Monster Island Buddies
is a YouTube Channel best known for the action figure series by the same name, Monster Island Buddies. The channel is devoted to kaiju and particularly Godzilla content. The host, generally referred to as MIB, is an American-accented guy in a hoodie wearing a (knockoff) Godzilla mask.
In addition to said action figure series, MIB has several other regular series:
- Orga Reviews: Reviews of non-interactive work by Monster Island Buddies' Orga.
- MIB's Top 5: Top 5 lists starring a disembodied pair of hands and Clickbait.
- Monster Island Plushies: A Lighter and Softer spinoff of Monster Island Buddies that's more kid-friendly and largely existed to advertise MIB's own plushie.
- Play Time!: Reviews of retro and modern Godzilla toys and merchandise hosted by MIB.
- Video Game Reviews: Reviews of Godzilla-adjacent video game reviews, the first 15 of these were done as part of a larger Myth Arc culminating in a Grand Finale.
While the Monster Island Buddies is the only work of fiction on the channel, the other videos contain a substantial amount of tropes:
- Abstract Eater: Mr. Pockets eats personalities. Thus, someone with multiple personalities is like a buffet to this... thing.
- The Alcoholic: Video Game Reviews MIB is frequently shown drinking excessively, waking up surrounded by bottles after passing out.
- All Love Is Unrequited: Video Game Reviews MIB yearns for his high school crush, Top 5's host has feelings for Clickbait, and Clickbait shows extreme interest in Top 5 MIB once only for it to evaporate as soon as he acknowledges/reciprocates.
- Call-Back: Props or jokes from earlier videos frequently make a return in one way or the other. One such
- Enemy Within: Mr. Pockets resides within MIB as a separate personality and is an existential threat to his psyche.
- The Faceless: Host MIB is never shown without his Godzilla mask. The closest he's come to a face reveal is wearing other Godzilla masks.
- Flies Equals Evil: When the demonic-seeming entity Mr. Pockets hijacks the review of Godzilla: Monster of Monsters!, flies are buzzing around Pockets' gnarled hands.
- Grand Finale: Godzilla: Monster of Monsters! serves as a finale for the Myth Arc of the Video Game reviews, resolving the long-running Myth Arc in the form of an extended Shout-Out to the NES Godzilla Creepypasta.
- Kayfabe: Acknowledged and temporarily broken with the brief introduction of Monster Island Baby, who doesn't exist in the fiction of the channel but had to be included for the reading of Godzilla vs. Kong: Sometimes Friends Fight (But They Always Make Up).
- Ms. Fanservice: Clickbait is an attractive woman in a tanktop whose purpose both in and out of universe is to draw clicks by being, well, an attractive woman in a thumbnail, a fact blatantly lampshaded by her name.
- Myth Arc: The MIB Reviews series of video game reviews has an arc quietly going on in the background over the course of over a dozen reviews spanning over a year culminating in MIB confronting some Eldrich Abomination named Mr. Pockets.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome: Apparently MIB managed to defeat Mr. Pockets completely offscreen and since Mr. Pockets ate all his personalities, MIB's now mentally healthier than ever.
- The One That Got Away: The video game review series has a running gag that MIB continually pines for his high school crush Jessica Newmire.
- Sitcom Archnemesis: Craig Hornburger, a guy who went to high school with MIB, comes up repeatedly as basically MIB's shorthand for someone he hates, largely without sufficient reason (other than dating MIB's high school crush).
- Split Personality: Turns out MIB apparently had at over two dozen at one point, including Jessica Newmire and Craig Hornburger, but eventually all of them were consumed by Mr. Pockets.
- Story Breadcrumbs: That there even is a story isn't clear for quite a time in the Video Game Reviews, but turns out passing references to some names and quick cutaways and background events actually serve as information and lore for the story.
