Web Video / Strawberry Dragon Project

Hi, welcome to the SDP!

The Strawberry Dragon Project is a Review Blog and Troper Work created by Kevin Milligan, also known as IchigoRyu, and Spy Hunter 29 on this very wiki. It can be read here. On the 4th of March 2012, a companion Video Review Show was launched on YouTube, and later Dailymotion. It can be watched here and here.

---

This work uses the following tropes:

Tropes used by the blog

• Adaptation Decay: Discussed Trope, citing handheld games inspired by but not direct ports of console games, for example Super Mario Land and the Game Gear version of Sonic the Hedgehog. invoked
• Added Alliterative Appeal: When Kevin couldn't finish all the articles for Music March in time, he extended it into the following May, simply because it was the only other month to start with the letter “M”.
• Alternate Character Interpretation: Kevin sees the subject of "Drops of Jupiter" as a girl who recently returned to her boyfriend after a long vacation but had an affair or two while she was away. However, he did acknowledge the song's intended inspiration, namely singer Pat Monahan's dead mother. invoked
• Annoying Video Game Helper: Kevin expressed impatience with the melee fight scenes in 007 Legends, claiming he could rely on natural visual cues instead of on-screen prompts. [invoked]
• Appeal to Obscurity: In his review of "Empire State of Mind". Can you name any famous players from the New Jersey Nets, the team Jay-Z happens to own? ...Exactly.
  • When this was fixed to refer to the New Jersey Nets instead of the New York Knicks, Ichigo expressed his relief that the joke was still valid, as the Knicks had since picked up Jeremy Lin, who had gone on to some stardom.
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: Kevin described the villain of Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water's acting in the English dub as "equal parts human, menacing, and Jeff Goldblum".
  • Some reviews even end in a segment called "Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking", where Ichigo discusses the least offensive yet still notable thing in a work that was awful on the whole.
  • Used on the sound effects of the Vanity Plate, as a Logo Joke in Episode 14 of the video show.
• Atomic F-Bomb: After describing the end of Sailor Moon Abridged The Movie, only to cut it short.
• Bad Export for You: Kevin decried the fact that the American release of Demon Sword on the NES had half the content missing from its Japanese counterpart. invoked
• Bait-and-Switch: The review for Rebecca Black's "Friday" started off by introducing a different song of the same name by Daniel Bedingfield. Bear in mind that this review was posted on April Fools' Day 2011.
• Blofeld Ploy: Praised its use in Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water as an Exploited Trope.
• Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs / Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: From the Target Terror review:
  "I will not buy American if I don't want to, whether the subject is video games, animation, cars, or pornography. Or all four at once. ...Which would be a fan-game based on Transformers: Kiss Players, so forget about it."
• Brick Joke:
  • One that kills two birds with one brick: In his feature on Back to the Future Part II, Ichigo makes a reference to the Florida Marlins beating the New York Yankees in the 2003 World Series. Then, at the very end of the feature, he blurts out, "Wait a minute, the Marlins did what!? :)", linking to his review of "Empire State of Mind".
  • In the video episode 5, Kevin reads a list of fake newspaper headlines. The first two are "Joseph Kony arrested, sent to International Criminal Court" and "President Bashar al-Assad arrested, sent to International Criminal Court". Then, the second-to-last headline is "Soulja Boy Tell'Em arrested, sent to International Criminal Court".
• Broke the Rating Scale:
  • Type 1: Both the long and short form scales can go down to 0% / 0 out of 5, but this is reserved for works that are truly broken and unredeemable. The first work to get 0/5 on the short form scale is the song "Friday" by Rebecca Black. ^note When introducing it, Kevin did informally mention other songs that would get 0 out of 5, like "Break Up" and "Imma Be". The first work to get 0% on the long-form scale was the PC game Ethnic Cleansing.
  • Type 2: The short form assigns 0 to 5 random items out of five. For example, 1 million repetitions of the word "Baby" out of 5 million for "Baby", and 2 planets out of 5 for "Drops of Jupiter (Tell Me)".
• Call-Back: Links to earlier articles are common.
• Catchphrase:
  • "[X] says hi." Often used as a Shout-Out or Take That!.
  • "[X], I said in sacrasm / sincerity mode."
  • After describing something awesome: "Have fun". invoked
  • After describing how something got worse: "Yeah, I just broke you."
  • At the end of a review, after having said something profound: "This is IchigoRyu. You are the resistance." Also used in the video series.
  • After describing something awkward and random put in simply for Rule of Funny: "Because... funny?"
• Cerebus Syndrome: In May 2011, Kevin did two "current events" entries, one on the death of Osama bin Laden, and one on the 21 May rapture prediction. He lampshaded and apologized for the shift on Twitter.
• Critical Backlash: Kevin has expressed this inuniverse regarding The Twilight Saga, Justin Bieber, Sonic the Hedgehog 4, and Star Wars Episode I. Technically he genuinely likes Sonic 4 and The Phantom Menace, but the other two... not so much. He's mostly Complaining About Complaining.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: Joked about when discussing Nintendo Entertainment System / Sega Genesis combo consoles.
  "Mario and Sonic on one console... In other news, pigs have been spotted flying outside."
• Cultural Cringe: Kevin has done this towards America in the reviews for Cruis'n and Target Terror.
• Cultural Translation: Kevin dicsussed this subject, and ultimately disagreed with it, in the review of Demon Sword.
• Dangerous Forbidden Technique: Kevin has labeled the pick-up line "Yabba-dabba-doo, [I can] make your bed rock" or any variation thereof, as this, in an example Played for Laughs. It's not forbidden because it might pose danger to the user, but because it's an Incredibly Lame Pun.
• Designated Hero: Called out Rachel Buchanan from Spy Goddess as one. invoked
• Dissimile: The following one-liner from the Cruis'n review: "All in all, this game's attitude is phony much in the way that Holden Caufield is not."
• Digital Piracy Is Evil: Kevin made an exception in the case of Ethnic Cleansing. In order to prepare for his review, he downloaded a torrent of the game, rather than pay the game's makers one cent and support their hateful beliefs.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: The ending levels of James Bond 007 for Game Boy, in which warring factions within Kurdistan are wearing each other thin after 007 dislodged a disagreeable dictator, reminded Kevin of the 2003-2011 Iraq War. invoked
• Dragons Up the Yin Yang: There's the word "dragon" in the title, and the logo is a yin-yang symbol, but other than that, it's a Subverted Trope for not containing any dragons within the work itself.
• Dude, Not Funny!: Invoked Trope in response to rappers joking about Hurricane Katrina.
• Eagleland Osmosis: Inverted Trope. Kevin lives in America, but specifically refers to US dollars as such, and lists dates in the British order (e.g. "1 January" rather than "January 1st"), as well as international English spelling (e.g. "colour" rather than "color").
• Even Evil Has Standards: Despite having numerous less-than-masculine interests, Kevin still thinks that watching, much less reviewing, Princess Tutu would be too much for him.
  • Subverted Trope: He's still a fan of Sailor Moon and has seen at least one episode of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic.
• Felony Misdemeanor: In the review for Cruis'n, Kevin cites the video game as a reason why America is lagging behind in the world.
  "See, this is why the rest of the world thinks Americans are stupid: our racing games have less to do with substance than spectacle."
• F--: Double Subversion. The grade below an F (which covers 5-40%) is an E (for 0%).
• Follow the Leader: Kevin admits he was inspired by the Channel Awesome crew.
  • Lampshaded multiple times, for example in the video episode 2-04. Since the episode is a list of the top 10 worst songs to appear on the Billboard year-end chart, a tradition started by Todd in the Shadows, Ichigo complains that he stole the tradition from him.
• Four-Point Scale: Averted Trope. The long form scale goes from 0 to 100 percent (in increments of 5%), and to date has gone from 0% (Ethnic Cleansing) to 100% (From Russia with Love). In the review for the latter, Ichigo even discussed the topic before giving it his highest honors.
  • He also introduced a short-form scale for smaller works like individual songs. This goes from 0 to 5 random items out of 5.
• Gratuitous Spanish: In the review of "Back In Time", he does this as a Take That! against Pitbull, who does this frequently. Specifically, he says, "Pit, su escritura es perezoso", which translates to "Pit, your writing is lazy".
• Gretzky Has the Ball: Eight months after its original posting, an edit to the review of "Empire State of Mind" corrected the fact that Jay-Z co-owns the New Jersey Nets, not the New York Knicks.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight: The team moved back to Brooklyn in 2012.
• Gosh Darn It to Heck!: Kevin generally avoids cursing, and even swears in cited passages are censored. There have been special exceptions, however.
• Got Me Doing It: There were apparently so many "seed" jokes in Sailor Moon Abridged The Movie that Kevin ended up making one himself.
  "But the flower monsters make one last stand and the other Scouts, sensing the danger, push Moon out of the way before getting swallowed up by the seed... beasts. I apologize."
• Growing the Beard: Ichigo says this happened to DanceDanceRevolution at 3rdMIX. invoked
  • Also inverted literally. A joke from the Spy Goddess manga review refers to a character's beard shrinking as the story goes on.
    "I never thought I'd see Growing the Beard in reverse."
• Insistent Terminology: Kevin always refers to the 2006 SONIC THE HEDGEHOG in capital letters, to differentiate it from the 1991 games bearing the same title.
• Isn't It Ironic?: Kevin's biggest problem with Sailor Moon Abridged, and The Movie in particular. Discussing this was a big part of the review, and he even specifically referred to its trope page.
• Lampshade Hanging: All the time. Plus one to This Very Wiki, no less. After bringing up My Friends... and Zoidberg while describing Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water ("It's just like Das Boot, but with hot chicks... and Jean."), Kevin said he would look for any excuse to throw in extra tropes.
• List of Transgressions: The article "Second Opinion: Sonic The Hedgehog 4" includes a list of various failings of Sonic The Hedgehog titles, none of which appear in Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I.
• Loads and Loads of Loading: Referenced in several game reviews in which this exists, including SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, where he turned it into a Running Gag.
• Milestone Celebration: On the 1-year anniversary of the SDP's founding, Kevin reviewed a song by Train, since he had done another one of their songs for his first review (something he is still not proud of).
  • He has also done month- or year-long celebrations of other anniversaries, such as a Nintendo Entertainment System month in October 2010, a Sonic the Hedgehog month in June 2011, and a year-long coverage of James Bond in 2012.
• Mis-blamed: Kevin made a point to avoid this regarding "Friday", laying most of his criticism not on Rebecca Black but the song's co-writer/producer, Patrice "Pato" Wilson. invoked
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Described Nadia: The Secret of Blue Water as "just like Das Boot, but with hot chicks... and Jean".
• My Greatest Failure: Some of Kevin's self-declared failures include not purchasing a copy of Shantae upon release, not applying to the German Honors Society, and not going to the Genesis reunion tour.
• Ninja Pirate Zombie Robot: Invoked when referring to the "Healing space vodka Crystal Prison" from Sailor Moon Abridged. Also said, "Stacking adjectives makes it awesome".
• Note to Self: Done in the review of "Back In Time", so he could finish the review after having been mind-wiped by the music video.
• Oh, My Gods!: Kevin has made references to the Gym Leader Sabrina in this manner.
• Old Shame: Kevin repeatedly puts down the first review he posted, for "Hey, Soul Sister" by Train. Among the reasons for that was Todd in the Shadows' far better and more comprehensive review, coincidentally posted only a few days later.
• Perverse Sexual Lust: Kevin admits to Nadia of The Secret Of Blue Water as being his "waifu", despite their gradually increasing age difference.
• Porting Disaster: Examples include Doom for the Super NES, and 1942 for the NES. invoked
• Precision F-Strike: At the end of the "Decoding The Twilight Saga" editorial, topping off a "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • Another one in the review for Sailor Moon Abridged The Movie - and a very big one, too - except this one was interrupted partway.
  • And another one in the review for Kaleido Star, where Kevin calls out the main character for her Heroic BSoD moment in season 2. It's a tamer profanity, but it's also Punctuated! For! Emphasis!
• Product Placement: Kevin is generally wary of product placement, going so far as to censor product logos in certain video footage. However, in an editorial, he has made an incredibly blatant plug for Classic Game Junkie^note A retro-friendly video game store in the Philadelphia area.
• Punctuated! For! Emphasis!:
  • How many times does Kevin have to tell you? He. Likes. Sonic. 4.
  • "Anime" by Soulja Boy is the Worst. Song. Ichigo. Has. Ever. Heard.
• Real Life Writes the Plot:
  • Numerous articles, skits, and even episodes involve the cancellation of Mega Man Legends 3.
  • Episode 2-08 was filmed whilst Kevin was on vacation, and the following episode makes reference to that.
  • Episode 2-09 also makes a reference to an affair where The Irate Gamer used the N-word against a fact-checker.
• Running Gag:
  • Writing the line "I am not a fan of the Twilight Saga" in between every paragraph in the "Decoding The Twilight Saga" editorial.
  • A devil smiley ( >:-) ) following each Take That! in the review for "Back In Time".
  • In the review for "6 Foot 7 Foot", the references to Lil Wayne’s other song “Love Me” (no).
  • In the review for SONIC THE HEDGEHOG (2006), the numerous loading messages which parody the game’s Loads and Loads of Loading. This is eventually subverted near the end of the review.
• Shout-Out: Whenever Kevin does one of these, he makes it into a Wikipedia or TV Tropes link to drive the point home.
  • At one point during the Second Opinion: Star Wars Episode 1 discussion, he "shouted out" "OBJECTION!" in big red text, followed by yet another Lampshade Hanging:
    ...Sorry, I was imagining this review as an Ace Attorney-style debate.
  • From "Empire State of Mind": "Look down. Look up. Where are you? You're in Philly. The town your town could smell like!"
    • Turned into a Take That! to New York its video episode.
  • A two-for-one example in the Cruis'n review: "All in all, this game's attitude is phony much in the way that Holden Caufield is not."
  • The Catchphrase "Would you kindly?" of BioShock fame shows up in the review of "6 Foot 7 Foot".
  • From the review of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei: "Bake at 451 degrees Fahrenheit."
  • The review of The Raiden Project featured the "Ancient Aliens" meme, used in the context of generic antagonists for an Excuse Plot.
    • Subversion: Kevin would've broken out the "Spaaace!" meme from Portal 2, but said it was too hard to hide pictures under spoiler tags.
  • Some of his choices for Parenthetical Swearing have included "motherfalcon", "bucking", and "what the Van Halen".
  • Kevin thinks Studio Shaft is one bad mother(Shut your mouth!) What, he’s just talking about Studio Shaft! (Then we can dig it!)
  • From The Wind Rises: "You know what they say — the road to Heck is paved with frozen door-to-door salesmen — I mean, good intentions."
  • Remember folks, rape is bad. It is wrong. "Badong", even.
• Spiritual Successor: His miniseries "Sticking Points" was announced to be this to "Until We Win", the video series made and discontinued by LordKaT.
• Strawberry Shorthand: Subverted. The word "Strawberry" in the title does not bear its usual symbolism.
• Stop Being Stereotypical: Kevin's plea to homosexuals, made when comparing "Whataya Want from Me" to Adam Lambert's other output.
• Take That!:
  • To Shinji Ikari, while discussing a song from Calling All Stations.
  "[T]here's an interesting dichotomy between the chorus and the verses. In the former, he paints these troubadourian devotions of love, but in the verses, we learn that he's too scared and shy to say them outright. Hm, sounds like the kind of song Shinji would write."

  • This example is done differently in the video series, where Kevin makes the comparison to Scott Pilgrim instead. It is followed up by a clip from the movie where Scott says, "I'm in lesbians with you".
  • Two for the price of one: Kevin lambasts Abridged!Mars for calling a fire attack with "Mars Spinning Bird Kicku!", when the attack looks nothing like the real Spinning Bird Kick, even the one "from that awful movie".
  • "Mark Sanford says hi."
  • He described the plot of Blast Corps as straight out of a disaster movie, "and not in that phoney-baloney Seltzerberg kind of way"
    • Hilarious in Hindsight when you consider the fact that he reviewed that same movie later.
  • His review on "Back In Time" contains a number of these directed at Pitbull, each of them lampshaded by a devil smiley ( >:-) ). This Running Gag was in itself lampshaded.
  • Oddly for a work Kevin is a fan of, DanceDanceRevolution gets a shot. In the review for "Feel This Moment", he describes the song’s sample as the kind of music the series would've featured before they started licencing the likes of Train and Justin Bieber.
• Very Special Episode: In May 2011, Ichigo did two "current events" entries, one on the death of Osama bin Laden, and one on the 21 May rapture prediction. He lampshaded and apologized for the shift on Twitter.
• Waxing Lyrical:
  • In the review for Disaster Movie, he quotes "Nuthin' But A G-Thang" by Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg.
    "That's right, [actor Gary Johnson's] name ain't nothing but a "G-Thang" baby, with two doped-out writers going crazy."
  • In the review for Kaleido Star, he quotes "Lola" by The Kinks.
    "Now I'm not the world's most masculine guy, but even I have my limits."
  • In the review for "Empire State Of Mind", this is a Subverted Trope:
    "See, I'm from West Philadelphia, born and raised, on the playground is I'm gonna stop now."
  • In the video episode 2-04 (Top 10 Worst Hit Songs of 2012), in response to Nicki Minaj's use of the B-word:
    "Look, how many times have I told you? It's 'bitch' bad, 'woman' good, 'lady' better! Gah, you misunderstood!"
• Technology Marches On: An editorial written in June 2013 compared the Xbox One, and its presumed features and limitations, to the Atari 5200. Just days after the article was published, Microsoft declared that the Xbox One would no longer require online verification or have limits on used games, rendering chunks of the article obsolete.
• Verbal Backspace: in Episode 2-12, Kevin is just about to claim that "Blurred Lines" has the most annoying laugh he's ever heard in a pop song, only to flash back to Eminem on "Just Lose It", and revise his previous statement.
• Who Writes This Crap?!:
  "I forgot my lines. ... 'That's it, I'm taking this review into maximum overdrive'? I'm not writing that!"
• Word Salad Title: Kevin claimed it was inspired by Shōjo and Shōnen manga titles.

Tropes used by the video series

• Acting for Two: Kevin plays himself, the voice of Ichigo, and in Episode 20, Jigsaw.
• Anvil on Head: In Episode 7, Kevin uses a remote clicker to drop an arcade cabinet onto a copy of Mortal Kombat.
• Artistic License – Geography:
  • The post-climax scene of The Master of Disguise, covered in Episode 11, is set in Costa Rica, but a flag of the Bahamas can be spotted in one scene. This is pointed out in the review.
  • In Episode 2-16 (Cruis'n), Kevin points out some glaring errors committed by the game's representation of New York City. This trope is invoked by the episode's own titlecard, which includes the same mistakes.
• Back-to-Back Badasses: Kevin and Ichigo do this in the titlecard to Episode 6, with baseball bats drawn like swords, and staring down a mob of faceless New York Yankees fans.
• Big "SHUT UP!": Kevin does this in Episode 11 to cut off Pistachio Disguisey's repeated chanting of "I'm going to be a master of disguise!".
• Bilingual Conversation: As of Season 2, Ichigo lost his ability to speak English, so this happens every time he has a conversation with Kevin.
• Bland-Name Product: The background of Ichigo's room features a "Samsnug" monitor. This also serves as a Shout-Out to Scott Pilgrim, which used the same name.
• Brand X: The flashback in Episode 12 is set in "A Video Store", which is overstocked with copies of "Generic Nintendo 64 Game", and young Kevin's choice of rental was inspired by reading "A Nintendo Magazine".
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick:
  • A list of changes Justin Bieber has gone through since turning eighteen:
    Kevin: He's cut his hair, his voice has dropped...
    Ichigo: ...and he's old enough to purchase Hentai.
  • In Episode 7, a montage comparing moves from the Sailor Moon S Fighting Game to others from Street Fighter II ends with an example from Mortal Kombat instead. Lampshade Hanging:
    Kevin: ...The heck? I thought this was a Street Fighter montage! [looks at Mortal Kombat Super NES cartridge] Get outta here! [clicks remote control, dropping an arcade cabinet on the game]
• Brick Joke:
  • Episode 10 uses a clip from Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (the one where Scott says to Ramona, "I'm in lesbians with you"). The follow-up to that line ("I said 'lesbians'") is then used as The Stinger.
  • Episode 18 starts off with a joke from Sailor Moon Abridged, and includes a cameo by Abridged!Sailor Mars later in the episode.
• Button Mashing: Episode 5 features a montage of Kevin playing the Super NES port of Doom in this manner, using various controllers not compatible with the Super NES, including a toy gun that's not even a controller. As this episode was a parody of The Irate Gamer, this was intentional.
• By "No", I Mean "Yes":
  • Episode 7: "Even if I had to hide it from my friends. And by friends I mean parents."
  • Episode 14: "Trust me, I know from experience. And by experience I mean I've listened to 'Bedrock'."
• Call-Back:
  • Since it was uploaded on April Fools' Day, in Episode 5 Kevin made a reference to the review of "Friday", which he wrote on his blog the same time a year ago.
  • Episode 2-11 opens with the funeral sequence from the Season 1 trailer — as lampshaded by Kevin.
• The Cameo:
  • Episodes 18 and 19 features an appearance from KrisRix as Abridged!Sailor Mars.
  • In Episode 2-10, Kevin goes to a convention and meets James Rolfe of The Angry Video Game Nerd fame.
• Caption Humour: Used occasionally, such as in Episodes 3 and 4.
• Catchphrase: Each episode opens with "Hi, welcome to the SDP" and ends with "This is Kevin, with Ichigo, and you are the resistance".
• Chekhov's Gun: The Naruto headband Kevin puts on in Episode 12 protects him from a shuriken being thrown at his head in Episode 13.
• Chekhov's Gunman: After her cameo in Episode 18, Abridged!Sailor Mars comes back in Episode 19 to undo the damage caused by a demonic portal.
• Cold Open: Each episode has roughly a minute of exposition and/or comic sketches before the intro sequence rolls.
• Comically Missing the Point: In episode 12, Kevin witnesses a power-up move and wonders where he's seen it before. Ichigo offers to help by playing a Super Saiyan transformation scene from Dragon Ball Z, only for Kevin to blurt out, "Super Sonic, that's it!" Lampshaded with a facepalm from Ichigo.
• Content Warnings:
  • Episode 5 starts with one of these, since it contains footage of the M-rated Doom.
  • Episode 18 starts with a seizure warning.
  • Episode 19 starts with a spoken disclaimer, where Kevin denies any perceived racism of the following episode, and gives a Long List of racist organisations he wishes to distance himself from.
• Cosplay: Ichigo has done some generic cosplays in some of the titlecards, such as a Vocaloid and a Sailor Scout.
• Crazy-Prepared: At the start of Episode 12, Kevin puts on a Leaf Village headband as protection from ninjas. It pays off in the next episode.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • In Episode 14, Kevin sentences and executes Pitbull for the crime of... lyrical atrocities.
  • In Episode 19, he goes on an implied manhunt for everyone involved in the making of Ethnic Cleansing.
  • According to Episode 2-09, Kevin thinks that someone use the N-word — especially directed at him — is just cause to kill that person.
• Don't Explain the Joke: In Episode 6, Kevin starts to explain the line "If Jeezy's paying LeBron, I'm paying Dwayne Wade" from "Empire State of Mind", only to trail off and lampshade this trope.
• DVD Commentary: Some of the episodes on YouTube use annotations for commentary.
• Faceless Goons: Kevin and Ichigo stare down a mob of faceless New York Yankees fans in the titlecard for Episode 6.
• Facepalm: Happens occasionally, even in some of Ichigo's animations.
• Fake-Out Fade-Out: Episode 2-11 cuts to credits after describing the first scene of Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei (in which the main character has hung himself), only to jump out of the credits five seconds later when he gets rescued.
  • A variation occurs in the very next episode, where Ichigo interrupts the opening titles, and Kevin calls him out on it.
• Gag Censor: His review of Diamonds Are Forever uses pictures of diamonds.
• Genius Bonus:
  • In Episode 5, there is a shot of Kevin plugging a Super NES Game Pak into a Retro Duo console, and turning on the power. Look closely - he flips the power switch in the wrong direction, to run a Nintendo Entertainment System game instead. As this episode was a parody of The Irate Gamer, this was intentional.
  • In Episode 9, the titlecard shows Ichigo casting a spell, with a Nintendo 64 button sequence appearing in a speech bubble. In Quest 64, the subject of the review, this code is used for the Avalanche spell, one of the best offensive spells in the game.
• Gratuitous Japanese: Starting with Season 2, all of Ichigo's dialogue is in Japanese.
• Heroic RRoD: In the Season 2 trailer, when Ichigo generated a force field for Kevin, he lost the ability to speak English. From then on, all his lines are in subtitled Japanese.
• Homage:
  • Episode 20 is conducted in a dark basement as an homage to the Saw franchise, and even includes an appearance by the villain Jigsaw (voiced by Kevin).
  • The intro to episode 2-07 is an homage to the "Royale With Cheese" dialogue from Pulp Fiction.
• Hypocritical Humour: Two examples in the parody of The Irate Gamer in Episode 5.
  • In one scene he comments on how the Super NES port of Doom was sold in a red-coloured cartridge and says how that's never been done before. Behind him are other multi-coloured games, including multiple The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon titles.
  • In another scene, he criticises the game for not having a save function and adds "games without save functions suck hard". Behind him are some well-received games which lack these features, including Super Mario Bros., Tetris, and Star Fox.
  • Two in a row in Episode 2-12: Complaining about the hashtags in the "Blurred Lines" video only to do so himself, and apologising for a (censored) Precision F-Strike, only for another hashtag "#NOTSORRY" to cover the screen.
• I Do Not Own: The end credits list all outside media with the disclaimer: "The following works are used under fair use guidelines for critical purposes (and free advertising!). Please support the official release."
  • Parodied in Episode 14, which changes the last line to "Please support the official releases, I guess..."
  • Double Subverted in Episode 19, where the credits go off-script to deliver an Author Filibuster on how Kevin would never financially support an organisation that would promote racism, even going so far as downloading a Torrent of their product instead of paying them one cent. And then he gets back on track to list the other works used in the episode.
• In a World…: Kevin does a plot summary of Milon's Secret Castle in this style early on in Episode 4.
• Indecisive Parody: In the commentary for Episode 5, Kevin admits that his parody of The Irate Gamer was this, according to his beliefs.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: Defied Trope. In Episode 2-2, Ichigo gives out some exposition on Seoul, but Kevin calls him out on it, because Ichigo is Japanese, not Korean.
  Kevin: Look, I don't want people thinking all Asian cultures are joined at the hip. If AKB48 or somesuch shows up on the Hot 100, I'll give you a call, but for now, I'm gonna take this one solo.
• In the Style of: Episode 5 is done in the style of The Irate Gamer, as it was uploaded on April Fools' Day.
• The Knights Who Say "Squee!": Kevin. The horrible sad truth is... he freakin' loves Phil Collins!
• Large Ham: Kevin slips into this, combined with Motor Mouth, sometimes.
• Literal-Minded: Kevin has been this on occasions.
  • In Episode 10, while discussing the line "send me to the Congo", he wonders if it could be talking about either the Republic of Congo or Democratic Republic of the Congo.
  • In Episode 11, he says the euphemism "playing the trumpet with [one's] bowels", then decides to use a literal trumpet blast as a Sound-Effect Bleep. Hilarity Ensues.
• Logo Joke: Episode 14 replaces the ending quack from the Vanity Plate with the drowning sound effect from Sonic the Hedgehog due to Pitbull's re-execution of drowning by vodka.
• Long List: In addition to the List of Transgressions from Episode 15, he does one in the opening disclaimer of Episode 19:
  Kevin: "[The Strawberry Dragon Project] does not share nor advocate the views of any individuals or organisations who publicly express such concepts, including but not limited to Resistance Records, the National Alliance, the Ku Klux Klan, National Socialist parties, past or present, the administration of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, the Westboro Baptist Church, YTMND.com, and whoever’s running the MandaSwaggie Twitter feed."
• Lost Episode: A cancelled Pilot, discussing the cancellation of Megaman Legends 3, was filmed in October 2011 and uploaded as a lost episode on 29 April 2012.
• Male Gaze: The Cold Open of Episode 3 has a slow pan-up fanservice shot of Nadia, the star of the episode's subject. Parodied when Ichigo, being a Straight Gay, asks if he can pretend it's a guy - and then he says to himself, "Oh great, now he's a transvestite".
• Match Cut: A lyrical example appears in the annyoing hook montage in Episode 2. If you listen carefully, the lyrics to all four of the samples lead into one another.
• Medium Awareness: Kevin will occasionally read subtitles, and even pull them on-screen.
• Milking the Giant Cow: Kevin has a tendency to do this when he goes into Large Ham mode.
• Mistaken for Racist: Ichigo mistakes Kevin for "gay-cist" in Episode 8, whilst discussing a That One Boss from Sonic the Hedgehog 2 on the Game Gear.
  Ichigo: So, if I touch balls, I die?
  Kevin: Well, yeah.
  Ichigo: [Beat] Gay hater.
  Kevin: What? No, were you even listening!?
• Motor Mouth: Kevin rattles off a List of Transgressions of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise's former flaws in Episode 15:
  Kevin: invoked Let's take a moment to thank our lucky stars that... [Deep breath] the Chaotix, elastic Ring tethers, collection quests, an unruly camera, horrible voice acting, fishing, treasure hunting, robots, the latter two of which must be done in order to get to the "good" stuff, which wasn't even that good, guns, motorcycles, and that DARN fourth Chaos Emerald, hoverboards, even more characters we'll never care about, minute-plus loading times, implied romance between Sonic and a human girl, forced racing, werehogs – I’m sorry, wolfhogs, talking swords, and all-around unplayability, are nowhere to be found in Sonic 4. [Exhale] invoked
• Mr. Exposition: Kevin has a penchant for delivering expodumps before his actual reviews. Ichigo lampshades his role as this in Episode 2-06.
• Narm: Kevin referred to "Holiday Rap", the subject of Episode 2-08, as a prime example of Narm, and even used text from the trope's page (and its Trope Namer scene from Six Feet Under) to describe it. invoked
• Non Sequitur, *Thud*: The promo for the Season 1 finale.
  Kevin: My cake tastes like knockout drugs today... [falls over]
• Noodle Incident:
  • The time when Kevin allegedly drunk-dialed the Goddess Technical Help Line and forgot to hang up, thus bringing Ichigo into existance.
  • Ichigo's demo tape.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: In the titlecard of Episode 2-06, Kevin is less concerned with Ichigo's sexy dance than with the dance about to transform him into a monkey.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Kevin literally pulls the disclaimer on-screen in Episodes 12 and 19, in a visual lampshading of this trope.
• N-Word Privileges:
  • Parodied in Episode 19. Ichigo thinks the N-word is "ninja", to which Kevin (with sword and Leaf Village headband) takes offence at his use of.
  • The Strawberry Dragon Gamer claims these privileges in Episode 2-09. Kevin is not amused.
• Palette Swap: As of Season 2, the sleeves on Ichigo's shirt changed from green to red, as did his other colour schemes in the titlecard art, thus giving him a form of Cast Speciation.
• The Peeping Tom: Kevin, in the titlecard from Episode 3, sneaks a peek at Nadia tugging at her top in a hot room, echoing a scene from the series.
• Perma-Stubble: Kevin, both in real life and in the titlecards, to distinguish himself from the clean-shaven Ichigo. Eventually (by the middle of Season 2), this evolved into a full-on goatee.
• Phrase Catcher: In Episode 11, Kevin starts using the Catchphrase "Because... funny?". The third time around, Ichigo says it instead. Lampshaded by a clip from the movie being reviewed.
• Please Subscribe to Our Channel: As of Season 2, the video episodes end on one of these segments, done as a parody of Dos Equis's "The Most Interesting Man In The World" commercials.
• Previously on…: Episode 20 does this, flashing back to the episode's trailer.
• Public Domain Soundtrack: The theme song is an 8-bit Chiptune arrangement of "The Liberty Bell March" composed by John Phillip Sousa.
• Rated G for Gangsta / So My Kids Can Watch: These tropes were discussed in Episode 2. While Kevin saw Ludacris's teaming up with Justin Bieber as an embarrassing decision, he's not opposed to the concept in principle. invoked
  Kevin: But who says [Ludacris] can't do kid-friendly work if he wants to? I mean, I never had a problem with George Carlin on Thomas & Friends!
  Ichigo: That's because you never heard of George Carlin before Thomas the Tank Engine.
  Kevin: [Facepalm] I need to check out more things.
• Record Needle Scratch: Used occasionally, for example in the trailer, and in Episode 7 and 2-11.
• Schedule Slip: In Season 1, new episodes were uploaded once a week. In Season 2, updates slowed down to once a month (not including the James Bond reviews on his alternate account).
• Screwed by the Network:
  • Several episodes are blocked in certain countries due to local copyright claims.
  • Episode 2-05 was blocked upon upload, forcing Kevin to film an alternate version with less copyrighted footage.
  • The same thing happened to his James Bond reviews, forcing him to put them on an alternate account on Dailymotion.
• Shipper on Deck: According to Episode 2-05, Ichigo's OTP is Kanye West x Jay-Z. Which prompted Kevin to remind him that in the real world, the two are straight and dating/married to some high-profile honeys (Kim Kardashian and Beyonce Knowles respectively).
• Shout-Out:
  • The name of his production company, Strawberry Dragon Project Productions (typo), is a reference to a gag from The Simpsons.
  • In the trailer, Ichigo came into being when Kevin drunk-dialed the Goddess Technical Help Line and forgot to hang up.
  • In the titlecard for the review of "Baby", Ichigo is shown singing in a Vocaloid-inspired costume.
    • Twice in the episode, Naruto's "Believe it!" Catchphrase is used in response to lines from the song.
    • This clip makes a return appearance in Episode 13.
  • In response to a bit of female Fanservice in Episode 3, Ichigo asks, "Can I pretend it's a guy?".
  • Two of the subtitles from Episode 3:
    • "Oceanic Airlines denies all responsibility."
    • "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?"
  • In Episode 4, he mis-pronounces Milon's name as "Mulan".
  • Kevin's rant from the lost episode is adapted from the "dirty fork" sketch from Monty Python's Flying Circus.
    • Another one from the lost episode, from Megaman Legends 2: "We may be protesters, but we're not barbarians. [Capcom] can keep the toilet paper." Lampshaded by a follow-up caption: "(You'd get that joke if you played Legends 2)".
  • At the start of Episode 12, Kevin puts on a Leaf Village headband as protection from ninjas.
    • The Nintendo magazine from the flashback references a Memetic Mutation gag with a cover story about an interview with Xzibit, and the tagline "Yo dawg, I heard you like flashbacks...".
  • In the titlecard for Episode 15: the angry mob in the background is hoisting signs identical in design to those used by the Westboro Baptist Church, with slogans such as "This Game Sucks" and "Occupy Sega".
  • Another lampshaded example at the beginning of Episode 18, on a screen stating, "This episode is brought to you by Planet Russia! [flag of the Soviet Union] ...You'd get that if you watch Sailor Moon Abridged".
    • This is also a Brick Joke as Abridged!Sailor Mars does a cameo later on in the episode.
  • As a parody of The Nostalgia Critic's "Take Over the World / Of Course!" meme, the line is used in Episode 19... but spoken by Twilight Sparkle.
  • Apart from being an homage to the Saw franchise, Episode 20 includes shout-outs to the "Shoop Da Whoop / Imma Firin' My Lazer" meme, Doug, Inception, and Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon, plus the use of Film Brain's "Symbolism!" Running Gag.
  • Starting with season 2, the video episodes end on a Please Subscribe to Our Channel segment done as a parody of Dos Equis's "The Most Interesting Man In The World" commercials.
    • Two-for-one example: the one in Episode 2-03 includes a shout-out to GetMeOffTheMoon, the Facebook group seeking to un-cancel Mega Man Legends 3.
  • Starting with Episode 2-11 ("Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei"), the episodes start out with a brief title (i.e., "Episode 2-11 Start!"), accompanied by a musical jingle from Milon's Secret Castle (itself reviewed in Episode 1-4).
  • The titlecard for Episode 2-11's numerous chalkboard quotes, based on a Running Gag from the episode’s subject matter:
    • "No TV and no beer make Homer go crazy (Simpsons did it)"
    • "#NOTARHYME"
    • "I made a contract with QB and all I got was this stupid Shout-Out"
    • "Evangelion 4.0: You can (not) do the Harlem Shake"
  • "Yes, well, perhaps some other company’s gonna licence [Sayonara, Zetsubou-Sensei]. [Beat] And maybe monkeys will fly out of my butt."
• Sound-Effect Bleep: The video series uses the ring pickup sound from Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • In her cameo appearance in Episode 18, Abridged!Sailor Mars uses the horn bleep from Sailor Moon Abridged.
  • Invoked in Episode 11. Kevin suggests using trumpet notes to cover up the sound of flatulence, and does so.
  • A clip of Applejack saying the word "bucking" is used in Episode 2-12.
• Special Effect Failure: In Episode 5, the Super NES cartridge of Doom is destroyed by the BFG... as in a poorly-cut out image of the gun from the game firing a lazily-animated energy ball. In addition, you can see a string taped to the game, which was pulled to create the effect, and in the shot beforehand, Kevin shows a gun which is not the BFG^note a toy AK-47. As this episode was a parody of The Irate Gamer, this was intentional.
• Straight Gay: Ichigo in the video series. He was created to be exactly like Kevin, except for three traits: Japanese, homosexual, and animated.
• The Stinger:
  • Episode 10 uses one as the punchline for a Brick Joke.
  • Episode 14, due to Pitbull's Unexplained Recovery.
  • As of Season 2, every episode has these, in the form of Please Subscribe to Our Channel segments.
• Stock Sound Effect: A factory alarm accompanies the E grade in Episode 19.
  • Stock Scream: Episode 13 uses the Wilhelm Scream, when Kevin cuts up an offscreen ninja.
• Stunned Silence: Two examples in Episode 2-04. First, after hearing a Squick-y line from Nicki Minaj in "Dance (A$s)", and second, after hearing a line from Chris Brown in "Birthday Cake (Remix)" which reminds him of his 2009 assault on Rihanna. Both are followed up by clips from Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series.
• Suspiciously Similar Song: Invoked in Episode 12, where Kevin points out how one of the tracks from Mystical Ninja Starring Goemon sounds like "Electric Eye" by Judas Priest. Which makes it Awesome Music in his book.
• Take That!:
  • A fake headline from Episode 5: "Soulja Boy Tell'Em arrested, sent to International Criminal Court".
  • Episode 19 contains multiple digs at the infamous Twitter user MandaSwaggie.
• Tempting Fate: In the video for "Baby", Kevin gave four hypothetical situations involving Snoop Dogg... and three of them already happened.
  • 1) Snoop Dogg leading an army of gummi bears in a Katy Perry video. "California Gurls"
  • 2) Snoop Dogg doing a collab with a boy band from a kids' TV show. "Boyfriend" by Big Time Rush
  • 3) Snoop Dogg doing a collab with a South Korean girls' group. "The Boys" by Girls' Generation
  • 4) Snoop Dogg doing a collab with Phil Collins. Has not happened... yet.
• That's What She Said: Used in Episode 4, on a quote^note "Shrink when you touch the glove" by the shopkeeper from Milon's Secret Castle.
• This Is for Emphasis, Bitch!: "Nippon ichi, motherfalcons."
• This Is Unforgivable!: How Ichigo reacts to the hypothetical line "Blowing up like Fukushima".
  • Also discussed when talking about Adele's "Set Fire to the Rain".
  • Lampshaded in episode 2-16. When Ichigo uses the word, Kevin replies, "Dude, don’t be so quick to break out the 'U'-word!".
• Time for Plan B: Said verbatim in The Stinger for Episode 14.
• Unexplained Recovery: In The Stinger for Episode 14, Pitbull apparently survived the fire pit, leading Kevin to go with plan B and drown him with Voli vodka.
• Unreadably Fast Text: A List of Transgressions about Capcom in Episode 2-06. After uploading the episode, Kevin added the contents of this list to the video description.
  Cancelling Mega Man Universe ... Cancelling Mega Man Legends 3 ... Green-lighting Super Street Fighter IV Arcade Edition ... Green-lighting Ultimate Marvel vs. Capcom 3 ... Not localising Ace Attorney Investigations 2 outside of Japan ... Not creating versions of Mega Man Legends / Legends 2 / The Misadventures of Tron Bonne for PSN (Except the Japanese PSP versions, but I don't even own a PSP.) ... Cancelling Mega Man Legends 3 ... Disc-locked "DLC" in Street Fighter X Tekken ... While we're on the subject of Street Fighter X Tekken, "Bad Box Art Mega Man" ... Steel Battalion: Heavy Armour ... Resident Evil 6 ... Re-designing Dante for DmC: Devil May Cry (I hear the game was good though.) ... When Yoshinori Ono took off for illness, they put him back to work the instant he returned ... I hear someone from their company attempted suicide ... They were behind the Benghazi... nah, on second thought, that's going too far. ... Did I mention Legends 3? If I said it three times, I must have.
  • Used again in Episode 2-08, listing the biggest cities in the Netherlands behind Amsterdam.
• Vanity Plate: Features the letters "SDPPP", an acronym for "Strawberry Dragon Project Productions (typo)", appearing in a circle, accompanied by four dings and a duck's quack.
• Visual Pun: From Episode 2-12: "You gonna get Rei-ped".
• Wholesome Crossdresser: Ichigo, crossplaying as a Sailor Scout in the titlecard of Episode 7.

---

This is Kevin, with Ichigo, and you are the resistance.