The Misadventures of R2 and Miku is a series of animated videos posted by Desert Clockwork Films
in The New '10s. It started with a mushroom-influenced video of two R2-D2 and Hatsune Miku figures having an argumentnote , followed by a few meme videos where the two characters act out popular scenes. After this, though, the series solidified as a sort of surreal, darkly humorous sitcom.
R2 and Miku themselves are unsurprisingly the center of the series - the former is forced to put up with the latter's stupidity and tendency towards impulsive behavior, which often gets them involved in a number of surreal situations. Of course, the world around them is equally as chaotic and violence-prone, thus often leading both to get in way over their heads.
The original series was canceled following YouTube implementing policies to comply with COPPA near the end of 2019. Shortly afterwards, the entire series was temporarily made private and re-uploaded onto Vlare, with the creator continuing it in favor of the spin-off Hey R2, Hey Miku. However, the original YouTube uploads have since been re-instated (with an age restriction).
This series contains examples of:
- Ambiguous Clone Ending: "Clones" ends with R2 killing all but one of the Mikus, with the one that's left doubting whether she is in fact a clone or not.
- Ambiguous Situation: It's left ambiguous whether "Miku Myers" in "MVP" is just Miku in a costume or actually empowered like Michael. She claims the former while facing a firing squad, but then ends up getting up after they cease fire nearly unharmed.
- And Knowing Is Half the Battle: Two rather odd examples, especially from such an irreverent series.
- "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair" (an atypically serious - but still goofy - episode where Miku crosses a line with R2 and ends up having to face her own flaws to get back in his good graces) ends with a completely straight-laced PSA about suicide and donating to non-profits dedicated to helping suicidal people (set to "Goodbye Cruel World", no less).
- "Hate" (another atypically serious episode addressing modern-day bigotry towards minorities via Fantastic Racism) similarly ends with a sequence about racial tolerance and accepting immigrants. (To hammer home the similarities, both episode conclude with an In Memoriam section for people related to the message.)
- Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: GLaDOS elaborates on just how poor R2 is:"He is all dirty and he doesn't even have cable at his home."
- As You Know: A variant - in "Appendix", R2 irritably delivers exposition about his parents' death because Miku forgot.
- Author Appeal: Various covers from albums the creator likes can be seen framed in the background of Miku's house.
- Big "OMG!": Miku's immediate response to seeing the Millennium Falcon in a junkyard in "Trip to the Moon".
- Big "WHAT?!":
- R2's reaction to Miku describing the sickness that killed her cousin in "Disease".
- Both of them react this way to being threatened with military school in "Trip to the Moon".
- Bittersweet Ending: "Hate" is this both as a self-contained episode and for the entire first season. After being forced out of Springfield by Donald Trump, Miku's family and R2 leave in the Falcon and move to a house exactly like their old one in a more accepting town - Dallas, Texas.
- Black Comedy: The series runs on this. "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse" alone has Miku eating a squirrel after going without food for almost a week, followed by her threatening her mother:"If you don't give us food, I'm gonna tell dad and he's going to hit you again!"
- Boke and Tsukkomi Routine: Miku is the ditzy boke to R2's irritated, wiser tsukkomi.
- Brick Joke: Early in "Appendix", Miku claims that if R2 ends up being hurt further at the hospital, they can sue for negligence and become rich. At the very end, when she ends up killing him by accident, her immediate reaction is to cry "We're rich!"
- Buried Alive: When Miku thinks she's dying in "Disease", her testament includes a demand that anyone who has ever listened to her music (among many other people) be buried alongside her - alive.
- Call-Back: After discovering that the titular monkey ruined his roast in "The Chimp", R2 cries "My roast is ruined!" ala "Steamed Hams". (It's made more obvious by a still from the latter video appearing right after he says this.)
- Cerebus Rollercoaster: "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair" is a rare example of this trope applying to a single episode. It starts with Miku hitting R2 with a chair, but then quickly changes gears when R2 tells her off and admits he only became her friend out of pity. This leads into a scene where Miku (who is genuinely hurt by this) has a heart-to-heart with her mother that's tinged with Black Comedy (because her mother is GLaDOS, and she's quite reticent to say she loves her daughter), followed by Miku tearfully attempting to make amends with R2 in a completely serious manner. After they reconcile, it switches back to comedy when Miku falls for a trap and ends up getting the two of them killed... before the episode concludes with a deadly-serious PSA about suicide prevention.
- Comically Missing the Point: From "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse", when Miku calls C-3PO for help:C-3PO: I don't know what all this trouble is about but I'm sure it must be your fault.
[hangs up]
Miku: She'll be back soon. - Comfort Food: Miku takes to KFC when she's upset.
- Continuity Nod: Surprisingly frequent for a series so prone to snapping back.
- Miku eating a squirrel in "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse" leads to her getting sick in "Disease".
- "Clones" ends with Miku realizing she's come back from death before, citing her death in the treehouse and murder by the cow from two prior episodes.
- "The Chimp" opens with Miku laying despondently in bed, leading R2 to assume she got sick like in "Disease".
- Upon seeing a depressed Miku in "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair", GLaDOS asks if she's still sad over Croatia's loss in The World Cup (as was the case in "The Chimp"). At the end, R2 hears about a "pizza delivery cow" and immediately makes the connection to the one that shot him dead in "Disease"; Miku's failure to connect the dots ends up proving fatal once more.
- Couch Gag: Starting with "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse", every episode opens with a disclaimer accompanied by a random soundbite.
- Credits Gag: Beginning with "MVP", every episode ends with a single credit to a vulgar gag name (for example, "Mike Rotch"). The exception is "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair", where the ending is serious enough that the credit is instead for "don't insert gag name in here because suicide is not a joke".
- Crossover: Unsurprisingly, other Vocaloid and Star Wars characters show up often. There are a few other series involved as well, most notably GLaDOS as Miku's parent.
- Cross-Referenced Titles: The original series' two season finales are titled "Hate" and "Indifference".
- Curse Cut Short: The psycho Wookie in "Appendix" yells "What the fu—?!" before being trampled by llamas.
- Deus ex Machina: Often Played for Laughs.
- Rin is somehow able to destroy R2's ship in "MVP".
- Miku manages to stop the psychotic, flamethrower-wielding Wookie in "Appendix" by summoning a horde of llamas to trample him.
- Don't Touch It, You Idiot!: R2 tells Miku not to touch the cloning machine in their garage in "Clones". Miku does it anyone once he leaves because she never explicitly agreed.
- Drop the Cow:
- "R2 and Miku Stuck in a Treehouse" ends with a rapid-fire series of explosions killing the pair - starting with a thermal detonator, followed by other Star Wars ships like an X-Wing crashing onto the treehouse, and finally concluding with the Death Star dropping.
- "Disease" similarly ends with the two being shot to death off-screen by a cow wielding a gun.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: The first episode is essentially a Surreal Music Video for Mushroomhead's "Episode 29" (with R2 and Miku re-enacting the conversation from the track's opening), unlike the more sitcom-like nature of the rest of the series.
- Earth-Shattering Kaboom: R2 (as the Predator) attempts this from orbit in "MVP", but Rin thwarts him before he can.
- Esoteric Happy Ending: Done intentionally in "Appendix". R2 ends up dying from Miku's incompetent effort to perform an appendectomy... but she reacts by gleefully stating "We're rich!".
- Especially Zoidberg: From "Disease":Miku: I want every person, animal and robot that I have ever talked to in my life to be buried with me.
R2: Wait a minute... Does that include me?
Miku: Especially you. - Establishing Character Moment: The "Steamed Hams" video sets up the titular pair as a straight man and idiot, respectively, which carries over into every subsequent episode.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin:
- "Steamed Hams but it's R2-D2 and Hatsune Miku". The script is indeed near-identical to the original episode, down to the two characters still referring to each other as Seymour and Chalmers.
- Subverted with "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair".note The first minute or so of the video is dedicated to setting up and showing the events in the title, but the rest of the video deals with the fallout.
- Fantastic Racism: "Hate" centers around this, with Springfield's new mayor forcing all robots out of the city through violence; humans end up taking to the streets to kill them en masse.
- Fantastic Slur: "Gangsta From Da Hood" shows that "clanker" is a stand-in for a much harsher slur in this setting - down to the robot gangsters calling each other "clanka" but getting offended when Miku unwittingly uses the hard-R variation.
- Foreshadowing: Of a sort. "Vertigo" and "Gangsta From Da Hood" both introduce themes that recur in a more serious sense in "Hate" (specifically, the notion of improving the Crapsack World and the word "clanker).
- Freeze-Frame Bonus:
- The "Steamed Hams" episode ends with a split-second appearance of a TIE Fighter (overlaid on the fire truck from the original episode).
- "Appendix" only shows the name of the hospital it's set in ("Sudden Death Hospital") near the end, and only for a fraction of a second before it's blown up.
- Friendship Moment:
- "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair" ends with R2 taking back Miku and the two making amends.
- After Miku ends up shot in the leg and left to rot by racists in "Hate", R2 manages to convince her that the world is better than she thinks it is, then takes her home to her (uncharacteristically concerned) parents.
- Gag Series: Nothing makes much sense in this series, least of all the crossover aspect.
- Gilligan Cut:
- The treehouse episode has Miku proclaim that C-3PO will be back soon to help them get out of the treehouse they're stuck in, immediately followed by a Time Skip of several days.
- "Appendix" has R2's lawyer remark that his surgery should be performed by a very competent doctor. Cue Zoidberg showing up, assuming he's to perform a womb transplant.
- From "Trip to the Moon":
Miku: I'm gonna save so much money to take us [to the moon]. Starting tonight!
[hard cut to the next day]
Miku: What do you mean you're cancelling my allowance?! - Global Ignorance: When asked if she knows where Croatia is located, Miku immediately claims it's right next to Uruguay.
- Halloween Episode: "MVP: Myers Vs Predator", which is themed around horror films and ends with a lampshade being hung on its lack of timeliness:Miku: I guess we can finally celebrate summertime Halloween!
- I Do Not Own: From the opening disclaimer:"I don't earn money with this crap, I only do it For the Lulz; that's why I use so much copyrighted content (as long as it doesn't hurt anyone's pockets, it's ok)."
- If You Kill Him, You Will Be Just Like Him!: The end of "Happy Meal" has one squirrel attempt to dissuade its companions from taking revenge on Miku for eating their kind:Squirrel: Wait, comrades! If we behave like those creatures, we won't be any better than them! There must be a way to solve this peacefully!
Miku: I'm a little bit hungry. Can I eat a couple of you?
[Beat]
Squirrel: &%@# it! Don't even leave her bones! - I'm a Humanitarian:
- Zoidberg quickly goes to town on the dead Miku corpses in "Clones".
- SeeU makes pies out of the Apollo 18 crew in "Trip to the Moon".
- Laser-Guided Karma: "Happy Meal" sees Miku eating a room full of squirrels, only for her to end up stuck in a tree and surrounded by more of them by the end of the episode. Turns out that two of the squirrels she killed had a son, and he spurs them into taking revenge by trying to eat her.
- Loophole Abuse: "Clones" opens with two instances of this - Miku uses the fact that she never explicitly agreed to not touch the cloning machine in her garage to do so, then justifies it to R2 by saying that she only went in it.
- Maniac Monkeys: "The Chimp"'s titular character causes quite a bit of damage to Miku's house before holding up a bank in an effort to fund a nebulous scheme.
- Medium Awareness:
- Rin complains that Miku gets more irritating in every video in "MVP".
- "Clones" ends with a Reality-Breaking Paradox destroying the video's background.
- "Trip to the Moon" opens with this exchange:
Miku: The moon is so cute!
R2: It's just a PNG image. - More Dakka: "MVP"'s climax ends with Miku getting shot for over 10 continuous seconds.
- One-Word Title: "Disease", "Clones" and "Appendix".
- Paper-Thin Disguise: The cow from "Disease" is able to fool Miku simply by wearing a hat in its second appearance.
- Pet the Dog:
- At the end of "Disease", when Miku prepares for vacation:
R2: Hat, you failed the eleventh grade!
Miku: [sadly] ...you mean there will be no vacation?
[lengthy Beat]
R2: Screw it. Let's go to the beach!- Turret gets one of these moments at the end of "Happy Meal". After being verbally and physically abused by Miku throughout the episode - on her birthday, no less - R2 finally has enough, throws Miku out of the Falcon, and gives Turret her Happy Meal.
- "Ray of Hope" Ending: "Clones" is an odd comedic example. Miku ends up destroying the universe through questioning her own existence, leaving her and R2 stuck floating through space; however, R2 resolves to see where they float to next, ending on a relatively positive note. (The music - Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea" - helps this.)
- Reality-Breaking Paradox: "Clones" ends with Miku's contemplation destroying the universe, leaving her and R2 floating through space.
- "The Reason You Suck" Speech: R2 hits a breaking point in "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair" and calls Miku out for her immaturity and stupidity, admitting that he was only her friend out of pity. Miku does not take it well.
- Released to Elsewhere: From "Clones":Miku: Where are my clones?
R2: They... they went to buy cigarettes.
[beat]
R2: Nah, I'm just kidding. They're dead. - Ruptured Appendix: "Appendix" centers around R2 suffering from one.
- Please Subscribe To This Channel: Starting with "R2 and Miku Play Fortnite", every video ends with a short sequence where Miku asks the viewers to like the video and check out Desert Clockwork Films' other social media accounts.
- Scare Chord: An old-timey television one plays when SeeU is revealed to have survived her apparent death in "Trip to the Moon".
- Self-Deprecation:
- After Miku begins to question her unexplained recovery from death in "Clones", R2 tells her to quit thinking about it "because the creator's mind cannot keep up with all that philosophy!"
- "The Chimp" features a Continuity Nod to "Disease", leading R2 to question whether "[Miku] really want[s] to make a sequel for that crappy video?"
- Shout-Out:
- The Simpsons gets a lot of these:
- The series takes place in Springfield (though this is only apparent when it's explicitly mentioned).
- Two episodes involve recreations of scenes from the series that had become memes - "Steamed Hams but it's R2-D2 and Hatsune Miku", and "Miku Hits R2 with a Chair".
- "MVP: Myers Vs Predator" ends by playing "Bad Cops".
- Homer cameos as one of the men who tries Russian Roulette (and fails) in "The Deer Hunters".
- Another video recreates the equally-famous treehouse scene from Drake & Josh. Said episode also involves a time card ripped straight from SpongeBob SquarePants.
- Throughout the series, various characters' voices are represented by the Peanuts trombone noise.
- "MVP: Myers Vs Predator" unsurprisingly references Halloween and Predator heavily (with the title specifically alluding to Alien vs. Predator).
- "Clones" has two in the same scene - R2 manages to convince one Miku to leave the truck she's in by tossing a plumbus, leading her to hop out with a sound effect from Super Mario Bros..
- A Xenomorph cameos in the first few seconds of "Appendix".
- Miku's room, as seen in "The Chimp", has both a Gamesphere and a closet with "DON'T OPEN DEAD INSIDE" written on it. Later in the episode, Bob Belcher cameos inside the bank. What's more, the punchline to the episode is Miku announcing that she needs a medic bag (with that game's audio clips, no less).
- Miku's bathroom has a sign with text reading "RESERVED FOR BILLY MAYS' AUTOGRAPH".
- "Trip to the Moon" has Miku sighting Bender's lunar lander on the moon; near the video's climax, R2 attacks SeeU and declares "Get away from us, you bitch!"
- "Hate" concludes by playing "Take Me Home, Country Roads".
- The Simpsons gets a lot of these:
- Sick Episode: "Disease" centers around Miku staying home with what she thinks is a lethal disease. It's implied she's Playing Sick, as when R2 brings up that school has already ended for the year, she immediately gets off the couch and prepares for vacation.
- Snap Back: Practically every episode ends with the titular pair either dead or otherwise indisposed, which will inevitably be ignored come the next.
- Spot the Imposter: R2 immediately resorts to bringing out a gun to deal with the Miku clones in this fashion in "Clones". (He doesn't end up getting to do it, though.)
- Stuff Blowing Up: Occurs occasionally, most notably in the abrupt ending to the treehouse episode (where no less than 5 occur in the span of a few seconds).
- Stylistic Suck: Many of the backgrounds are drawn poorly in MS Paint, the animation is generally quite limited, and whenever there's actual voice acting it's usually flat and poorly recorded.
- Super Window Jump: R2's lawyer makes her exit this way in "Appendix".
- Symbol Swearing: Used in the subtitles for "Clones", when R2 gets grievously injured:"Mother %@#&! $#@ sucker! &#@$ face!"
- Take That!:
- "MVP: Myers Vs Predator" was made in response to the announcement of Halloween (2018) and The Predator - the description makes it clear that the author is not particularly keen on the latter. The video itself has several more of these, from R2 reacting to Miku referencing Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice with "Are you seriously quoting that horrible piece of--?!" to a few other barbs at The Predator:
Miku: Do you really think a bunch of "Marvel" jokes from the guy who ruined Iron Man are gonna save your franchise?!
[later]
R2: I'll be back, Miku Myers! With an overly expensive sequel that has nothing to do with the previous film!- "Hate" opens with Donald Trump becoming mayor of Springfield, whereupon he immediately enacts legislation that forbids robots from living in the town (an allusion to his controversial crackdown on immigration from certain countries in real life). The same episode also shows BB-8 among the droids that are killed because of the new law, and when R2 is asked if he knew him, he replies: "No, and I don't consider his movies to be canon."
- Tempting Fate: After making it to the moon and admiring the view in "Trip to the Moon", Miku figures that the video should end soon - only for SeeU to suddenly appear.
- They Killed Kenny Again: Both the titular characters die at some point in several episodes, only to recover in the next with no explanation. One episode ends with Miku realizing this and falling into anxious existentialism, resulting in a Reality-Breaking Paradox.
- Toilet Humor: "The Chimp" indulges in this, thanks to the title character's penchant for Dung Fu.
- Waxing Lyrical: In "Happy Meal", R2 explains who Sancho Ripchord is (the mascot of WcDonald's after "Ronaldo WcDonald" was revealed to be a sex offender), then quotes the Circus of Dead Squirrels song "Happy Mealworm":"Never ever trust a clown."
- World Half Full: In "Hate", after Miku ends up crossing the Despair Event Horizon, R2 argues that they can try to make the world a better place despite all its present flaws.
- You Are Grounded!: Miku ineffectively attempts this on her monkey in "The Chimp".
- You Do Not Want To Know: Rin's response to Miku asking how she managed to blow up an intergalactic ship in "MVP".
- Zany Scheme: In "Appendix", Miku initially plans to harm R2 (who's in the hospital for a Ruptured Appendix) in order to sue the hospital for negligence and get rich.
