Trivia / Bennett the Sage

• Acting for Two: Sage plays multiple characters in the show. Along with Suave and Savage, there's Old Man Sage (an elderly version of Sage who waxes about anime in his youth), a Matlock-style Southern lawyer who shows up in one review, and his imitation of Gendo Ikari.
• Creator Backlash:
  • This is why he stopped doing Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre.
  • In a 2022 Q&A, he admits to regretting his Macross Plus review for the ending speech, which he now regards as coming dangerously close to saying "make Anime great again."
  • In "Neon Genesis Evangelion: The Story of an Otaku", he notes near the end that he now looks back on his previous Eva videos, along with most everything else he did prior to 2017, with a level of dissatisfaction that goes into revulsion. He acknowledges being part of the "vitriolic internet reviewer" theme that was so prominent back then and compromising research and honest appraisal for the sake of jokes, and states firmly that he is no longer that person. That said, he makes clear that anyone who likes any of those reviews shouldn't stop liking them just because he doesn't anymore.
• Failed a Spot Check:
  • In his Love Hina Christmas special review, he explains the practice of using southern USA accents to substitute for the Osaka dialect in English dubs. He does this so he can complain that Kitsune shouldn't have one since she's from Hokkaido and not Kansai... except Kitsune is from Kansai and would speak with a Kansai dialect. This means her dub voice having a Southern accent makes sense. Given Kitsune being from Kansai is a major thing about her character, this is an odd mistake to make.
  • In his Jojo video he shows a picture of Part 4's Josuke Higashikata when talking about the (at the time) most recent Jojo from part 8 which is a different Josuke Higashikata from an alternate universe. This is a fairly easy mistake to make, though, if you just google Josuke Higashikata without knowing beforehand that there are two of them.
• Missing Episode: Most of Masterpiece Fanfic Theatre is gone due to vidme closing.
• On-Set Injury: The Elfen Lied review leads off with a skit in which Sage is lured into a hotel conference room and "beaten" severely^note they were using wiffle ball bats and other harmless Improvised Weapons by his fellow (at the time) co-creators, which culminated in Woolie breaking a pool cue across his back. The cue had been set up with a break spot, but it broke several inches below that, which meant that Bennett actually took the hit, leaving a long welt across his back. However, in the Nuts and Bolts video for that review, he mentions that one of his friends got really enthusiastic with "beating" him and actually left bruises that hurt worse than the welt on his back.
• Real Song Theme Tune: Prior to the show's 2019 reboot, Anime Abandon's theme was a section of KMFDM's "Ultra"...which is a combined Shout-Out to Manga Entertainment, who used the full song for one of their trailers, and to the Chun-Li/Vega fight in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.
• Schedule Slip: Bennett has tried to stick to a schedule as much as he can, but occasional real-life issues have caused videos to be delayed or even canceled, which he will usually let the audience know about whenever he can.
  • One such delay was in early December 2019 when he announced that due to extensive travel, both to Japan to shoot footage for future AA episodes and to Italy to get married, Oldtaku, New Tricks would likely be put on a short hiatus and AA releases could be delayed.
  • On 5/14/23, Bennett announced that he'd been hired to be a writer for A Nut Between Worlds, an H-Game starring the VTuber Projekt Melody. Due to this commitment, production on Anime Abandon would slow down and Dumpster Dive would be going on hiatus.
• Throw It In!: According to Bennett's commentary, the part in Twilight of the Cockroaches where Sage holds the video box upside down was actually a complete accident that he didn't notice until later.
• Trolling Creator: Bennett thinks the anime/manga fanbase really needs to get over Nina Tucker and makes crude jokes about her every now and then just to rile people up.
  [from his Twitter] It's amazing how much glee I get by joking about Nina Tucker. Never change, AniTwitter.
• What Could Have Been:
  • When doing Nuts and Bolts, Bennett and Marc frequently discuss bits that they had to cut from their scripts.
  • In Ninja Resurrection they wanted Darcy Lord, the Australian Brodouche God from Lady Death, to make another appearance, but due to conflicts with the actor's scheduling they could not.
  • In the Fist of the North Star review, Ben and Gabe (with a cameo from David, the title card artist who appeared in the Doomed Megalapolis review) were going to do a skit where they charged at each other and ended up doing a You Are Already Dead moment. It didn't come together the way they wanted it to and it was cut.
  • There were originally going to be three episodes during December 2015, but due to unforeseen circumstances (Bennett's computer failed and spent quite a long time in the repair shop) it had to be cut down to two. The unknown third episode even had a title card drawn up for it, and Bennett does hope it can still be made further down the line.
  • Fax Headspace was originally supposed to have been achieved through prosthetics ala the original Max Headroom. The idea had too many moving parts and had to be scrapped, so they rendered him using CGI instead. Bill Rogers found the arrangement more favorable, seeing as he is a voice actor.
  • The beating Bennett took in the Elfen Lied review was supposed to feature Doug Walker, but he was burdened with too many other projects at the time and was unavailable.
  • There were plans to do a month of live-action anime adaptations starting with Speed Racer with Bennett and Marc also planning to review Fist of the North Star and Kite (2014). Unfortunately the plan couldn't materialize due to everyone's scheduling conflicts and Bennett himself was grateful that Doug could come in to review Speed Racer under such short notice. Bennett later reviewed Kite in a Crossover with Chris Stuckmann.

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