AMV HELL 01

The first video in the series, which premiered on May 28, 2004.

It originates from interactions between its creators - Zarxrax and SSGWNBTD - over AOL Instant Messenger. SSGWNBTD would often send Zarxrax short video snippets and incomplete anime music videos, or merely discuss using a particular song in conjunction with a particular anime. Similarly, Zarxrax had many ideas which were never truly intended to be full length, stand-alone videos. As such, Zarxrax had the idea to combine the duo's ideas into a single video, with the expectation that doing so would result in "at least a few minutes of content".

Zarxrax intended to send the resulting compilation in to some contests, which required that full video would not include any content the contributors deemed inappropriate for attendees of conventions where the video would be shown. However, some of their ideas were inappropriate for such a setting, which led them to create a second video containing everything they could not include in the first. This second video would be titled AMV Hell 2: Son of AMV Hell; the end of AMV Hell includes a joke promo for the sequel at the end, containing various dramatic scenes which the promo admits are not actually contained in AMV Hell 2. Some of the clips which were intended for the original were moved to AMV Hell 2 in order to "balance out the length of the two videos".

The original AMV Hell went on to win awards at three different conventions.