Tear Jerker / Super Eyepatch Wolf

• The beginning of his Aggretsuko review, where he discusses how much he hated working a "9 to 5 job" that he felt was suffocating and emotionally draining despite it providing him good income.
• After spending nearly half an hour gushing how much he loved Devotion, you hear John's depressed tone as he discusses how the game was pulled from Steam following the disastrous inclusion of an art asset insulting the Chinese president that lead to the game (and by an extent, the other game Red Candle released Detention) being review-bombed, with it unknown if the game will return. The game would mercifully be put online to download through Red Candle, but it took two years for the game to return.
• Some of his videos end on rather sad and/or bittersweet notes, two of the most notable being The Fall of the Simpsons: How it Happened, and Final Fantasy XV was a Mediocre Disappointment, which are greatly helped by the music that accompany his concluding remarks.
  Ultimately, it's hard not to feel sad about what's happened to the Simpsons, but even if the same staff had stayed on, even if everything had remained exactly the same for the show internally, I think Simpsons was too much of a time that it could never really have survived the turn of the millennium. So much of it was so rooted in the culture of the 90s and its media. And I think that's okay. I think entertainment isn't meant to last forever. Rather it's an extension of the people and places that made it at a particular moment in time. And that's what the Simpsons is: one of the purest and most raw expressions of social and political unrest, beautifully told and hilariously depicted. And despite what it's become and how it's all ended, I can't help but be so glad that we got those early seasons. It was a show that shaped a generation and transformed entertainment as we know it, and I'm very very glad it did. But regardless, this has been the story of how the greatest show on earth became just another sitcom. This was the fall of The Simpsons: how it happened.
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  Final Fantasy XV is a game haunted by the ghosts of what it used to be. Even watching the rebranding trailer from 2013 reveals so many concepts and mechanics that never made their way into the final game. And I think the reason for that is that Final Fantasy XV didn't have a 10-year production. It had seven years of massively ambitious and borderline insane pre-production, crippled with creative, productive and scheduling difficulties, followed by three years of desperately trying to make an actual game out of those unfinished concepts. And the results can be felt everywhere, from its hollow world, to its unbalanced combat, to a story that's fractionally segmented, to even it's closing credits sequence. And I don't blame anyone who worked on the project. Both Nomura and Tabata still speak with an earnest enthusiasm about the game that makes me feel like they were always trying to do their best with the resources they had, and I don't doubt the tens of thousands of hours of very hard work that was poured into this game by hundreds of extremely talented people, and I don't mean for this video to belittle their efforts. But I think, ultimately, what you have with Final Fantasy XV is what happens when unrestrained creative ambition comes crashing into the realities of video game development. And I don't think pointing that out puts me above or makes me more knowledgeable than anyone who actually worked on it. All I am is a guy getting angry about a video game on the internet, which means I'm nobody. But regardless, I hope it's clear at this point that I love Final Fantasy, and that I wouldn't have made this video if I didn't.
• The end of Wolf's video about fake martial arts concerns Chinese MMA practitioner Xu Xiaodong, who stood against China's blind faith in traditional martial arts. The Chinese martial arts community has far too many masters who claim to have supernatural powers, and it's well known in martial arts circles that said "supernatural powers" only work on brainwashed students who act like said abilities work because they want it to be true due to the Sunk Cost Fallacy. The "masters" Xiaodong fought all bragged about their supposed power and technique, only to be exposed as frauds when Xiaodong flattened them with the basics of MMA in actual sparring matches with someone who wasn't buying their garbage. As a result, Xiaodong ended up being subjected to a Trauma Conga Line of humiliation, harassment and societal torment. In many other places, Xiaodong would be doing people a favor — such displays made the case for real martial arts training. But China having graceful martial arts as part of its cultural identity, combined with the CCP being so concerned with its image of China's greatness, makes it easy to see why Xiaodong was targeted by the worst of the Chinese government's harassment.
• The Bizarre Modern Reality of Sonic the Hedgehog has a recurring segment following the lives of a young Sonic fanboy and his childhood friend Jake as they experience the highs and lows of the franchise. Outside of some hints that Jake has a troubled home life, the first two segments are light in tone, opening with a comically on-the-nose "Mister Sandman" Sequence for the era they take place in and representing the two of them with stock photos of the most stereotypically 90s kids imaginable. The last one, however, follows a decade-long Time Skip in which the two of them had drifted apart, and when by chance they finally meet again on the train to work, it quickly becomes clear that the two of them, especially Jake, are no longer the people they once were, and that any hope of them rekindling their friendship has long since faded.
  The year is 2015. You lean against the wall of a crowded train cart as a muffled version of Adele's "Hello" creeps between its passengers, when suddenly, you notice next to you... My God, it's- it's Jake! Sure, his hair's shorter now, and it's strange to see him in a suit, but... it's him! "Jake!" you cry, your eyes meeting for the first time in nine years. Yeah, things had gotten a little... complicated between you two the last time you had met, but it's still so good to see him! And as your mind tumbles back through your memories together, searching for something, anything, to say, you stammer out the words "Ha-have you played Sonic Generations? It's... pretty good!" And an emotion flashes across his face you don't quite recognize. And as the train slows to a stop, he glances down at his briefcase, pausing, before mumbling "I don't... play those games any more." And he steps off the train, and out of your life forever. And in that moment, amidst the crowded carriage, you've never felt more alone.
  • The post-credits scene of the video has a tear jerker of a different kind, showing that the friendship between the viewpoint character and Jake isn't quite over yet. It can also resonate with any viewer who's lost their passion for anything they loved only to rediscover that passion later.
    Text: "Hey."
    "It's Jake."
    "I saw the Sonic movie."
    "I miss you."
  • On a stream, he mentions that the Jake character was based on a real friend from his childhood that he lost contact with. Though he doesn't go into much further detail, it's clear that the experience affected him deeply, and it's rather bittersweet.
• The ending of Why You Should Watch Outlaw Star, though crossed with a good bit of Heartwarming. Outlaw Star was a means of escape for him as a teenager, but he fell out of love with the show after several life changes for the better. Upon rewatching, he was unable to revisit what captivated him so much in the first place, but finally rediscovered said love in the wake of the 2020 Coronavirus quarantine. It's a rather bittersweet reflection on how we lean on pieces of media in times of crisis, and can certainly resonate with viewers in similar situations.
• The end of his Shenmue III video. After spending over 40 minutes ripping the game apart for its outdated design, broken combat and lack of story, John is left broken as he reflects on how he and countless other people spent the better part of their lives waiting for some kind of continuation of the story, only to be left with what John suspects to be at best just an attempt from creator Yu Suzuki to try and recapture the reputation he held decades ago. The game's marked financial failure has likely also meant that the Shenmue story will never be concluded, leaving him feeling that the only option he and others have is to simply move on. The final line of the video is especially depressing:
  And honestly... that kills me.
• During the second part of his Undertale video, John discusses how certain fans who had amazing fan universes for Undertale would later on depart the fanbase due to their soon-to-be-known infamous moments. While this within itself is saddening to hear, it's even worse when Toby Fox himself, the creator of the game they so love, would lament said fanbase's infamy and was growing weary of it. Of course, the most devastating part is Toby's revelation of suffering a Creator Breakdown due to how much of a Sleeper Hit Undertale became, even saying in an interview the simple words: "my life has changed permanently and will never change back".
• The entirety of his video about trying to fix the insanely broken Dell PC that he bought. While part of it is undoubtedly exaggerated, the sheer amount of Sanity Slippage John goes through as tries again and again for half a year to make a computer he spent a lot of money on is sadly relatable. Much of the video is spent explaining how he felt gripped by shame and fear at every turn, and how due to the kindness and helpfulness of everyone he spoke to, he can barely manage to express any of the frustration he feels about the situation.
  • What's even tragic is that most of the comments point out that this is not all John's fault: While he does mention the fact he should have asked more tech savvy friends/associates about how to build a PC and the like, it's pointed out that's why most people trust tech companies to do the PC Building for them for non-knowledgeable tech people. However, as argued by some within his fanbase, Dell screwed up with sending him a faulty machine and only decided to refund him everything when his Twitter posts about the situation exploded into public space.
• In the What The Internet Did To Garfield video's penultimate act, John showcases a illustration named The Forgiveness of Jon, depicting a angelic Jon Arbuckle right before ending the now-eldritch Garfield's life on top of a writhing sea of people. John describes the arresting, grand nature of the illustration, as his voice gradually wavers with welled up emotion. By the end of his emotional analysis of the portrait, he's close to crying as he reveals the name of the drawing only to cut to John talking about him wearing the Garfield costume.
• The entirety of "Why You Should STILL Read Berserk" is this. After spending a literal hour and a half explaining the overall strengths, amazement, and beauty of Berserk, John begins to explain how he became a fan of the manga after seeing the Golden Age films (including a funny story of him holding in his shit for two hours). He goes into detail how he viewed the characters as old friends to revisit and the explaining that despite the constant hiatuses, he knew Berserk would come back. Then he bluntly says that Kentaro Miura passed away in 2021, and while he does know the manga will be in good hands (due to the rumor that Miura's longest friend Kouji Mori and who served as the inspiration for Griffith would take helm of the series, which was confirmed in June of 2022), he gently explains that to him, Berserk was Miura and can't see it continue without him.
  John: Berserk ended in 2021.
  • His explanation of the manga's last chapter and...he's left completely stumped, even stating that he doesn't believe that's how it should end, given what we've seen of the story. John even goes off script as he tries to convey his frustration and sadness at how not only is Berserk over but he feels some sadness over Miura's death, even if he didn't personally knew him.
  • John returns after the cut to black after his rant and begins to explain the struggle of making content and the finality of creating art when someone stops making it, using the recent example of controversial artist Sewerslvt's final work we had good times together, don't forget that and his own content (assuring his fans he isn't stopping making videos, but that day could come someday) and then sliding into his own respect of Miura for the amount of effort and work that went through Berserk.
  • John himself theorizes that the reason for Berserk's constant hiatuses, in particular with the infamous "boat saga" was because Miura was putting aside his dream of doing Berserk (which he at times lamented that made him lonely and isolated, as he worked on it with little-to-no stop) to actually live a normal life. John even compares that belief to a scene before said boat arc to when Guts sees Griffith one more time...but decided to simply rest, after a long, grueling battle.
  • The ending, the simple black card of: "In Memory of Kentaro Miura".
• The Simpsons is Good Again is primarily an essay acting as a sequel to The Fall of The Simpsons, and deals with both John watching the then-recent Season 33 and 34 to see how they hold up to scrutiny given the buzz about them being signs the franchise is reaching its old glory, and partly him coming to terms with the fact that the former statement, objectively, cannot happen. While the new writing style holds its own and shows that the series has been reborn in a sense, The Simpsons as he knew it is gone. It's a bittersweet thesis that carries the moral that clinging to the past is rarely ever healthy, and we all have to move on eventually.

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