"Anime is trash and so am I."
"Bro, if you set your mind to it, you can jack off to anything."
— Domestic Girlfriend: A Dumpster Fire I Can't Stop Watching
Garnt Maneetapho, a.k.a. Gigguk, born May 31, 1990, is a British-Thai, fast-talking, self-made anime reviewer who originated on YouTube and is the sole founder of The Anime Zone
, co-founder of The PodTaku Podcast, and director of EvAbridged.
Born in Brighton, England to Thai immigrants, he began his reviewing career in 2008 as a way to procrastinate from math homework. It all started with a review of Bleach under his Thai nickname, Gigguk. Since then, he has changed his style from leisurely enjoyment to a more analytical and comedic approach. His final grade is based on a 0 to 10 rating system, designating each title with a single integer. He is open to reviewing any title from any genre, despite his aversion to high school and moe anime.
2012 marked the beginning of his tenure as a permanent panelist on The PodTaku Podcast until its folding in January 2016. He was joined by fellow reviewers Arkada, Holden, and Jeanne. He followed it up two months later with the release of EvAbridged, a highly satirical parody of Rebuild of Evangelion, in which he voices the role of Fuyutsuki. On September 25, 2013, he and the rest of PodTaku launched J-Taku, a separate podcast of singular topics devoted to anime, which was developed with the help of several other reviewers note .
Gigguk entered hiatus in 2014 after taking a job for the BBC, uploading three videos in 2014 and five videos in 2015.
On May 5, 2016, Gigguk announced his official return to YouTube after a series of consistent uploads, with his intent to substantially grow the channel by the end of the year. He reached over 500k subscribers that year in December, and hit one million subscribers on December 30th in 2017. As of July 2020, he is one of the most subscribed Anitubers with 2.39 million subscribers.
After his comeback, he moved away from his previous reviewing format over time, and eventually stopped using the name "The Anime Zone".
2020 sees the debut of a collaborative podcast with The Anime Man and CDawgVA, Trash Taste. The series focuses on their mutual love of anime and manga, as well as their unique takes and observations on Japanese society.
He can be found on Twitter, Tumblr, MyAnimeList and Kitsu.
Gigguk provides examples of the following tropes:
- Added Alliterative Appeal: When describing Blend-S and asking what S stands for:Gigguk: Sure enough, it surfaced, starting the story of Sakuranomiya as she is scouted into Stile, sadistic though she is. A suitable specimen to situate herself in a superfluous shack of sisters, tsunderes, senpais, and surprises, selling the sweetest of snacks with sterling services. This story, a Slice of Life, silly as swallows, showcased such simple stimulating satisfactions, staging some side-splitting shenanigans stylishly supported by stars. Signifying a sprightly, spunky, spirited show that is surefire to spring a smile. So, in summation, S stands for suck mY BIG FAT-(show intro plays)
- Applied Mathematics: He was able to sum up all the relationships from School Days using variables and simple functions.
- Bait-and-Switch Comment: In his guide to Fall 2016 anime, he starts by claiming that Keijo!!!!!!!! is trashy and sexist, before calling it pure genius immediately afterwards.
- Country Matters: When giving a rundown of the cast of School Days he just refers to Makoto as a cunt.
- Cuteness Proximity:
- Despite his usual dislike of moe, Tsumugi Inuzuka from Sweetness & Lightning gets this reaction out of him.
- When talking about vtubers, he had to be stopped by Sydney from petting Korone's head.
- Damned by Faint Praise: When he briefly summarizes his thoughts on Fairy Tail, he says that watching the show was "definitely time... spent".
- Deadpan Snarker: It's very expected from an anime reviewer and critic to impose sarcasm in his reviews, even sometimes throwing in humor with it.
- Drill Sergeant Nasty: The opening of Rail Whores, a parody of Rail Wars!, gives us Drill Sergeant Gono.Gono: All right, you FUCKMAGGOTS! Welcome to Train School!
- Even the Guys Want Him: "The Waifu Tier List" ranks all the usual cute anime girls … with Robert E.O. Speedwagon from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure on his own in S tier.
- Forgot Flanders Could Do That: During the episode on gacha games, he starts playing Fate/Grand Order and confides that after cracking so many jokes about the Fate Series being that one with all the porn, the gender-flipping and the ridiculous names, he kinda forgot people actually like the series for a reason, and quickly got engrossed into the story.
- The Gambling Addict: In his gacha video Gigguk states while he's been to real casinos, he didn't particularly enjoy the experience. To his confusion he greatly enjoys when he pulls the characters he wants from the gacha and fully admits to being addicted to gacha games at the end of the video.
- Good with Numbers: Up until his 10,000 subscriber special, Gigguk attended Bristol University where he majored in Electronic Engineering.
- He Is All Grown Up: Gigguk does a Wild Take upon seeing what Fate/Zero's Waver's grown into by Lord El-Melloi II Case Files and immediately starts catcalling him to the tune of a gospel choir.Gigguk: Remember this wimpy kid? Well, ever wonder what he'd look like if he was olde-OOOH HO HO HO HOOOH! HELLLOOOOOO DADDY!
- I Can't Believe I'm Saying This: In "The Moe Anime Revolution": When we think of influential shows in the history of anime, we think of international megahits like AKIRA, Evangelion and Dragon Ball Z, anime that had an industry-wide effect and influenced their genres for years to come. So, seven years after some no-name on the internet reviewed K-On! and publicly exclaimed that this was a nothing show about cute girls drinking motherfucking tea, I can now begrudgingly admit that K-On is one of the most important and influential shows to come out for modern anime. (Beat) Yes, those were really words that just came out of my mouth.
- Ironic Echo: A brief gag in "Sword Art Online in 5 Minutes" has Kirito brush off Klein a couple times with "come back when you're a main character". Flash forward to "Summer 2020 Anime in a Nutshell" and now Klein, having had his dramatic entrance while Kirito's been out of commission, gets the last laugh.
- Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: The "Tsundere" Your Waifu IS Real seems attracted to but awkward around Gigguk, but when he points out she should be mean she shifts to calling him a pathetic nerd and hitting him. Her subsequent "It's not because I like you or anything" comes of as far more true than a typical tsundere.
- Large Ham: He qualifies due to frequently shouting and exaggerating his words. The basis for some of his comedy. Also done to just get something across.
- Leeroy Jenkins: The intro to his Sword Art Online review.
- Magical Asian: One of the jokes in the PodTaku Drunk Podcast episode was that Gigguk would win in a fight between the four panelists due to his superior math knowledge and inherent martial arts skills.
- Mathematician's Answer: In "trying to understand the fate series", Gigguk takes a moment to detail how Red Saber and Saber of Red are actually different characters despite their very similar names and appearance:Gigguk: And these two Saber are also different from each other?
Fate Fandom Gigguk: Oh, no, no, no! You see, one is Red Saber and the other is Saber of Red. Get it?
Gigguk: No.
Fate Fandom Gigguk: It's pretty simple...
Gigguk: And they aren't related to the original Saber at all?
Fate Fandom Gigguk: Only Saber of Red.
Gigguk: You mean the Saber that's red or the one that looks like Saber?
Fate Fandom Gigguk: (takes a moment to think it over) ...Yes! - Mondegreen Gag:
- He references the popular mishearing of "Weigh Anchor!" in the KanColle opening as "Wanker!", saying "the opening already knew what viewers would be doing after seeing the show".
- When claiming that Keijo!!!!!!!! "[pushed] new boundaries in the elegant art of taking the piss... literally," he puts the following lyrics over the opening: "Splash in my pee/Making you taste/Splash in my pee" (it's actually "Splash in my dream/Making new days!/Splash in my dream").
- "Best Anime of 2022" covers Birdie Wing and he includes the memetic misheard lyrics of its opening.PENIS LIFE! PENIS LIFE! (song title "Venus Line" pops up) "Eh, close enough."
- Motor Mouth: In one of his stream highlights, Garnt recites the full formal name of Bangkok note without stumbling.
- "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
- Claims in "Anime in 2015" that Tokyo Ghoul √A was such a bad adaptation that "fucked viewers so hard, you can now watch the entire series on Pornhub!" before showing the site (with ads and suggestions pixelated) to show it's really there.
- In "Best of Anime 2021", when he shows a scene in EX-ARM where the screen spins and shrinks, it's accompanied by the caption "[THIS IS UNEDITED]" and the scene is shown again in Crunchyroll's viewer.
- Oh, Crap!: The beginning of his School Days review.Gigguk: Today on the Anime Zone, a review of School Days. *Chirping Crickets* ...SHIT.
- Overly Narrow Superlative: Once proudly called Great Pretender the best heist anime since Lupin III, maybe a minute after discussing how the genre is so underused the good ones are basically just Great Pretender and Lupin III.
- Out-of-Character Moment:
- Despite his constant aversion to slice-of-life, moe, high school anime, he highly praised The Disapperance of Haruhi Suzumiya for being so unlike its predecessors.
- In spite of being known for making comedy videos, some of his more serious and analytical videos like "You'll Grow Out of Anime Eventually" and "The Perfect Anime" are surprisingly deep and philosophical.
- When his strong dislike of the Little Sister Heroine and similar incest-fetish weirdness is well-known to the point of running gag, it really says something when he openly apologizes to Kaede from Rascal Does Not Dream of Bunny Girl Senpai for writing her off before seeing where the show was going with her character.
- His genuine and non-joking review of Summer Wars, in which he stressed the utter importance of family. And his review of Your Name was really heartwarming with no comedy in it.
- Out of Character Is Serious Business: He wasn't in any mood to make jokes after the Kyoto Animation arson. Instead, Gigguk genuinely thanked the studio and the people working for it in a tribute video.
- Person as Verb: "Don't worry, we got permission to film in these stores. We didn't fucking Logan Paul our way through Akibahara."
- Rapid-Fire Comedy: His season summaries in particular rely on fast editing to tie the quick jokes together.
- Running Gag:
- The constant badgering of his fanbase to go watch Baccano!.
- "Hentai games..."
- From his Ikki Tousen review, "Panty Shot!"
- "People die if they are killed."
- From his K-On! review, any problem in the show can be solved by "MOTHER-FUCKING TEA!"
- From his "DARLING in the FRANXX in 10 Minutes" video, any explanation for the absurdity that occurs near the end of the series is always summed up in two words; Because Trigger.
- Rule of Cool: Often an optional criteria he uses as he sees fit. Was a major factor of criteria with his Top 20 Epically Cool Anime Characters list.
-
Series Hiatus: Almost as famous as his reviews, his hiatus from regular uploads between 2014-2016 made some question his state of health, and it became a Running Joke with his subscribers. This hiatus was compounded by the fact his fellow reviewer and former PodTaku collaborator, Arkada, uploads on a weekly basis. - Serious Business: "When you disagree over best girl": Gigguk's friend says that he really likes KonoSuba, but he doesn't see the appeal of Raphtalia. Gigguk phones the police to report a hate crime.
- Stylistic Suck: His Bible Black "Honest Review," which he describes as a "timeless classic and absolute masterpiece" while (mostly) barring his fast-paced humor. The date it was uploaded in tells you just as much.
- Testosterone Poisoning: Illustrated in "Best of Anime 2023" where he takes the role of a young male anime viewer who tries to talk about Skip and Loafer, but the notion of being called "GAY" causes him to switch to talking about the latest action-packed shonen, Jujutsu Kaisen.
- Troperiffic: Gigguk has been known to use tropes by name.
Tropes that Gigguk has discussed in his videos:
- Adaptation Distillation: Has a video talking about the fact that most anime are adaptations of manga, light novels, and video games that people have experienced as the source material and people experience for the first time as anime.
- Animation Age Ghetto: One of his videos talks about how growing up as a kid a lot of people expected him to grow out of anime. He also mentions how the general populace doesn't differentiate anime from cartoons and still sees them as "childish".
- Bestiality Is Depraved: In "Anime Has Gone Too Far." he talks about the anime adaptation of "My Life as Inukai's Dog," acting like a broken man expressing this opinion (and questioning who would make and enjoy this) after being exposed to the depravities in the subject matter.
- Darker and Edgier: Brought up in his review of Fate/Zero, where he mentions that the appeal of the show is that it had a more mature edge over all of the high school anime that were coming out at the time.
- Has a similar opinion about DEVILMAN crybaby.
- Fanservice: One of his rants talks about this topic. Gigguk's stance is that, quite simply, Sex Sells. His full view was encapsulated in this video. He ultimately concludes that while fanservice is a little too commonplace in anime, it's not going anywhere and it's not always a bad thing. He argues only time fanservice is bad is when the T&A is used as the only selling point for a show, or when the fanservice becomes so gratuitous that it ends up distracting from how out-of-place it is, which would ruin the viewer's Willing Suspension of Disbelief.
- Growing Up Sucks: "You'll Grow Out Of Anime... Eventually" examines the mentality that anime has a Fleeting Demographic that will abandon it as they get older. Gigguk disagrees with the notion, saying that similar arguments have been made against Star Wars, Back to the Future, and the original seasons of Pokémon: The Series for kids born in the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s, respectively. And yet, all of the aforesaid series are still around. Ultimately, Gigguk concludes that "we're not growing out of it, we're growing up with it". While people may have less interest or time for their hobbies as they get older, the Nostalgia Filter of how anime made someone feel when they were younger will probably never go away.
- Hate Sink: Discussed with Malty Melromarc from The Rising of the Shield Hero. While Gigguk says he considers himself a rational person, he also says "I hope this fucking bitch dies in a fire." He would later get exactly what he wanted; Malty is killed by being burned at the stake later in the story.
- Hentai: Devoted an entire episode to it. Specifically, he cited the sheer amount of fanservice in anime these days making it hard to distinguish between anime and porn, how hentai (like anything else) can be done well under the right circumstances, and that every anime fan has seen at least some hentai, so it's nothing to be ashamed of.
- Hype Backlash:
- One of his videos talks about how hype has played into then-recent seasonal anime.
- His DARLING in the FRANXX has him talk about its initial hype and controversial ending, and he comes to the realization that it was never going to be the next Evangelion.
- It's Not Porn, It's Art: Discussed in the episode "Hentai in a Nutshell". Gigguk shows a few frames from doujinshi and hentai works that have genuinely Awesome Art that isn't pornographic, and mentions how one hentai in particular actually got him to cry because of the strength of its story. Gigguk concludes by saying that hentai is ultimately a part of the anime medium, mentioning that established mangaka (like the creator of Food Wars!) started by creating hentai, and that it's not something to be ashamed of liking.
- It's Popular, Now It Sucks!: In his video "Why SAO Isn't Dead", he talks about how the Hate Dumb around Sword Art Online. Gigguk argues that the hate isn't deserved since there have always been popular anime — like Naruto, Bleach, and Dragon Ball — that have drawn in a lot of criticism at the height of their popularity.
- Les Yay: Jokes about this in his "Anime in 2016" video in regards to a few shows.
- Moe: Early in his Youtube career, he claimed he doesn't really get the appeal of watching a show with apparently nothing but cute girls doing cute things. Though he eventually made a video on how the phenomenon came to dominate anime in "The Moe Anime Revolution". While he still doesn't always like these types of shows based around moe, he'd eventually start somewhat appreciating it and there are some slice-of-life shows with strong moe elements that he liked, such as A Place Further than the Universe.
- Not Blood Siblings: Invented the saying "It's not incest if you shout no chromo" in reference to Domestic Girlfriend.
- Poor Man's Substitute: During his Fall 2017 Seasonal breakdown, Gigguk sums up Black Clover as being a Poor Man's Naruto, or a Rich Man's Fairy Tail.
- Serial Escalation: One of the reasons why the Saitama vs. Lord Boros fight works so well, in his opinion, is that the show was gradually building up to it by making Saitama so invincible, while also properly building up how strong Boros was to everyone else.
- Ship Tease: In his "Anime in 2016" video he does a segment on Izetta: The Last Witch, Flip Flappers, and Sound! Euphonium poking fun at the constant yuri teases in all three of them.
- So Bad, It's Good:
- Discussed as part of the appeal of Eromanga Sensei, saying it was "transcending trash", and describing it as a "masterpiece of trash".
- He did not have the same feelings for My First Girlfriend Is a Gal.
- He also described Domestic Girlfriend as "a dumpster fire I can't stop watching."
- Something Something Leonard Bernstein: In his "Attack on Titan in 9 minutes" video, he quietly mumbles the lyrics of the show's first opening for a few seconds before bursting into a full volume "JÄÄÄGER!!!", pretty much the only part of the song every one knows.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Although he spares no expenses in his gushing over My Dress-Up Darling and its lead heroine Marin Kitagawa, he vehemently denies any and all similarities between her and Sydney "sydsnap" Poniewaz - his real-life wife (as of June 7, 2022), all while showing obvious evidence to the contrary.
- Sweetness Aversion: His reaction to K-On! was initially that he didn't like it, since it was way too cutesy and wholesome for his liking. However, Gigguk would eventually change his mind, calling K-On! one of the most influential anime of all time.
- They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: His opinion on the Sword Art Online movie, pointing out that if it was handled better, it would have been something that could have changed the entire franchise.
- Timey-Wimey Ball: His summation of the plot twists of Steins;Gate.The story had more twists and turns I've seen in any show since Code Geass, with these plot twists mostly coming from our lack of understanding when it comes to time travel, allowing the author to effectively theorize his own science in the understanding of the quantum mechanics inherent behind the paradoxical results of jumping through time a.k.a. he can make shit up.
- Troperiffic: Garnt's general description of why he thinks Solo Leveling is such a blast to read. The story does absolutely nothing new or interesting, it's just all the tropes of "generic power fantasy" turned up to eleven. He even starts comparing it to Kitchen Nightmares, a series that he also considers nigh-Strictly Formula yet always entertaining because everything about it is so over-the-top. In the end, the series gets the prestigious title of "The Cooler Sword Art Online".
- Tsundere: One of his gag videos is a guide to tsunderes in anime... and real life. He then deconstructs and completely tears apart the character trope ruthlessly, from the perspective of a tsundere fan who awkwardly tries to defend them. He starts with the premise "tsunderes are not bitches, they're just misunderstood", yet describes them as lashing out for petty reasons, only to turn around and insist they are not so bad. He ends by slipping out "tsunderes are not misunderstood, they're bitches", and then goes back to defending them again.
- Yandere: Made a sequel to the tsundere video talking about this trope. He says that you'd have to be a little bit crazy yourself to want a woman after coming home to find out she's murdered everyone you care about. Gigguk himself doesn't get the appeal of the yandere character archetype, openly asking "why would you want that?" and saying that rule number one for dealing with a yandere is "do NOT stick your dick in crazy".
