was all ridiculously long, but tl;dr, thank you so much for all the kind comments!! It means a lot <3

My @heishinvalentineexchange2025 gift for the immensely kind and patient @caliowl333, who graciously allowed me to participate with a video instead of fic or art! (And wrote me a 20,000+-word piece in exchange?! Oh my goodness!)

Song is the SadBois & NIO Remix of "Other Side" by ILLENIUM, featuring Vera Blue, which you can listen to in full here. Ramblings under the cut!

When I first began seriously video editing, I didn't think much about composition or how well clips flowed together—lyric sync was arguably my main goal, and anime pieces were thrown onto the timeline pretty much purely based on that.

Now, I put much more care into the very visual elements—the effects, the match cuts, the dazzle. But in the process, I fear that I'm losing what audiences found engaging about my early videos: the actual ideas.

So, for this AMV, I aimed to put the most effort into a strong concept. The titular "other side" is a world without the Black Organization, where Shinichi can freely be himself. Heiji is waiting for that world, where he no longer has to lie and pat Conan's head and pretend that they're not peers, and Shinichi is dreaming of that world because he's always dreamed of working with somebody just like him. The thought of meeting Heiji someday, when he first learns of his existence (Episode 490), fills Shinichi with excitement. He does a lot on his own, but he also loves working on a team—and doing so, being with people, sharing his enthusiasm with others—is what he wants more than anything.

(Heck, there's even a piece of official art called "Conan's Dream Vacation" where he dreams of playing beach volleyball with Heiji and Ran and Kazuha—as himself.)

Sure, you could argue that Shinichi simply enjoys working with Heiji as Conan because Heiji treats him as he truly is. But the times he spends as Shinichi with Heiji point to the fact that no, he just really likes deducting with Heiji. Eagerness, big smiles—in "The Scarlet School Trip" (Episodes 927-928), involving Heiji in the case of the day takes precedence over solving it himself, as he immediately shares what he knows and even jostles Heiji awake when he learns more, before doing anything else, because there's no way he's going to solve it alone. He doesn't want to.

But as things are, being Shinichi is pain. He takes an antidote, but it's poison. Being Conan is what's become "normal" and "comfortable," but Conan can't be what Shinichi is to Heiji. Conan isn't strong enough to catch Heiji when he's falling. Conan can't save him from bullets. Conan can't even talk to him naturally without hiding and secrets. His dreams have become nightmares.

And it can't be easy for Heiji, either. To see someone you care about suffering. To know that Shinichi is in a dangerous situation—and involving himself in it applies that same danger to himself. It'd make sense for Heiji to walk away and wash his hands of it... but Shinichi really wants him to stay. Despite everything, he wants Heiji to stay. For that someday when they can be true partners "on the other side."

I tried to say other things in here, too. Shinichi cementing himself as a precious person to Heiji by countering his insecurities with a one truth prevails and this isn't a competition and you don't have to prove yourself to me. Heiji finding Shinichi even after becoming Conan because he'll always find Shinichi, no matter what, because he's dreaming of being "on the other side," too (even if he didn't know it initially). Shinichi pushing Heiji away with coldness because maybe it's selfish to want him to stay, maybe it's cruelty to involve him, but he can't deny that he cares, that he wants Heiji with him, that he doesn't want to do this on his own.

And while I maybe still went a little ham on the effects, I do hope my ideas are the strongest of all! "No effects" versus effects comparison can be found here!

Thank you again for all your hard work organizing this event, Cali!!