Western Animation / Gemusetto

Oh wow!

Gemusetto, split into two separate cours named Gemusetto: Machu Picchu and Gemusetto: Death Beat(s) respectively, is an [adult swim] anthology series by Max Simonet of FishCenter Live and Bloodfeast fame that first aired on April Fool's Day 2019, airing the whole first season in 6 hours, and has been referenced in every April Fool's prank until 2022. (The 2020 April Fools prank aired the first minute or so of Gemusetto: Death Beats, and the 2021 prank, being Adult Swim Jr. had a commercial for Gemusetto: Machu Preschool, which sadly never actually aired.) It is an Affectionate Parody of anime and Japanese Media Tropes tropes seen in other Japanese works, being created by an open fan of the medium.

The series focuses on Makasu, a narcissistic thief who steals magical artifacts from ancient gods and goddesses. He does this through the medium of sports, and has collected a large amount of artifacts in his Magical Back Pocket Dimension, organized by his Magical Back Pocket Dimension Flying Bear. Trying to get the secret treasure of South America, he has to defeat every Incan God by tennis, and is aided by the God of Tennis due to the fact that Makasu is deeply, deeply afraid of tennis. These two, with a series of other quirky side characters, will go on a massive journey to get the treasure of South America! While this happens, Interpol agent Bendy Rivers chases down Makasu through heaven and hell, trying to arrest him for his thievery.

As mentioned above, the show is anthology-esque, with season 2 having a completely different plot and character list than season 1. Season 2's plot hinges entirely on a massive spoiler at the end of Season 1, so Spoil at Your Own Risk.

The show also has an online game called Gemusetto: Machu Skichu, created by Max himself. It can be found here

The character sheet is under construction.

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I'ma always keep that thing on me, swing, swing, swing...

Tropes used in both seasons

• The Cameo: Tons if you know a lot about Adult Swim. Nearly every member of Wham City has cameoed, Tom Green played Viracocha, creator god. Dave Bonawits, Tina Loranger, and Andrew Choe, who were all members of the streaming show Max is most known for, FishCenter Live, all appear at least once. Cameron Grant, an editor for h3h3productions plays Urcuchillay.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Season 2 is a lot darker and plot driven than Season 1, and in Season 1 alone the show turned from a quirky anime parody to revealing that Tennis God was lying the whole time, and tricking Makasu to sacrifice him to the sun, in a genuinely heartwrenching final moment, killing off not only Makasu, but the adorable Magical Back Pocket Dimension Flying Bear
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Nearly every character on this show.
• Deranged Animation: Especially in Season 1, but Death Beat(s) also contains a near constant switching of art styles, from 2D to 3D to live action to sock puppets - it's all there.
• No Fourth Wall: The show is regularly improvised, and near constantly references the audience, has clips in real life, etc, etc.
• Overly Long Gag:
  • With the shorter episode length of Death Beat(s), it's less regular there, but this is still a major source of comedy for the show. Nearly every episode in the first season has one joke that is purposefully dragged on too long just to make it uncomfortable.
  • [adult swim]'s use of this show as a gag to open their annual April Fool's prank every year since 2019 also counts.
• Shout-Out: The series indulges in several visual and stylistic references to anime and Metal Gear Solid. The first season alone has some visual references to the likes of Dragon Ball Z, Kiki's Delivery Service, and Sailor Moon, and both seasons reference AKIRA. The second season uses
• Surreal Humor: And how!
  • Also delves into Surreal Horror at times, especially after Makasu gets sacrificed at the end of Season 1.
• Take That!: The character of Makasu is one to white imperialism.
  • The second season delivers one to the debunked pseudoscience of phrenology, with writing on a blackboard that says "This Is Very Racist".

Tropes exclusive to Machu Picchu

• Adolf Hitlarious: The God of Tennis tried to move into Argentina (where the Nazis went after Nuremberg) after being rejected from France, but they didn't have any room for him due to the bunks being full of Hitler boy clones with "sexy Brazil butts."
• Beach Episode: The second episode, "Second Set".
• Biting-the-Hand Humor:
  Maxime Simonet: Special thanks to Vietnam, I mean— not Vietnam, the Venture Bros., which took a break on production, a long hiatus, to make sure we could execute this project, which has so far cost $4 million, and as you see, with this graphic on the screen,
  (Max shows a graphic on screen that says $4,000,000 dollars and is literally rising into the air and not actually upping it's number.)
  Maxime Simonet: The number keeps going up!
• Bookends: The first lines and last lines of the series are the same, if you don't count the live action commercial parody bit.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: The list of the French Pantheon is reasonable enough, if not a bit absurd, and then it ends with "Roman Polanski, God of Pedophiles."
• Calvinball: While tennis seems to be a standard game in most people's lives, in this show they tend to list off random rules completely made up for the show, that every character somehow understands, making it a much different game than it is in real life.
• Camp Gay: The Homophone, a pink, flamingly homosexual phone used for a one-off gag at the God of Tennis' expense (he struggles with homophones).
• Cannot Tell a Joke: Oh, Chair Umpire. She's always slightly messing up and redoing her lines, and every joke she tries to make ends up funnier because of the way she delivers them awkwardly.
• Driven to Suicide: The wife of the Italian bocce ball instructor that seduced Makasu when he was 16 kills herself upon discovering their affair.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Makasu, as a coping method with the flashbacks that Supay forced him to relive. Apparently, his father drank as well.
• Flash Forward: The series begins with what is actually the scene just before Makasu gets incinerated by the sun.
• Heel Realization: In the last episode, Makasu tries to use a sword that can detect evil, but then thinks that it's detecting himself. While he's not wrong per se, it's mostly detecting the God of Tennis.
• Hot Springs Episode: The fifth episode, "Foot Fault".
• LOL, 69: Makasu laughs when he reaches the number 69 as he counts down to how long he'll let Bear nap on his breasts before he screams to wake him up.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Makasu goes through this after Supay, the God of Death, shows him the deaths that he caused in high school. Then, Makasu goes through it again once he believes that one of his artifacts is telling him that he's evil.
• Nosebleed: Makasu gets one in the opening to the fifth episode.
• Parody Commercial: Inbetween every episode, an advertisement for Gemusetto Toys air. No kid would ever want to buy them.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: The God of Tennis feels this way towards Makasu's female form.
• Stylistic Suck: Machu Picchu's artstyle looks like it was drawn in MS Paint in 2 weeks, and regularly switches up artstyles and levels of detail.
• Sudden Downer Ending: Makasu gets sacrificed into the sun after a huge betrayal.
• Teacher/Student Romance: Makasu and the Italian bocce ball teacher when the former was only 16, with horrifying consequences.
• Toilet Humor: In a particularly uncomfortable scene, Makasu defecates all over some South American produce.
• Vomit Indiscretion Shot: Both Makasu and Bear are seen vomiting over the course of the series.

Tropes exclusive to Death Beats

• Art-Shifted Sequel: Death Beats looks a lot cleaner than Machu Picchu, and seems more like a low budget flash cartoon than anything. It is also much more Animesque.
• Disney Death: Makasu gets revived almost immediately after he dies thanks to Dr. Legs. His life then continues almost as if nothing happened.
• Foreshadowing: In episode 12, Makasu references how he engages in unsafe sex. At the end of the season, we learn that Bucket is pregnant with his spawn as part of a US government effort to continue the Super Sportsman project.
• Late-Arrival Spoiler: As Death Beats continues directly after Machu Pichu, you will know that Makasu dies at the end of Machu Pichu if you go into the former before watching the latter.
• Letters 2 Numbers: The title reads Gemuse2 in both English and Japanese.
• Longest Pregnancy Ever: It's revealed that Bucket has been pregnant with Makasu's baby... for 13 years, because Bucket was afraid that the government checks would stop coming in if she delivered. Some guy involved with prolonging the Super Sportsman project calls her to say that they're ceasing funding for the project anyway, and she could have delivered years ago while still getting checks.
• Mons Series: Several characters possess magical blood rings that let them summon mons and duke it out against one another. All of the mons are musically themed, e.g. Makasu's adorable robotic battle amphibian, Keith.
• New Season, New Name
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: In the season finale, it's revealed that Makasu's absentee biological father did come back on the day of Makasu's graduation. His father killed all of the people that he believed were going to exploit Makasu's genetic legacy and otherwise keep him from living his life freely. However, this backfired spectacularly, because he got so pissed off that he decided to become The Aloner and start fighting deities in sports battles in a quest for validation.
• Title Drop: Also in the season finale, Makasu declares that having friends in death beats having never had any in life in the midst of sacrificing himself to reset the Center of All Death.