Web Video / Mother's Basement

Geoff Thew, self-proclaimed Anime Pope and professional shitbag. Profile picture from his second channel BasementEscape.

Mother's Basement is a YouTube channel led by Canadian vlogger Geoffrey "Geoff" Thew. Here he mostly talks about anime in the form of reviews and analysis. On occasion, he makes videos about other media than anime, such as movies, TV series, and games, although anime stays the most prominent topic. He's also a fan of video games.

His earliest videos on the main channel date back to 2015, starting with a series called "What's in an OP?" Here he breaks down the meaning and layers of anime openings. Later on, he would do a couple of reviews, although most of these were about certain movies, tv-series or games. In early 2016, he did the first Weebcast with Beatrice the Golden Witch (going by Digibro at the time), Best Guy Ever and Subsonic Sparkle, which was hosted by Beatrice. During fall 2016, he would start to feature the series on his main and later on his second channel. The Weebcast is a podcast consisting of multiple anime YouTubers talking about and discussing certain trends within the anime community, most often seasonal anime.

As of May 2020, he has gained over 1 million subscribers.

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Mother's Basement contains examples of:

• Accentuate the Negative:
  • In his various roast videos, he calls out the very worst aspects of the series being discussed. Targets have included The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, Hand Shakers, Dragon's Dogma, The Rising of the Shield Hero, Rent-A-Girlfriend, Maburaho, Final Fantasy: Unlimited, the Love Hina Christmas special, The Seven Deadly Sins, and King's Game.
  • Videos analyzing the downfall of once promising series such as The Promised Neverland, Wonder Egg Priority, and DARLING in the FRANXX are explicit in pointing out the problems which doomed them.
  • The various compilations covering each season's "Hottest Trash" and each year's worst anime concisely list off the major problems of each series which result in its inclusion.
  • Surprisingly, he even complains about it on his review of Avatar, mentioning that there's a lot of people trying to say the Netflix adaptation is worse than the movie, which he categorically and strongly disagrees, for attention, rather than giving a proper go at the series.
• April Fools' Day:
  • In 2016, he made an "What's in an OP?" for Cory in the House (or as he called it: Kourii Howaito Hausu de Cho Taihen!) as if it were an actual anime, and a masterpiece at that, even though it's not an actual anime.
  • He decided to do an Affectionate Parody of the Game Theory format from MatPat in 2017.
  • Did something similar in 2018, where he made "the REAL Top 10 Anime Betrayals", in which he called his channel WatchMoba and did a Top Ten List of anime betrayals. While some of the entries were anime-related (and Spoileriffic), a couple of those were not. Cherry on top being number one:
    Geoff: When I was twelve a girl borrowed my anime DVD and never gave it back to me.
  • For 2019, he made a "What's in an OP?" for Shrekku: Sonzaishinai Saikou no Otogibanashi, analyzing the title sequence and its references to the original Light Novels.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Subverted in his video about One Piece (2023) when he's impressed by the actors for doing most of their own stunts. He lists off things like Luffy jumping around during fight scenes, Sanji kicking a pistol out of someone's hand while perfectly balancing a platter of food, Zoro and Mihawk fighting with swords (Mihawk's sword being a 20 pound prop that he swings with one hand) and Usopp for... running away. Which Geoff goes on to explain is genuine praise, as scampering that fast over uneven rocky terrain is a lot harder than it looks.
• Artifact of Death: Geoff declares the anime adaptation of King's Game to be this as anyone who watches the anime (or his video about it) will be cursed to die just like anyone exposed to the King's Game Mind Virus. He then reveals himself as the true villain of the show for unleashing it on his audience.
• Award Snub:invoked Played for Laughs in his Odd Taxi episode, where he mentions that the anime is so good that it deserves to be snubbed by the Emmys rather than just by the Anime Awards.
• Bait-and-Switch:
  • His second "What's in a Waifu" video seems to be leading up to talking about Demon Slayer: Kimetsu no Yaiba's Nezuko Kamado...before switching to his proclaimed "best boy" Inosuke Hashibira. Geoff claims it's because he's genuinely scared of the fans who are very protective of Nezuko.
  • At the start of his "Top 5 WORST Anime of 2018" episode, he claims his audience are expecting him to roast both Goblin Slayer (for its R-Rated Opening) and DARLING in the FRANXX (for having gone off-the-rails with a massive Info Dump on its second half); nevertheless, he reminds his audience that there are far worse anime than either one.
  • In The Roasting of The Shield Hero:
    "If you're looking for a show that will whisk you off to a fantastical world and introduce you to a host of fascinating character and creative concepts... watch Re:Zero, or Mushoku Tensei, or Escaflowne, or Sonny Boy or, heck, Digimon."
  • In "The Best Anime of Fall 2022", Geoff begins his lead-in for the number 2 slot with shots from Chainsaw Man and declares it's the entry everyone's been waiting for, a gloriously over-the-top celebration of cartoonish violence and nerd culture... Akiba Maid War!
  • The very title of his video "The Problem With Bleach". Despite it seemingly hinting at a roast of the flaws of the manga, which is much less well-regarded now than it was in the past after the ending left a sour taste in readers's mouths, the video itself rains praises upon Bleach and points out it is in fact better than it is remembered in many aspects (for example, that Bleach is one of the most diverse mangas ever written in Shounen and that the world-building is more subtle and clever than given credit). One of the chapters of the video straight up calls the title "a shameless fakeout".
  • In "A Painfully Honest Review of Netflix Avatar", Geoff levels a lot of criticism at the show due to it being an inferior adaptation, but in the conclusion admits it's still a good show and whether people will enjoy it is a matter of taste.
    "All I can tell you is I liked it just barely enough as a hardcore Avatar fan, and if I ever see this thing on an inflight entertainment system... I'm gonna watch a Dwayne 'the Rock' Johnson movie."
• Basement-Dweller: He used to be this, before moving out to live with his real-life girlfriend and fellow YouTuber Yazy.
• Berserk Button:
  • Anime Piracy. While he states that there are moments where it's justifiable, Geoff gets very heated about the subject, and tends to be quite vocal about his distaste for it when the anime is legally available. He has over time softened on this and admitted there are more valid reasons, but has strongly emphasized that supporting the industry still is important.
  • invoked Faux Symbolism being used for the Rule of Cool. If you have an intent to make a work that commentates on real world events, but not actually use the symbolism or meaning behind it beyond window-dressing, Geoff will for sure be very upset about it. This is why he dislikes most of David Cage's games; they rely on imagery and themes from real world history, but Cage is quick to always claim that they are not commentating on anything behind what in game they talk about.
  • As of the early 2020s, NFTs also became a huge turn-off for him, as exemplified by The Fruit of Evolution "winning" the Worst Isekai category for his "Worst Anime of 2022" year-ender on account of its "Forest of Evolution" NFT collection (despite the first season having aired last year), as well as giving a full five-trash rating for Kizuna no Allele for his "Hottest Trash Anime of Spring 2023" episode for promoting them on its third episode and "awarding" it the title of the year's absolute worst anime in his 2023 grand year-ender.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Anime finds a way, and Geoff is never happy about it; in fact, one of his "rules" for the "How to Survive a Harem" PSA is "DON'T FUCK YOUR SISTER" in all caps. That said, in his Fix Fic for Sword Art Online's Fairy Dance arc, he nevertheless retains the plot point of Suguha's one-sided crush on her cousin and adopted older brother Kazuto/Kirito, playing it up as a sympathetic but misguided phase of adolescence she eventually has to grow out of in order to become mature and happy in the future, while excising all instances of Male Gaze that do nothing but muddy the message that Kirito, as an audience-insert character, is not supposed to see his cousin/sister in a sexual manner. He also gives a glowing recommendation for Heavenly Delusion in both his best upcoming anime and best anime of the year videos, despite it featuring a younger brother feeling attraction for his older sister, though the attraction is that anime is more a source of angst and ties into main character Kiruko's struggles with gender identity than anything lurid.
• Call-Back:
  • When talking about how the protagonist of The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter gets headaches that are abated by smooching his eager childhood friend, he notes that the character's sister is just as eager but the protagonist doesn't reciprocate her feelings. He commends the protagonist for "follow[ing] the rules," subtly referencing his "DON'T FUCK YOUR SISTER" rule in his "How to Survive a Harem" video.
  • "Top 5 WORST Anime of 2019" opened with Geoff noting that Nobunaga-sensei's Young Bride was excluded from the list due to being a short-form series. In "The Roast of King's Game", Geoff claims that series won the Worst of 2019 as he had tried to forget Try Knights, the actual winner, existed.
• The Cameo: In his "Hottest Trash Anime of 2023" video he contrasts VRMMO shows A Playthrough of a Certain Dude's VRMMO Life and Shangri-La Frontier, and has nothing but praise for the latter show. Rather than reuse a positive rating from earlier in the video, he invites Josh Strife Hayes (who's done a YouTube series looking into obscure and flawed MMO games) to give a non-numerical score in his own style.^note This waifu (Pencilgon) I'd totally let player-kill me, out of 10
• Completely Different Title: Discussed in his Best, Worst, and Most Cursed anime of 2023 video, taking a moment to criticize Disney for having marketed Heavenly Delusion by its Japanese title, Tengoku Daimakyo, since it's both unfamiliar to western viewers (thus making them less likely to check it out) and fans of the manga already know it by its westernized title.
• Critic Breakdown: His review of The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar closes with Geoff saying that he was going to go stare at a wall until the memories of the series faded, but that he might review something better "when I can feel positive emotions again".
• Deadpan Snarker: He can become this when he's criticising something or is just being cynical.
• Deliberate VHS Quality: The Public Service Anime video series are made to look as though they're being played on a VHS tape, complete with deliberately grainy footage and muted sound.
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: The point of the "There's NO GOOD REASON to Pirate Legally Available Anime" video. He revised his opinion in a March 2021 tweet, by acknowledging that Keep Circulating the Tapes invoked (in the form of enthusiast communities making and sharing copies) is the most effective way to preserve legacy media when it's abandoned by platform owners.
• Don't Explain the Joke: Comes up in his first two videos of the My Hero Academia OPs. In the first video, he repeatedly claims that Tooru Hagakure appears in a shot where she couldn't be seen, which led to some people getting confused. The joke is that Tooru Hagakure's quirk is invisibility. At the beginning of the second video, Geoff resorts to explaining the joke, but does so by a comedic visual representation of the saying "the joke goes over one's head", using the second My Hero Academia OP.
• Elephant in the Living Room: In "The Roast of The Rising of the Shield Hero", Geoff describes the whole plot hinging on an instance of a False Rape Accusation, admitting that the kerfuffle surrounding it is somewhat awkward to describe to a newcomer to the series. But then he remembers that the show also has Naofumi make use of child slaves as servants, combatants, and labor force and he even defends his use of slaves when Motoyasu calls him out on it, with the story later edging into the trappings of the Hero's Slave Harem trope...
  Geoff: Oh, right. There were two elephants... Fu—
• Even Beggars Won't Choose It: In "The Terrible Cancelled Final Fantasy Anime," Geoff explains that during his childhood the limited options for acquiring anime in North America meant that fans had no choice but to watch whatever made it to their local store shelves, good or bad. However some anime, such as this episode's focus anime, Final Fantasy: Unlimited, were so awful not even the most desperate of fans would watch the whole thing.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Invoked with The Promised Neverland's second anime season. In the JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: Stone Ocean preview, he claims The Promised Neverland never got a second season, while in "Spring 2021 Anime: Ones to Watch" he says it was cancelled after episode 3.
  • Done to the point of parody in his "Top 5 WORST Anime of 2021" video, where Promised Neverland Season 2 "won" the number 2 spot, and Geoff claims that Season 2 was cancelled before it aired, accompanied by CloverWorks mailing every disappointed fan a picture of Emma Flipping the Bird, and says that Season 2, and it's accompanying disappointment, was a completely hypothetical scenario he created in his nightmares, and reminds the viewer of that every few sentences.
  • It comes back as Brick Joke in "Anime We Wish Stayed Dead", where Geoff explains that, yes, Season 2 did in fact exist, and he chose to make that statement now of all times, because he is a "caring boyfriend" and Yazy just had her wisdom teeth removed, so she is unable to interrupt him by angrily screaming, which something she tends to do whenever Season 2 is mentioned. As he explains this the camera pans out to reveal Yazy sitting next to him, wearing a jaw wrap and groaning in pain whenever he says the words Season 2.
• Fix Fic: "Fixing Alfheim: the WORST part of SAO", where he takes the Alfheim Arc of the anime Sword Art Online and tries to make it a better story (if nothing else, a more narratively cohesive story) by reimagining the arc's scenario.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "HOTTEST TRASH Anime of Spring 2023", the award for Summoned to Another World for a Second Time is a trash can full of printed and framed e-mail exchanges between isekai co-workers. Mushoku Tensei: Jobless Reincarnation is nerding out with Re:CREATORS while The Vision of Escaflowne has taken a restraining order out on KonoSuba due to their antics at an office party.
• From Bad to Worse: In his first "Worst Anime of the Year" video in 2018, he claims that he found some anime so bad that even The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar didn't make that year's list.
• Gag Censor:
  • In the second video focusing on Happy Science's anime films, during the segment focusing on The Mystical Laws, the Godom Empire's flags are censored with the face of Geoff's cat Kuro due to their symbol bearing a strong resemblance to the Nazi swastika.
  • In "Hottest Trash Anime of Spring 2022", any clips showing the racier parts of Ikki Tousen are censored with a drawing of Geoff's own face.
  • "The Roast of King's Game" includes a number of poorly drawn and animated but still highly graphic deaths, so Geoff has to step in with some creative censoring. Most notable is one student who is compelled to "Luigi's Mansion himself". When the deed occurs, a screenshot from Luigi's Mansion hides the body, and the screenshot is warped as if it was actually part of the scenery.
  • The "Hottest Trash Anime of Winter 2024" uses both Relax-o-Vision and a censor in the form of the Monetization Fairy, a creature who's depicted as an obese red fairy with Youtube's "removed video" symbol for a face and a coin covering its groin.
• A God Am I: DownPlayed for Laughs whenever he calls himself the "Anime Pope."
• Gratuitous French: In the "Hottest Trash of Spring 2023" video, Geoff frequently uses French words and phrases to give off a "fancy French restaurant" vibe (even if what the "restaurant" is serving is trashy anime). He also deliberately pronounces the French words wrong.
• Guilty Pleasure:invoked
  • Geoff has a particular affection for "big dumb battle royale anime," citing their very much anime excesses and the thrill of seeing evil characters get their comeuppance and cheer on heroic underdogs surviving against all odds. In particular he cites Highrise Invasion, Battle Game in 5 Seconds, and Juni Taisen: Zodiac War as some of the shining examples of the genre.
  • In contrast to many mediocre harem series, he repeatedly admits to having a soft spot for Girls Bravo, if only due to its over-the-top approach to its otherwise mediocre source material courtesy of debuting director Ei Aoki, who years later would become famous for Re:CREATORS, ID: Invaded, and Fate/Zero.
  • In "Hottest Trash Anime of Spring 2022", he admits that he has a fondness for Ikki Tousen, as he's read way more of the manga than he cares to admit but still enjoys the series (and its sequel, Shin Ikki Tousen) for its hilariously over-the-top action and Fanservice.
• I Can't Believe I'm Saying This:
  • As much as he dislikes Sword Art Online, even Geoff cannot believe that he's describing The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar as being even worse.
  • Geoff is also shocked that Rui Tsukiyo, of Redo of Healer infamy, actually knows how to write nuanced characters and toe a fine line between tasteful and distasteful fanservice with The World's Finest Assassin.
• Insistent Terminology: In his roast of Dragonball Evolution, Geoff refuses to acknowledge Justin Chatwin’s portrayal of Goku as such due to him being such an In Name Only version of the character, instead almost exclusively referring to him as merely “Justin”.
• Insult to Rocks: Given Geoff's well-known dislike of Sword Art Online, it says a lot that he considers it better than several other mediocre isekai series.
• It's Personal:
  • While Geoff thinks that, by any other metric, Seven Senses of the Re'Union doesn't deserve its place as the third-worst anime of 2018, he admits the placing is very much a matter of personal opinion, deeming it an ungodly amalgamation of Anohana: The Flower We Saw That Day (his favorite anime at the time before Mob Psycho 100) and Sword Art Online (one of his least-favorite anime).
  • In his Maburaho episode in March 2022, Geoff admits that his roasting of the series is as much a matter of personal grudge as it was of studying the evolution of harem anime, having bought an expensive DVD box of the series in his youth and wasting his time watching it.
• Long List:
  • In his High Guardian Spice review, he suggests a hypothetical Steven Universe-loving tweenager would enjoy the show... if they've already seen Adventure Time, Amphibia, The Owl House, Little Witch Academia, Infinity Train, Hilda, Magic Knight Rayearth, Bravest Warriors, Star vs. the Forces of Evil, Kipo and the Age of Wonderbeasts, She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, Gravity Falls, The Dragon Prince, My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic, Sailor Moon, and every Kunihiko Ikuhara anime.
  • In his video on My Next Life as a Villainess: All Routes Lead to Doom!, he starts talking about the "race to the bottom" of series leaning on Fanservice as a crutch to make up for lazy writing, with images for each appearing on the screen. The eventual list has 32 entries, including Maburaho, My Sister, My Writer, Infinite Stratos, Princess Lover! and Girls Bravo (with a note that he considers Girls Bravo a Guilty Pleasure), and the images are layered at least three deep across most of the screen.
  • In his "The WORST ANIME of 2022" episode, Geoff laments that, were it not for its poor production quality, the adaptation of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer could have joined the year's list of well-crafted anime and hidden gems, alongside Chainsaw Man, the third season of Mob Psycho 100, the third season of Kaguya-sama: Love Is War, Cyberpunk: Edgerunners, Bocchi the Rock!, Akiba Maid War, My Dress-Up Darling, and Ranking of Kings.
  • In "Shonen Power Systems Explained", Geoff decides to limit his discussion of said systems to the specific Fist of the North Star lineage, because otherwise he'd end up including Attack on Titan, Kaiju No. 8, Devilman, Parasyte, Tokyo Ghoul, Gundam, Undead Unluck, Mission: Yozakura Family, Saint Seiya, World Trigger, Reborn! (2004), YuYu Hakusho, Shaman King, Magi: The Labyrinth of Magic, Soul Eater, Fullmetal Alchemist, Avatar: The Last Airbender, and Made in Abyss before finally cutting himself off.
    • From the same video, he lists some examples of Stand abilities: "They can be a mini sun that follows you and gives you heat stroke, make a real big scary car, steal a guy's soul by beating him at video games, erase physical space from existence, be a bomb inside your eye that sends you back in time when you spill secrets, hypnotize dudes into turning into snails with deadly rainbows, violate all the copyrights in Florida simultaneously, or instantly make this video twice as long the second I even attempt to describe King Crimson."
• Love to Hate: invoked Discussed during Geoff's roast of the first season of The Rising of the Shield Hero, where he states his opinion on Malty Melromarc, the main villainess, being the ultimate Hate Sink of the series. He admits that her character is quite one-dimensional and might have a few Unfortunate Implications attached to it, but he still finds her extreme Alpha Bitch attitude and her rather zany Evil Plans to be Laughably Evil, and notes that she makes pretty much every scene she is in better by default. He even argues that her being a straight-up Alpha Bitch in an Isekai, i.e. bringing an element of high school drama to a genre that is supposed to be all about escapism from such things, gives her character a bit of much needed novelty in a pretty overcrowded genre.
• Made Myself Sad: In "The Roast of King's Game", Geoff accidentally reminds himself that the Try Knights anime existed.
  Geoff: [depressed] So much for that therapy.
• Madness Mantra: In "The BEST Anime of Fall 2023", Geoff begins muttering "It's not over, it's never over" on realizing The Seven Deadly Sins has a new sequel series, Four Knights of the Apocalypse.
• Medal of Dishonor:
  • For his 2022 worst anime awards, each show symbolically received the same replica statuette of Geoff. Because said statuette has an "Isekai Bros Moving" truck on its tray, after "Worst Isekai" each category is handwritten on a sticky note and slapped on Truck-kun.
  • In "HOTTEST TRASH Anime of Fall 2023", Geoff notes that the North American distributors of Undead Unluck have thoroughly screwed the pooch by both failing to give it any advertising and region locking it so Canadians such as Geoff can't watch it. As he can't rightly award the show any dumpsters, he instead awards the distributors a box of dead rats.
• Mis-blamed: In his video on the live-action Avatar, Geoff takes a quick aside to note that The Last Airbender was a lot more the fault of Executive Meddling than M. Night Shyamalan, feeling bad that the guy got so much blame for something that ultimately was more the studio's fault than his, especially becuse that movie's failure has tanked his career in a way that it never managed to quite rebuild itself to the same level it had before.
• Moose and Maple Syrup: Largely averted, since despite being Canadian, he's a Caustic Critic with an accent that's indistinguishable from an American one. However, he does briefly invoke this during his takedown of PuraOre! ~Pride of Orange~ (an anime about ice hockey, which depicts the Japanese main characters as being good enough to defeat Canadian players) during his "Hottest Trash Anime of Fall 2021" episode, where he puts on a stereotypical Canadian accent for humor:
  Geoff: There ain't no way some namby-pamby, hoser idols who were a knitting club like a week ago are gonna beat Team Fockin' Canada at hockey, bud! It ain't happenin', eh!
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: During his advertisement segment on KonoSuba Fantastic Days!, Geoff explains that the game contains "lovable characters, old and new, who are sure to be useful additions to your party! ...And Aqua."
• Non-Indicative Name:invoked His "Hottest Trash" series doesn't just cover the absolute worst anime he's seen during a season, but also some shows he genuinely finds entertaining or at least mediocre. Those shows are included because they land in the So Bad, It's Good territory or are enjoyably exploitative about their subject matter.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer:
  • The video "An Actual Cult Made These Anime" contains a couple. The subject matter makes them necessary.
  • From "The Art of OP Anime Heroes", he mentioned that Astro Boy is capable of "detecting good and evil in the hearts of men - or whether they voted Democrat or Republican, if you're watching the 2009 American version. I wish I was joking about that."
• Not So Similar: Early in his "Hottest Trash Anime of Fall 2021" episode, Geoff mentions the negative hype towards Tesla Note, with its awkward motion-capture 3D animation inviting many a comparison to EX-ARM. However, he dismisses such comparisons because Tesla Note at least had comparatively better facial animation, body motion, and audio design.
• The One Thing I Don't Hate About You: After gaining success from shitting on Sword Art Online, he turns it around and makes a video about the series' strengths and why it was successful to begin with.
• Otaku: He qualifies, being into anime (and gaming) with most of his content focussing on this. When he appears on screen, most of the time he's posing in front of a shelf cabinet with merchandise.
• Poor Communication Kills: Why he accidentally played Resident Evil 2 instead of MediEvil as an eight year old.
• Precision F-Strike: In "The Roast of Dragonball Evolution":
  Geoff: And no disrespect to white belts — the first step of the journey is one of the hardest - but a goddamn white belt has no place playing Son fucking Goku, son!
• Product Placement: In most videos, he'll find a moment to interrupt his story to promote for some brand, service or new product. This has gotten to point that his promoting became somewhat of a Running Gag and has attained a memetic status.
• Public Service Announcement: Parodied in his Public Service Anime video series, with episodes such as "Your Transforming Body and You", "Is Your Daughter A Magical Girl?" and "The Waifu Wars".
• A Rare Sentence: He describes the ending of SAO's Alicization arc as "trainwreck", like "a flaming, horny clown humping an armless woman to death."
  "'Golly, Geoff! That's a weird image to pull out of nowhere!' Boy, is it!"
• Relax-o-Vision:
  • His review of the King's Game anime occasionally covers up the more graphic death scenes with live-action footage of cute animals like guinea pigs and kittens.
  • Similarly, in "2023's Best, Worst & Most Cursed Anime", the more explicit scenes in My Life as Inukai-san's Dog are covered up with footage of cute baby animals such as puppies, goats and penguins.
• Running Gag:
  • Geoff rarely refers to Naruto as such, instead referring to both the character and the show as "Boruto's Dad".
  • Referring to generic male anime protagonists as "Protag-kun".
  • Invoking Haruhi Suzumiya in place of God.
  • Referring to Fanservice as "plot".
  • His self-described dislike of everything to do with Sword Art Online and the sheer number of videos he's put out on the subject. Fans have started to joke that SAO-bashing is what's paying his rent most months.
  • In his video on whether there's just too much anime coming out, he often balks at the lack of attention on Odd Taxi
  • His refusal to explain how his ratings system for the "Hottest Trash Anime" series works.
  • Following his video covering the second season of The Promised Neverland, which Geoff vehemently despises for being an extremely Compressed Adaptation with many fan-favorite storylines and characters being Adapted Out as a result, any mention of the show in subsequent videos will inevitably feature him claiming that it never got a second season at all.
    • He makes an exception in "Anime We Wish Stayed Dead", but only because Yazy's unable to shout him down until he censors himself due to having her wisdom teeth removed. She does however sit next to him and loudly groan at him periodically.
• Sanderson's First Law: While describing The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest as part of his "Hottest Trash Anime of Winter 2022" episode, he contrasts its soft, invokedAss Pull-prone magic system with the rules-based system from Brandon Sanderson's novels, in particular citing the Second Law, that limitations are more interesting than the powers.
• Screw the Rules, I Make Them!: Geoff awarded The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer Worst Anime of 2022 but then stated he might at some point rescind the award and give it to the runner-up instead. After all, they're his awards so he can do what he wants with them.
• Self-Deprecation: Geoff's jokes frequently target both his own nerdiness and his shilling of various anime related web-services.
• Serious Business: Apparently, one of the bloodiest and most dangerous wars of all time continuing to this day is the Waifu Wars.
• Shout-Out: His Fix Fic of SAO's Alfheim arc is split into sections with titles that he reads aloud in a voice that imitates Mr. Plinkett's patented throaty monotone. He also throws one out for Sword Art Online Abridged, acknowledging the good work they're doing in parodically fixing the series' plot holes.
• So Bad, It's Good:invoked
  • Starting in 2021, Geoff makes lists of hilariously bad anime (or, as he calls them, "Hottest Trash Anime") for each season, which he rates using a "highly scientific" measurement system of dumpster fires, trash cans, or other kinds of waste storage:
    • Winter 2021: EX-ARM (5), Hortensia Saga (1), Scar on the Praeter (2), Skate-Leading Stars (1), WIXOSS Diva A Live (2), Soukou Musume (3), Redo of Healer (2), and The Hidden Dungeon Only I Can Enter (4).
    • Summer 2021: Scarlet Nexus (2), Drugstore in Another World (1), Seirei Gensouki: Spirit Chronicles (3), D_Cide Traumerei the Animation (4), The Detective is Already Dead (3), Girlfriend, Girlfriend (3), Mother of the Goddess' Dormitory (2), and Battle Game in 5 Seconds (4).
    • Spring 2021 (retrospect): Cestvs: The Roman Fighter (3), Fairy Ranmaru (4), Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART! (4), and Osamake (3).
    • Fall 2021: Tesla Note (1), Platinum End (4), The Night Beyond the Tricornered Window (3), The Fruit of Evolution (2), The World's Finest Assassin (3), and PuraOre! ~Pride of Orange~ (1).
    • Winter 2022: The second season of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest (4), World's End Harem (3), The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest (2), Orient (1), Fantasia Sango: Realm of Legends (1), Rusted Armors (3), and She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man (4) (special mention: FreakAngels (5)).
    • Spring 2022: A Couple of Cuckoos (3), Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs (1), the second season of The Rising of the Shield Hero (1), The Greatest Demon Lord Is Reborn as a Typical Nobody (4), and Shin Ikki Tousen (4).
    • Summer 2022: My Stepmom's Daughter is My Ex (3), the second season of Rent-A-Girlfriend (5), The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer (0), Extreme Hearts (3), Harem in the Labyrinth of Another World (4), My Isekai Life (1), and Black Summoner (1).
    • Fall 2022: Immoral Guild (3), Beast Tamer (1), Shinobi no Ittoki (1), Love Flops (5), The Eminence in Shadow (3), and Akiba Maid War (4).
    • Winter 2023: Ayakashi Triangle (2), ONIMAI: I'm Now Your Sister! (4), Spy Classroom (3), Technoroid Overmind (2), The Reincarnation of the Strongest Exorcist in Another World and Reborn to Master the Blade (1), The Iceblade Sorcerer Shall Rule the World (3), My Life as Inukai-san's Dog (5), The Angel Next Door Spoils Me Rotten (4).
    • Spring 2023: The Café Terrace and Its Goddesses (2), Summoned to Another World for a Second Time (1), The Legendary Hero Is Dead! (4), My One-Hit Kill Sister (3), I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too (5), The Aristocrat's Otherworldly Adventure (2), KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World (1), Kizuna no Allele (5)
    • Summer 2023: Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead (5), Am I Actually the Strongest? (3), Level 1 Demon Lord and One Room Hero (4), My Unique Skill Makes Me OP Even At Level 1 (2), The Great Cleric (1), Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon (4), Classroom for Heroes (1), Liar Liar (2), the third season of Rent-A-Girlfriend (1), Tenpuru: No One Can Live on Loneliness (4)
    • Fall 2023: The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You (5), A Girl and Her Guard Dog (4), A Playthrough of a Certain Dude's VRMMO Life (2), Shangri-La Frontier (a certain character who Josh Strife Hayes would let kill him out of 10), Undead Unluck (a box of dead rats), 16bit Sensation: Another Layer (1), Butareba: The Story of a Man Who Turned Into a Pig (3), A Returner's Magic Should Be Special (2), The Demon Sword Master of Excalibur Academy (4), Ragna Crimson (4), Kingdoms of Ruin (3), Berserk of Gluttony (2), Kamierabi God.App (rating is saved for the Worst Anime of 2023)
    • Winter 2024: My Instant Death Ability is So Overpowered... (2), Tales of Wedding Rings (3), Hokkaido Gals Are Super Adorable! (1), Gushing Over Magical Girls (5), Chained Soldier (5)
  • Geoff dedicated an entire episode to ironically gushing over Assassin's Pride (which also appears as a special mention in his "Top 5 WORST Anime of 2019" episode) and its excesses, such the questionable implications of a Teacher/Student Romance between thirteen-year-old Melida Angel and her seventeen-year-old half-vampire mentor Kufa Vampyr, the absurdity of their very names, the mildly sexualized uniforms worn by Melida and her schoolmates, and world-building opportunities eschewed in favor of slice-of-life antics.
  • Try Knights, his second-worst anime of 2019, is also cited for its Mundane Made Awesome approach to rugby.
  • In late January 2022, Geoff made a loving roast of the first season of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest (another special mention in his "Top 5 WORST Anime of 2019" episode), almost three years after it first aired (and to coincide with its second season). Despite its shoddily-produced first few episodes, to say nothing of its infamously invokedTroubled Production, he cites the source material's relatively solid character writing and the plot shamelessly reveling in being a teenage revenge fantasy to be its strongest points, making it popular enough to survive a rocky start and warrant a sequel. As such, using his measurement system for hot trash anime, Geoff awards it "four high school dumpsters." Its second season also gets this treatment (albeit as part of his Winter 2022 Hottest Trash lineup), down to the exact rating.
  • Specifcally regarding the "Hottest Trash" series, while Geoff does add Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs in his Spring 2022 lineup, he admits to only doing so largely because he forgot to mention it in his "Ones to Watch for Spring 2022" episode, in addition to having enough fanservice to make it delightfully trashy; otherwise, he genuinely enjoys the series striking a balance between deconstructing and shamelessly exploiting isekai, power fantasy, and Dating Sim tropes, with hints of worldbuilding in between, and only awards it "one dumpster full of Gunpla kits and fancy teabags, with flames erupting five feet from its mouth and emitting... an oddly pleasant-smelling smoke".
  • Geoff's Halloween 2023 episode has him simultaneously describe the anime adaptation of King's Game as the schlockiest work of its director Tokihiro Sasaki (whose other works, Try Knights and Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, were already among the worst anime of 2019 and 2021, respectively), but also the most unintentionally funny horror series he has ever seen.
  • Geoff's "Hottest Trash of Fall 2023" episode also details his distinction between "trash" and "garbage" — the former is meant for shows shows that are invokedenjoyably bad and/or over-the-top with its subject matter, while the latter is for those that are just plain bad. As such, he gives The 100 Girlfriends Who Really, Really, Really, Really, Really Love You one of the most glowing five-trash ratings (as well as a place in his eleven best anime of 2023, alongside his top choice and fellow five-trash winner Zom 100: Bucket List of the Dead), whereas by contrast A Girl and Her Guard Dog gets a less flattering verdict (as well as a place in his five most "cursed" anime of the year).
• So Okay, It's Average: invoked
  • His overall opinion on the first season of The Rising of the Shield Hero, which he names "The Bud Light of Anime", which he then uses as a springboard to contrast it with how bad he thinks the second is, to the point that in his "Hottest Trash Anime of Spring 2022" episode he retroactively grades it "three dumpster full of flaming Bud Light boxes" in contrast to the sequel's "[one] small, inert cube of dull gray aluminum, and then placed inside an equally dull gray aluminum trash can".
  • His evaluation of Drugstore in Another World judges it as a "true neutral, pure 5/10 anime" for its slow pace, lack of meaningful conflict, and mediocre comedy, earning it one of the mildest scores on his "trash fire scale" (one room temperature steel trash can full of crackers, lightly salted).
• Suspiciously Specific Denial: During "HOTTEST TRASH Anime of Winter 2023", Geoff resorts to this trope when the "Trash Inspector" shows up.
  Geoff: Boy, I sure just roasted the heck out of that ONIMAI, which definitely has no significant artistic or nutritional value that might get this establishment shut down. Why, it's so trashy, I give it four bins full of trash which is very on fire, and if you look under it you definitely won't find any priceless paintings in flame retardant bags.
• Take That!:
  • Geoff's early claim to fame are his withering jabs towards Sword Art Online, to the point where he changed things up a bit by making a video on its positives.
  • Similar to the above, in his video about Detroit: Become Human, he gives various creators "Rekis" on a "Kawahara scale of god-awful writing." David Cage gets 5 Rekis for his involvement in the game, and you can see the full list in the video (pause at 7 seconds). Tim Buckley and Chuck Lorre top the list. He also then says David Cage's "ability to direct actors and compose a scene is rivaled only by Tommy Wiseau and Uwe Boll." A side-note also informs us that "One Metric Reki = One Imperial Cline".
  • His "Top 10 Anime Betrayals" April Fools' Day video is a big one towards Watch Mojo.
  • Geoff also made occasional jabs at then-U.S. president Donald Trump:
    • In his "Welcome to Amestris - Fullmetal Alchemist Travel Guide", he makes a jab at Trump's proposed border wall with Mexico by saying that the Briggs wall would be "a colossal waste of time and money" without alchemy.
    • In his roast of The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, he claims that Yuuto's actions in the distant past he is transported into may create a Bad Future where "Trump becomes the president or something ridiculous like that."
    • Another jab towards Trump is made in "The Roast of Dragonball Evolution" when discussing the scene involving the class of teenagers being told about the eclipse, adding that one can not understand how it works and still be president, while showing a picture of Trump directly staring at the solar eclipse of August 22, 2017.
  • In his ERASED video, when he brings up Jun being an implied Lolicon, a picture of Beatrice the Golden Witch is edited over Jun's face. This was not long after Beatrice came under fire after admitting to being a proud lolicon herself.
  • What's So Great About My Hero Academia adds one jab to The Scrappy Mineta. When commenting about the flaws in the hero society in the manga, he points out that Mineta "is just allowed to be outside, unsupervised. What the fuck is up with that?"
  • He calls MAPPA a "dehumanizing nightmare sweatshop art factory" in "Chainsaw Man is Underhyped, Actually".
  • When he discusses a certain uncomfortable plot point surrounding Hand Shakers that involves incestuous shotacon (yes really), he says "Look, Hand Shakers, if I wanted to watch Boku No Pico...I'd kill myself, okay?"
  • He compares the first episode of The Detective is Already Dead to Sherlock in its execution, and this isn't meant to be a compliment to either series. His trash tier score for the anime is "three lightly smouldering back-alley bins full of Sherlock box sets".
  • His Anime CGI-phobia video has one clip of reading comments with the Steven Crowder "Change My Mind" image and the mug photoshopped with "Koch Bros Semen™".
  • The Anime CGI-phobia video also has a callout of an entry on this very wiki's page on Steamboy specifically it saying the 3D CGI "ages poorly" something he vastly disagrees with. At one point, he also calls out Monsters, Inc. as a particularly bad example of American CGI being behind the times when Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex's intro was doing a CGI Major better than Pixar was with Boo.
• Tempting Fate: The The Seven Deadly Sins roast starts with him saying that when the results came in, he had hoped this would be one he "didn't have to suffer for" because he enjoyed the first season. The word "Foreshadowing" is briefly superimposed on his face right before the Time Skip to "MANY UNBEARABLE HOURS LATER".
• That Came Out Wrong: Geoff's December 2022 review of Bocchi the Rock! (which he praises as one of the hidden gems of 2022) begins with him declaring that for this episode, rather than focusing on the big names, he's going to stand up for the little guys, or rather "the little girls," before backtracking upon realizing how wrong that sounded.
• This Is Unforgivable!: The number one biggest anime betrayal? A girl borrowed Geoff's anime DVD when he was a kid and never gave it back.
• Too Desperate to Be Picky: Geoff will sometimes discuss the difficulties of acquiring anime during his childhood due to its limited penetration into the western market. As such he would watch whatever anime he could get his hands on, no matter the quality, such as Maburaho.
• Tradesnark™: When discussing the plot of I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too in his "Hottest Trash Anime of Spring 2023" video, Geoff refers to main protagonist Yuuya as a "the Nicest Guy™" while saying the "TM" part out loud, as a way to point out how the narrative really tries to sell Yuuya as a Nice Guy who saves a girl from being assaulted by thugs, mainly as a convenient excuse for her to fall in love with him later on.
• Unusual Euphemism: In "The Roast of King's Game", when Daisuke is ordered to hang himself, Geoff's narration censors it as "Luigi's Mansion himself". This is in reference to a graphics glitch in the original Luigi's Mansion where the character's shadow was incorrectly positioned so it appeared Luigi was hanging from the ceiling (and later on, a screenshot showing that glitch is used to censor Daisuke's dead body).
• Verbal Backspace: In "I Miss English Anime Openings":
  "I bet you didn't even remember Mon Colle Knights existed until just now, and I blame that 30 seconds of farting tubas, because the show was awes-... goo-... okay, look, I liked it."
• Video Game Movies Suck:invoked Geoff has a rather low opinion on anime adaptations of video games, citing their lack of faithfulness to the source material, low production values, and/or simply attempting to try to replicate the financial success of the Pokémon anime series, and in fact many of them already made his "Worst Anime" and/or "Hottest Trash Anime" lists. He takes exception, however, to those of Cygames mobile games, in particular citing Princess Connect! Re:Dive and Uma Musume as some of their best examples of video game anime done right.
• We Used to Be Friends: With Beatrice the Golden Witch. Despite occasionally taking shots at each other, they were said to actually have been good friends. That being said, the past few years have strained their friendship greatly, as the two's difference of opinion has made it difficult for them to get along. As of 2021, Beatrice has admitted that her relationship with Geoff (as well as other Youtube anime vloggers) isn't the best, and that the fact that he wasn't already good friends with her and the rest of the Pro Crastinators podcast team contributed to his parting ways with the show (explained in the video "Why Mumkey Was Kicked from the PCP (Digi's Story)").
• "Well Done, Son" Guy: "The Anime Dad's Guide to Child Neglect" recommends motivating your children by making them crave your affection.
• Worst. Whatever. Ever!: Starting in 2018, Geoff ended the year with a list of what he considers to be the five worst anime of that year (as well as a few special mentions). In ascending order:
  • 2018: Hakyu Hoshin Engi (the 2018 anime adaptation of Hoshin Engi), Ulysses: Jeanne d'Arc and the Alchemist Knights, Seven Senses of the Re'Union, Conception: Please Give Birth to My Child!, and My Sister, My Writer (Special mentions: Between the Sky and Sea, Lord of Vermilion, RErideD, and Märchen Mädchen).
  • 2019: W'z, Bermuda Triangle: Colorful Pastrale (a spinoff based on some in-game lore in Cardfight!! Vanguard), Pastel Memories, Try Knights, and High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World (Special mentions: Magical Girl Spec-Ops Asuka, Assassin's Pride, Grimms Notes, the second season of Kemono Friends, Stand My Heroes: Piece of Truth, Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?, Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, and Isekai Cheat Magician).
  • 2020: Dragon's Dogma, Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time, Shironeko Project: Zero Chronicle, Hatena Illusion, and Gibiate (Special mentions: Shachou Battle No Jikan Desu, Sakura Wars the Animation, Shadowverse the Animation, King's Raid the Animation, Super HxEros, Listeners, and Tamayomi: The Baseball Girls).
  • 2021: Record of Ragnarok, Scarlet Nexus, Battle Athletes Victory ReSTART!, the second season of The Promised Neverland, and EX-ARM.
  • 2022: For this year, Geoff decides to forgo the typical ranking system in favor of individual "awards" for each category, with a "winner" and a group of nominees.
    • Worst Isekai: The Fruit of Evolution (or, to be precise, the "Forest of Evolution" NFT collection, the first season having been released back in 2021, and the second yet to be released the following January) [Nominees: She Professed Herself Pupil of the Wise Man, The Strongest Sage with the Weakest Crest, The World's Greatest Demon King Gets Reincarnated as a Typical Nobody, World's End Harem] [Special Mentions: I've Somehow Gotten Stronger When I Improved My Farm-Related Skills and the second season of Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time (technically not isekai, but mentioned for their RPG Mechanics 'Verse shared by modern isekai)]
    • The Vadgerock Award for Literally Being Called "Vadgerock" (i.e., Most Nonsensical Name): Vazzrock (pronounced in Japanese as "Vaj-Rock") [Nominees: Extreme Hearts, Girls' Frontline, and Yuri!!! on Ice (somehow)]
    • "Wait... Was That Anime Even Fuckin' Real?" (i.e., Most Nonsensical Concept): FreakAngels [Nominees: Legend of Mana: The Teardrop Crystal, Extreme Hearts, Fantasia Sango: Realm of Legends]
    • Most Forgettable Sportsball Whatever (i.e., Worst Sports Anime): A three-way tie between Fanfare of Adolescence (equestrian), Shoot! Goal to the Future (football), and Futsal Boys!!!!! (futsal)
    • Biggest Disappointment (i.e., Worst Adaptation): The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer [Nominees: Girls' Frontline, Smile of the Arsnotoria the Animation, and Muv-Luv Alternative the Animation]
    • Worst Anime of 2022: The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer [Runner-up: FreakAngels (which Geoff jokingly considers a tentative substitute "winner" due to sheer disappointment with the actual "winner")]
  • 2023: The Legend of Heroes: Trails of Cold Steel - Northern War, Summoned to Another World for a Second Time, Liar Liar, FLCL: Grunge, and Kizuna no Allele. This marks a return to his standard five-worst-anime format of previous years, albeit now joined as part of his grand 2023 year-ender alongside Geoff's choice of eleven best and five most "cursed" anime of the year.
  • In "I Watched EVERY Hollywood Anime Adaptation", Geoff ranked The Last Airbender as not only the worst Hollywood anime adaptation, but also the worst adaptation ever.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: In his roasts of Rent-A-Girlfriend (July 2022) and The Seven Deadly Sins (May 2023), Geoff criticizes their strategy to keep extending themselves by tantalizing their audiences with the promise of plot development, only to let them down with anticlimactic conclusions, then tease them anew ad infinitum, with the latter show being even worse in his eyes such that he would jokingly apologize to the former for being too harsh on it.

Tropes discussed on Mother's Basement:

• 2D Visuals, 3D Effects: His "Anime CGI-phobia" video discusses this topic and how the fandom generally reacts to the medium not just being mixed in with 2D hand-drawn animation, but in general in response to its use in the Chainsaw Man adaptation. Not only bringing up recent examples both good and bad, but also older examples including Lensman, Initial D and even Steamboy. While simultaneously also bringing up how American CGI was just as janky back in the 2000s, that even Pixar was behind the times in some respects and praising strides companies like Orange and Sanzigen Animation Studio have ten in improving CG characters in anime. Not to say he doesn't touch up on some genuinely bad examples like Berserk (2016) or EX-ARM, which are often blamed for the skepticism towards CGI anime.
• Adaptation Decay:
  • In his "Hottest Trash Anime of Summer 2022", Geoff expresses deep disappointment with the anime adaptation of The Lucifer and Biscuit Hammer, especially since he considers the original manga the magnum opus of Satoshi Mizukami, one of the best manga storytellers of the 2000s. It's to the point that he gives it a "no trash" rating, merely highlighting it to encourage his audience to read the manga instead lest they get the idea that it is just as bad as the anime, which in his "Worst Anime of 2022" episode ultimately "won" both the "Biggest Disappointment" and "Worst Anime" categories.
  • In ""Overhyped" Anime", Geoff opines that every adaptation will suffer this to some degree as different mediums work to different strengths. In particular, he spends part of the video discussing how the Chainsaw Man anime lost some of the magic of the original due to the structural and pacing changes needed to recreate the same creeping sense of horror and unease the manga achieved.
• Archive Binge:invoked Geoff admits that he once did this for One Piece, pointing out that he'd been at it for eighteen days and all he accomplished in that time was "inch dangerously closer to becoming a furry..." and he still had a hundred chapters to go.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Geoff declares that most Shōnen media are actually comedies, arguing that not only are some of Shonen Jump's greatest hits gag manga, but even monumental classics like Dragon Ball are actually comedies disguising themselves as epic tales of action. By being funny however, Geoff argues that the initial lighthearted tone of these kinds of stories is what makes the more dramatic moments hit harder, which is why once the mangaka become confident about their readership's engagement they shift things into a more serious path. Geoff points out a Wham Episode in the aforementioned Dragon Ball where after a few hundred chapters/episodes of fun Jackie Chan-style, humorous fighting, the sudden murder of Krillin comes across as extremely shocking and impactful more than if Dragon Ball was a serious action piece from the beginning.
• Colbert Bump:invoked
  • Geoff's made a video about Michael B. Jordan's memetic enjoyment of anime (and to a lesser extent, Kim Kardashian revealing that she's a fan of DARLING in the FRANXX) and how it could encourage people to be more open about their interests or bring in new fans.
  • He also invoked this for "The Best Shounen Jump Manga That Haven't Been Animated (Yet)", not only hoping to direct more readership to series that he's currently enjoying, but also (and by his own admission, mostly) as an excuse to eventually discuss Chainsaw Man without feeling fear of spoiling it for too many of his viewers.
• Compressed Adaptation:
  • Geoff's many criticisms of The Promised Neverland season 2 include the studio's decision to compress the entirety of the manga's remaining plot into said season. For perspective, the first season covered 37 chapters of the manga which left the second season with 144 chapters. The studio was forced to drop many fan-favorite plots and characters and significantly speed up the main story to achieve this goal. This ruins both the pacing of the story, which was one of the first season's strongest points, and the impact of several major plot points.
  • Geoff explains that the rushed pacing of the King's Game anime is due to the studio deciding to fit the events of two of the original novel series' volumes into a single 12-episode season. As a result, the anime barely has enough time to introduce and briefly humanize characters before brutally killing them off.
• Cool, but Stupid: Geoff notes that some of the "Hottest Trash" anime he reviews fall victim to this, though whether the "Cool" outweighs the "Stupid" is very subjective. In particular, he views Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest as a juvenile power fantasy filled to the brim with things author Ryo Shirakome and his readership consider "cool," but are utterly stupid from a different perspective, and it doesn't help that the anime's middling production values are unable to make the action scenes look as cool as they could be.
• Critical Dissonance:invoked The video on "Overhyped" anime has a lengthy discussion on why this happens:
  Here's another thing to keep in perspective when considering the hype around an artwork: The perspectives of critics are inevitably skewed by the nature of our work. The amount of different and obscure media that we expose ourselves to and the research we do into what goes into the things we love inevitably colors how we view them. I have always loved Cowboy Bebop, but, like I said at the top, I love it even more knowing just how much of a miracle it really was in the context of 90s TV anime production and having watched literally hundreds of other shows to which I can now compare the strengths, weaknesses and novel elements of its writing, direction and animation. By the same token, as someone who's had lots of time to read lots of comics and manga, the innovative, ingenious experimentation in Chainsaw Man's paneling and page layouts stands out to me, whereas a casual manga enjoyer is probably just gonna think it looks real cool. I, like pretty much any serious critic, am inherently biased toward overappreciating stuff with lots of minute technical details that I can spend hours thinking about or genuinely new ideas and imagery that expand my perspective on art, and to underappreciating the simple, accessible, familiar, fun things that so many people enjoy, so what grabs me about a given work isn't necessarily gonna grab most of you, and that goes both ways. And, of course, there's a whole spectrum of media interest and taste levels between casual fan and professional critic that leads to a lot of hardcore anime viewers feeling a similar disconnect between what they love and what broadly appeals to the biggest audiences. Sometimes we get lucky and those factors converge like they mostly did with Chainsaw Man, especially the manga, but most times they really, really don't.
• Cut Short: This is deeply analyzed in his "Failed Shonen Jump Manga" episode. He goes over a handful of short-lived manga from Shonen Jump and discusses his thoughts on why they were cancelled so early on, while taking into account the magazine's own policies regarding which content it greenlights and cuts off, as well as how the authors choose to wrap up the story when they know they will not be able to fully tell it. In the second half of the video, he also points out that some manga are cut short simply because they're not very good, singling out Hi-Fi Cluster and Tokyo Shinobi Squad as examples of manga that are so bad, he doesn't even understand why they were greenlit for serialization to begin with.
• Designated Heroinvoked: In his video on the King's Game anime, Geoff's entire opinion of Nobuaki was changed by the reveal that Nobuaki learned during his first King's Game that only one person could survive. Because he knew this going into the second Game, his constant encouragement of others and attempts to save lives comes across as less noble than somebody playing hero for their own self-gratification.
• Developing Doomed Characters: Geoff points out that the various side characters in the King's Game anime are like pieces of furniture most of the time. The moment any of them start revealing exposition or talk about their hopes and dreams for the future, it's because they're obviously next up on the chopping block and the anime is trying to wring some drama out of their death.
• Draco in Leather Pantsinvoked:
  • In his roast of Rent-A-Girlfriend, Geoff finds himself unironically rooting for Mami Nanami, nominally the Big Bad of the series, what with her fleshed-out characterization standing in stark contrast to his annoyance over the lack of Character Development (or backtracking from one) by protagonist Kazuya Kinoshita, as well as the comparatively shallow characterizations of Chizuru Mizuhara, Ruka Sarashina, and Sumi Sakurasawa.
    "All of her [i.e., Mami's] villain behavior only counts as 'villain behavior' if you believe Kazuya Kinoshita deserves to be happy. And I absolutely, categorically do not."
  • During his review of the King's Game anime, Geoff again finds himself rooting for Natsuko Honda, a sociopathic yandere. This is due to the reveal that Nobuaki knew after surviving his first game that only one person can survive the King's Game. While Natsuko was personally responsible for multiple cruel deaths and injuries, she did this out of necessity while Nobuaki was instead giving his classmates false hope so he could play hero despite knowing how things would end.
• Dueling Works:invoked Discussed in "Failed Shonen Jump Manga". Geoff points out that Shonen Jump not only wants all their manga series to be hits, but also for them to be hits in various different areas and niches, which makes them more likely to cancel manga that encroach on the niches of their other serialized manga. He continues by giving examples, such Ayashimon and Phantom Seer, which, despite their strengths, were both cancelled quickly due to encroaching on the "Japanese Mythology action" niche that was dominated by Demon Slayer and later Jujutsu Kaisen. He also points out that the lack of adventure manga in Shonen Jump is likely because they would be competing with One Piece, one of the magazine's flagship titles.
• Easily Forgiven: In this roast of The Seven Deadly Sins, Geoff expresses quite a lot of anger that Gowther continually gets to use his mind wiping powers to toy with the other Sins and people in general for his own amusement, including at one point using it convince a woman they're in a relationship with it heavily implied he had sex with her under this condition, in other words rape, along with tossing her brother out into the street since he didn't need him and the plot and characters always letting it slide as if it's just a quirk. Yet somehow, the other characters always react to Gowther putting on a dress or a skirt as if that's crossing the line.
• invokedEscapist Character:
  • In Geoff's roast of The Master of Ragnarok & Blesser of Einherjar, he notes how the protagonist Yuuto isn't so much a character as he is a cipher for the audience to indulge in wish fulfilment; he's transported to a fantasy world where he quickly gathers a harem of attractive girls who all fall for him almost immediately, is constantly talked up by said girls as being incredibly nice, smart and hard-working, and is easily able to win battles by applying his historical knowledge of battle strategy that he looks up on his magically-powered smartphone.
  • He also gives props to I Got a Cheat Skill in Another World and Became Unrivaled in the Real World, Too because it is so blatant in the sheer amount of wish fulfillment it gives to its protagonist, who's clearly meant to be a stand-in for the series' target audience. Yuuya is a fat, unattractive nerd who is unfairly maligned by everyone in the world and comes across magic powers left behind by his deceased grandfather; the use of said powers turns him muscular and handsome overnight, getting the chance to go to a prestigious school where he is extremely popular and sought-after and get two girls in the real world (the rich daughter of the school's director and a model) competing over him, along with more girls in the other world falling for him as well. The series also consistently showcases situations where he does something impressive in public and gets the reaction of "Everyone clapped".
    Geoff: I honestly don't know if I've ever seen an Isekai this nakedly self-indulgent that wasn't hentai.
• Excuse Plot:invoked Discussed with regards to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019). The human side of the story is obviously written to tie together the monster fights and overall feels like it was built using a checklist of various critic-bait ideas. The result pleases neither viewers, who just want to watch the fights, or critics, who recognize it as poorly done.
• Expy:
  • Combined with invokedOlder Than They Think. Geoff points out how Alice Zuberg/Synthesis Thirty appears to be just another Saber clone as a blonde, sword-wielding waifu. He then notes that the original Alicization web novels were written around the same time Fate/stay night had released, meaning Alice isn't a Saber clone, but one of the first Saber clones.
  • In his roast of The Rising of the Shield Hero, he lampshades how Ren Amaki, the Sword Hero, is very obviously based on Kirito from Sword Art Online, saying that Ren's character is "one giant Kirito subtweet".
• Fanservice: Geoff usually makes note of the sex jokes and objectification of women common in anime but has expressed a willingness to let it slide since he understands that none of it comes from an intentional desire to hurt anybody.
• Flat Character: His primary criticism of Hand Shakers is that all the characters are nothing more than a single quirky character trait being given human form, comparing it to Edward Elric being stripped of almost all his personality traits except his Berserk Button about his height. It's to the point where he considers the best written character to be the one whose tendency to throw out a Hurricane of Aphorisms turns out to be forcing this trait on herself.
• Franchise Zombie:invoked In "Let Goku Die", Geoff discusses how franchises can reach this state, primarily through the combination of a change-adverse audience and enough money for the creators, or their successors, to keep it going.
• Gateway Series:invoked In his video where he points out the positives of Sword Art Online, he explains that, as divisive as the series can get, even its strongest detractors (such as himself) begrudgingly admit that the anime adaptation (or at least the first half of its first season) is what got many people into anime in the first place.
• Ham and Cheese:invoked In Dragonball Evolution, Chow Yun-fat gives an extremely lively and physical performance as Master Roshi that makes him one of the more expressive characters in a cast full of Dull Surprise. However, Geoff deconstructs this a bit by pointing out that by juxtaposing such a Large Ham against bland performances, Roshi comes across more as an insane lunatic than a fun Eccentric Mentor. And Geoff is saying all this within the context that Chow Yun-fat is not necessarily a bad actor in the film.
• Hard-to-Adapt Work:invoked
  • Gibiate's art direction was based on concept art from renowned illustrator and character designer Yoshitaka Amano, whose art is so detailed and distinct that it is near impossible to translate to animation while keeping his style intact; as a result, the characters in Gibiate look like pale imitations of Amano's original designs, often looking stiff and awkward when animated or standing still. Geoff even cites Hiromu Arakawa's adaptation of The Heroic Legend of Arslan, the original of which Amano had provided the illustrations, as evidence of the necessity of streamlining when doing adaptations, as Arakawa significantly simplified Amano's designs for the manga and the anime adaptation. As such, with the difficulty of adapting Amano's art to animation being such a known quantity, he gives Gibiate no slack for failing to meet a challenge they created for themselves by choosing Amano as the character designer.
  • Mentioned with regards to the works of Naoki Urasawa in "2023's BEST, WORST & Most CURSED Anime". His manga tend to have highly detailed artwork and years-long stories which make them difficult to fit into a standard anime format. Pluto succeeds due to receiving the backing of Netflix to produce the adaptation as something more akin to a series of movies than a standard anime.
  • Discussed in "A Painfully Honest Review of Netflix Avatar" regarding animation-to-live action in general. Geoff points out that animation offers its creators a great deal of freedom in creating unique visuals and creature designs which are simply impractical in a live action adaptation. This leads to the adaptation making concessions to stay in budget, such as greatly reducing Appa's role due to the difficulties of convincingly bringing him to life or fantastial archietecture being notably toned down.
• Hype Backlashinvoked: Discussed in his ""Overhyped" Anime" episode. The issue Geoff notes is that fans build up towering reputations for their favorite anime which they can never live up to. He uses The Mona Lisa as an example to compare, contrasting its legendary reputation as the greatest painting in history versus the reality of an impressive but hardly perfect work. Geoff admits he himself is guilty of this, with his own praise of Chainsaw Man based on its manga creating expectations its anime adaptation could never hope to meet.
• Indecisive Parody: When discussing My Sister, My Writer as his absolute worst anime of 2018, one of Geoff's biggest critiques is that the show often makes overtures towards being a parody of light novel cliches (e.g., hypercompetent Little Sister Heroine who's in love with her older brother, rampant fanservice, references to otaku culture, indulgent Wish-Fulfillment, etc.), but for the most part, those elements aren't any sillier than the sort of things audiences would see in most other light novel-based anime and still seems to be written with fans of those cliches in mind. For instance, its fanservice, though framed a little more comically than the norm, is still clearly intended to be sexy, and comedic fanservice is hardly atypical in anime (being a joke doesn't stop people from being turned on by it).
• Jerkass Dissonanceinvoked: Geoff theorized about the reasons Aqua, Megumin, and Darkness are generally well-liked despite their often unpleasant personalities. He eventually concludes that this is not only because of their comically exaggerated antics, but also because their personalities are genuine, which creates a sense of them being comfortable around the audience and the audience feeling familiar with them. That, and possibly because of their attractive designs.
• Just Here for Godzilla:invoked As Geoff notes with regards to Godzilla: King of the Monsters (2019), most of the audience is there just to watch the kaiju duke it out. The parts of the film that don't involve those fights are largely tuned out.
• Late Export for You: He noted that Your Name took a year after its Japanese release to reach Canadian theaters, but Sword Art Online The Movie: Ordinal Scale took only a month. Given Geoff's dislike of the Sword Art Online franchise, he was rather miffed about it.invoked
• Let's See YOU Do Better!: The main motivation behind his Fix Fic of SAO. Geoff also goes ahead to pick this stock No, You response apart by pointing out how creating and criticizing art are two completely different beasts and, realistically, he cannot hope to possibly go through with the challenge completely since producing anime is an expensive and demanding workload.
• Makes Just as Much Sense in Context:
  • Invoked in the intro to "An Actual Cult Made THE CRAZIEST ANIME!!!", where Geoff shows an out-of-context clip of the ghost of Helen Keller introducing herself to one of the protagonists of one of said cult's anime films:
    Geoff: If you didn't catch the first of these videos, you might be feeling slightly confused right now, possibly even disoriented. I want to reassure you that, as little sense as that probably made to you, it made exactly as much sense to anyone who's already been briefed on stockbroker-turned-reborn super space Buddha Ryuho Okawa a.k.a. El Cantare and his kooky, anime-producing crossover fanfic religion.
  • In "Shonen Power Systems Explained", Geoff explains on the first viewing of Chainsaw Man, a fight's outcome may make no sense. However, after immersing yourself in the lore and learning more about the devils and the powers they provide, the outcomes still make no sense.
• Merchandise-Driven: Hand Shakers has an egregious case of Product Placement where a real life Japan-exclusive card game is significant to a character's powerset and a story arc involving him. Geoff goes further to discuss the hurdles and effort needed to be able to make this work (even playing the Yu-Gi-Oh! theme to make his point known) and points out how this in-story advertisement grinds the show to a complete halt that doesn't make any logical sense In-Universe.
• Moral Myopia: In his breakdown of the films made by the Happy Science cult, he discusses how the film Rebirth of Buddha features an evil cult leader who claims to be a reincarnated Buddha, demands absolute loyalty and support from his followers, and attempts to prove his worthiness through displays of evidently-supernatural power. The film then contrasts this with another new religious leader, a clear No Celebrities Were Harmed version of the leader of Happy Science, who does... all the same things, really, but is treated as someone who should be viewed as obviously legit and trustworthy because... well, he is. Geoff remarks that this is because the objective of the film is not to spurn exploitative cults, but rather to assure a faithful audience that this exploitative cult is the right one.
• Narminvoked: Discussed in "The Roast of King's Game". The characters suffer horrific injuries and deaths, not to mention that several of them have very dark and disturbing backstories. However, the anime's marathon sprint pacing, dubious animation quality, and even more dubious voice acting render it incapable of doing them any justice. Geoff instead finds the combination lends the deaths a near Looney Toons air while the plot is so rushed there's no time to feel a connection with a character before they die, turning dark drama into absurd melodrama.
• Not Blood Siblings: Geoff makes note of this trope when it appears to excuse Brother–Sister Incest and makes it clear he does not accept it as such. Regardless of the blood relationship, the two involved were raised as siblings and should view each other as such, full stop. That said, he has no issues with Kiruko and Maru, despite Kiruko treating their relationship as Like Brother and Sister and Maru calling her "sis".
• Once Original, Now Commoninvoked:
  • In "The Roast of Maburaho", Geoff notes that while Maburaho may have been a relatively fresh take on the Harem Genre when it first came out in the early 2000s, it now pales in comparison to later anime that were able to improve on what it did in the years since then, especially when a few years later Girls Bravo outdid it.
  • In "The BEST Anime of Fall 2022 - Ones To Watch", Geoff warns that some jokes in the 2022 anime adaptation of Urusei Yatsura may seem like standard anime clichés. However, that's because the original manga created those jokes during the 70s and 80s, and they're so funny that other series are still copying them decades later.
• Opinion Myopia: invoked Played for Laughs in Waifu Wars - Public Service Announcement where the narrator tells you how you can figure out who's the enemy: anybody who doesn't agree with his (read:the narrator's) opinions.
• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: In general, one of Geoff's biggest gripes with some anime are their tendency to use sexual assault as cheap fanservice bait.
  • One of his biggest points of contention against Sword Art Online is what he feels to be its rather tactless usage of sexual assault as cheap Kick the Dog moments as opposed to actual plot/character advancement. One of the few positive points he gives to the Alicization arc is its usage of sexual assault to actually drive the plot forward, but even that he considers mitigated by the fact that not only is it presented in a somewhat comedic manner (intentional or not is unknown) initially, but it creates a giant Plot Hole in its Worldbuilding as a result.
  • Also discussed in his video on the infamous gang-rape scene in Goblin Slayer. Among his criticisms is the fact that the scene seems to only exist just to establish that goblins are evil and that the anime sexualizes what should be a horrific moment. He feels that the scene does little but scare off people from what, in his opinion, is a fun dark fantasy.
  • While discussing his fascination for "big dumb battle royale anime," he notes the distressing frequency of such series' Action Girls having sexual assault as part of their backstory.
  • Likewise, neither is Geoff a fan of Double Standard Rape: Female on Male. This is among the reasons the first season of Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time ranked as the fourth worst anime of 2020, and its second a special mention in his "Worst Anime of 2022" episode. Furthermore, in his roast of Maburaho, Geoff is visibly uncomfortable with scenes where Kuriko is trying to force herself on Kazuki.
• Relationship Writing Fumbleinvoked: An inverted take on this trope is brought up in his video about Dragon's Dogma, where he notes that he can't tell if Yang and Leni, the two characters of the week in "Sloth", are supposed to be lovers, friends or even siblings. He eventually concludes that Yang is "in a very vague sense, some form of Leni's man".
• Revision: One of the reasons Geoff feels Bleach is so unique is that it rarely ever retcons the story, but instead uses the Unreliable Expositor as a way of ensuring that later developments don't outright contradict earlier events in the story, since the person speaking either doesn't know the full story, or does, but doesn't reveal the truth for various reasons. This lets the story add new twists or reveals without feeling like it came out of no where, but he does admit that this can cause things to fly over the viewers head, since it might come across as a retcon.
• Rule of Cool: Discussed in regards to Hi-Fi Cluster. He understands that it's OK, especially as far as shonen manga goes, for things to perhaps not make a ton of sense in exchange for them being really cool concepts and contributing for making cool fights, setpieces, and stories. However, it can't really make barcodes something cool, despite how much it skips around in the explanation of the power system. He contrasts this with Stands from JoJo's Bizarre Adventure, which are "sexy anime robot ghosts" that are also pretty vaguely explained, but still have memorable and outlandish designs and are used for incredible fights.
• The Scrappy:invoked
  • In his "What's in a Scene? — How SAO Became the Worst Anime Ever" video, Geoff heavily dislikes Yui because in his opinion, she was responsible for setting up the downfall of the show for him, since the scene of her "death" caused such massive amounts of Fridge Logic and an Ass Pullinvoked from Kirito to save her that the series ultimately went downhill and never recovered from. In a way, Yui, at least for Geoff, ended up being something of a Franchise Killer in terms of his ability to enjoy it, and for said reason, he heavily dislikes her character.
  • While he thinks male harem protagonists are generally among the worst kinds of main characters, what with their flat personalities designed for audience insertion and not much else, in his roast of Rent-A-Girlfriend Geoff in particular piles on Kazuya Kinoshita for his inability to undergo Character Development (or, worse, backtracking from one), compulsive lying, borderline manipulative behavior, and masturbating and/or having an erection whenever he imagines the girls in risque positions, especially whenever he imagines them having sex with other guys, as if to encapsulate on the fanbase being aroused by the female characters' attractive designs (which Geoff notes is the only thing driving the series' financial success). It has gotten to the point that Geoff unironically roots for Mami Nanami, the nominal Big Bad of the series (see invoked"Draco in Leather Pants", above).
• Screwed by the Networkinvoked: Discussed in "The BEST Anime of Fall 2023" and "2023's BEST, WORST & Most CURSED Anime" with regards to Disney+. The distributor has acquired the North American distribution rights to series like Undead Unluck, Summer Time Rendering, and Heavenly Delusion, all of which Geoff belives could have been major hits. However, Disney+ gave the shows literally no advertising, their app's algorithm doesn't recommend them to anyone, the shows aren't even available in Canada, and Rendering's release was incredibly poorly handled.
• Second Season Downfall:
  • Discussed in "How DARLING in the FRANXX Wrecked its Worldbuilding", and the follow up video; "DARLING in the FRANXX — What the HFIL Happened!?". The second season of the series went so drastically into a different genre for several of its run-time, then shifted to explaining as much about the setting as possible, before becoming a copy of Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann. Any good will people had towards the series effectively died after the second half of the series started, and the ending basically trampled any hope for a good conclusion.
  • Discussed again in "I Hate The Promised Neverland Season 2". After finding the first season to be one of his favorite works in the genre, the second season failed on nearly every level. The studio rushed to adapt the remaining manga chapters, which ruined the plot, atmosphere, and characterization which made the first season great. Geoff has since refused to acknowledge the second season even existed and claims the show was cancelled after the first.
• Show, Don't Tell:
  • A point of high praise Geoff had for DARLING in the FRANXX... a point which he angrily took back as the show decayed and it ruins its Worldbuilding mystique by having an Info Dump episode.
  • A consistent criticism towards SAO is its tendency to have boring and long Info Dumps mostly with characters sitting in a cafe and talking.
• Slow Life Fantasy: In his "Types of Isekai Anime" video, two of the possible categories he proposed ("Hangout Isekai" and "Karoshisekai") are specifically centered on this genre.^note Although his list included Konosuba and Princess Connect! Re:Dive as examples — neither of which would fit this trope's exact description.
• Strictly Formula: In "The Roast of Maburaho", Geoff notes how said series doesn't have a plot so much as a rigid formula around a harem comedy setup, with several plot and character points being repeated with superficial variances across different episodes. While he acknowledges that many classic Western cartoons (such as Looney Tunes) similarly stick to formulas, those cartoons at least know how to change things up just enough to stay interesting. Maburaho, on the other hand, isn't creative enough with its formula to make it stand out from other harem comedies.
• Stylistic Suck:
  • Geoff thinks the Off-Model animation of several parts of KonoSuba are actually one of its strongest points because they help enhance its comedic tone. He also believes such animation is deliberate on the part of director Takaomi Kanasaki, given that in his other major work, Princess Connect! Re:Dive, the characters are drawn more consistently so as to emphasize cuteness.
  • For the December 2022 episode on Bocchi the Rock!, Geoff claims that one of its strong points is the deliberately wonky animation of Hitori's comical nervous breakdowns, as if to reflect her easily compromised mental state.
  • Geoff concludes that the animation of KamiKatsu: Working for God in a Godless World is so gloriously bad in so many different ways that the studio must have realized they couldn't afford to do the material justice. Instead they turned the entire thing into a giant shitpost by leaning into the bad art.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Characterinvoked: In his roast of The Rising of the Shield Hero, Geoff notes that Motoyasu, Ren and Itsuki (the other Heroes summoned to another world alongside main protagonist Naofumi) are interesting characters despite their antagonistic roles and their various flaws constantly causing problems; since the three of them were already familiar with this new world due to first experiencing it as a video game (albeit a different kind of video game for each of them) in contrast to Naofumi who first found it through a book, this allows for interesting commentary about how different forms of media can shape people's perception of the stories they tell, and gives the story a lot of opportunity to set up some character arcs for the three Heroes after learning from their mistakes. Unfortunately, the narrative keeps leaning on Naofumi being the only one of the four Heroes who can actually learn and develop thanks to his status as the protagonist, and the other three seem to mainly exist to be incompetent and wrong about everything so Naofumi can lecture them.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plotinvoked:
  • One of the reasons Geoff hates the Fairy Dance arc of Sword Art Online was that the story never even remotely addressed Nobuyuki Sugou's plan to create mind-control technology using 300 kidnapped SAO survivors (including Asuna). In Geoff's eyes, it was simply used as a way to raise the stakes, but never actually mattered since the plot point itself had no usage at all. Another important plot point he discusses being wasted was how Kirito himself points out that Asuna is as strong as he is, if not potentially more, and argues that the story really seems to suggest a fight between the two will happen, but never actually does. In his "Fixing Alfheim: the WORST part of SAO" Fix Fic, he addresses these by combining both plot points by having a mind-controlled Asuna fight Kirito.
  • He notes that the gothic horror setting of Assassin's Pride, where it's Always Night and people constantly live in fear of Tim Burton-esque monsters, has the potential for some interesting stories. Unfortunately, the story itself tends to focus more on harem antics in a Wizarding School instead.
  • Much of his disdain for High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World amounts to disappointment over the series' failure to exploit the potential of its premise of seven Japanese teenage prodigies reforming a fascist kingdom in a fantasy world. He points out that their idea of a democratic government being copied from that of modern Japan is both unimaginative and carrying a rather ugly implication that said system is perfect. There's also the fact that despite having an ensemble cast, functionally the only characters with any agency are Tsukasa Mikogami and Masato Sanada (who are, of course, two of the only three boys of the group), reducing the group's four girls into resembling a typical agency-free Battle Harem who frequently defer to Tsukasa and Masato for major decisions, as well as heaping particular dislike on stage magician Prince Akatsuki (the other boy of the group), both for his obnoxiousness and the series' failure to give a rational explanation for his impossible feats in a world where magic is commonplace, making him functionally no different from a standard fantasy mage.
• Troubled Productioninvoked:
  • When nominating My Sister, My Writer as the worst anime of 2018, he mentions how the anime's production was incredibly fraught with problems for everyone involved; as he says, it's not every day that a cry for help is hidden in an episode's end credits.
  • In his roast of the first season of Arifureta: From Commonplace to World's Strongest, Geoff takes note of its behind-the-scenes drama when series author Ryo Shirakome expressed his dissatisfaction with the original adaptation, meant for an April 2018 release, and forced a massive rehaul of the production crew causing its release to be pushed back by fifteen months. In addition, he also highlights Shirakome's questionable choice of replacements for studio (from the otherwise venerable White Fox, of Steins;Gate and Katanagatari fame, to asread, which he claims peaked with the otherwise mediocre Future Diary back in 2011), director (from veteran Jun Kamiya, of Blue Seed and Kingdom fame, to newcomer Kinji Yoshimoto, of the fanservice-centric Seven Mortal Sins and Queen's Blade infamy), and character designer (from Atsuo Tobe, of Kingdom and Yakitate!! Japan fame, to Chika Kojima, of Big Order infamy, which he described as a trainwreck ripoff of JoJo's Bizarre Adventure deserving of its own roast in the future).
• Uncertain Audienceinvoked:
  • In regards to Sword Art Online, Geoff argues that while it is, in tone and substance, essentially a Saturday morning cartoon, it doesn't seem fully aware of that, and tries to delve into darker subject matter for no other reason than edginess, singling out a trend in the story to incorporate sexual assault whenever it needs something dark to happen and it is never handled well.
  • In regards to Time Paradox Ghost Writer and The Hunters Guild: Red Hood, he argues that a likely reason why these manga were both cancelled early on is because they both tackle themes that are too mature for a magazine primarily aimed at middle- and high-school-aged boys:
    • The former focuses on publishing manga in the very same magazine it ran in as a plot point, but it also involves a lot of discussion and themes regarding failed professional expectations, issues in the manga industry, Grey-and-Gray Morality in its main plot premise, the trials creatives go through to live off their work, etc. While these are pertinent and interesting themes, they still seem too ambitious for the manga's primary audience, which are likely to not have any experience or interest on these topics.
    • The same can be said about latter, with a dark fantasy story building up to a twisty meta-fiction narrative through slow burn, and Geoff further states that even the manga's way of handling fanservice was too mature for its audience, eschewing gratuitous nudity and Stripperiffic designs for the allure of Grimm's fully clothed but very voluptous body; there's also the Amazonian Beauty Debonaire Diamond, who's introduced right after her.
• Unfortunate Implicationsinvoked: In his criticism of Platinum End, Geoff talks about writer Tsugumi Ohba's history of "Stay in the Kitchen" overtones to his writing of female characters. While he passingly mentions that Bakuman。 also had a weird scene where Ohba's Author Avatar talks about women who are really successful in life are those that "know their place", in Platinum End, he specifically points out how, out of the god candidates, male characters that survived get to be self-actualized and accomplished, while the female characters that survived simply get to be married to them.
• Unintentionally Unsympatheticinvoked: Geoff's biggest problem with Peter Grill and the Philosopher's Time is that he doesn't feel bad for the titular Peter Grill's plight—being hounded by an Unwanted Harem of Cute Monster Girls who want him to give them strong children—because he frequently ends up having sex with them despite already being engaged to his childhood sweetheart Luvelia. While the writing aims to make the audience feel sorry for Peter and not all of the mishaps he gets into are his fault (for example, he points out that one of the girls flat-out rapes Peter yet is somehow treated as part of the harem afterward), the fact that he constantly makes the same mistakes that lead to him repeatedly cheating on Luvelia still greatly lessens Geoff's enjoyment of the series.
• Unreliable Expositor: Geoff argues that this is both a strength and a weakness of Bleach, whose power systems and worldbuilding are not explained in a straightforward manner, with exposition being initially made by characters who don't wholly understand those very concepts, and later, when characters that do have the necessary knowledge are introduced, neither are they likely to explain it in a better way for the audience, because most of them are arrogant Mad Scientists with a penchant for either not explaining at all or doing so to lord their knowledge over others, the sole exception to this rule being an eccentric man that is just bad at explaining. While Geoff thinks this is a very naturalistic and clever approach to exposition that also builds characters and rewards keen audiences, he also understands that this has led to others accusing Bleach of shallow worldbuilding and introducing powerups out of nowhere, when in reality these already have subtle foreshadowings. And because Bleach is published in Shonen Jump, which is geared more towards middle- and high-school-aged boys (who are not expected to be cerebral), to say nothing of the anime adaptation being pack full of filler, it's unlikely most people would even realize there was something they should have realized that the story hadn't told them, let alone catch those subtle details. He even compares it to something akin to a Souls like way of telling the story, which can both make it exciting, but also extremely difficult to actually make something from it.
• A Wizard Did It: Geoff has a fascination for phantom thieves and stage magic, so it frustrates him when a bad anime extensively featuring such characters and premises never explain how said characters pull off the tricks they do, leading to implications (or just outright shows) that it's literally just magic rather than cool smoke and mirrors. For this reason he dislikes Prince Akatsuki, the resident stage magician in High School Prodigies Have It Easy Even in Another World (already his absolute worst anime of 2019), apart from his obnoxious behavior, as well as citing Hatena Illusion as the second-worst anime of 2020.
• YouTuber Apology Parody: In this video, Geoff tearfully apologies for leaving Welcome to Demon School! Iruma-kun out of his best anime of 2019 video.

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I'm Geoff Thew, professional shitbag, signing out from my mother's basement.