I'm an animé purist who loathes dubs, and I still thought the weeaboo fanboy was hilarious. "Jounouchi-chan is so kawaii! Can I glomp you?"

I agree with your annoyance about the gaffe about Caramelldansen, though.

Honestly, I think the Yu Gi Oh Abridged Series has been going downhill for a while, and it's an inevitable consequence of what made it so good in the first place.

From the start, the Yu Gi Oh Abridged Series had an edge over all its other imitators, quite apart from Little Kuriboh's comic abilities. The Yu Gi Oh anime is so inherently ridiculous, the jokes practically tell themselves. Little Kuriboh had a comic goldmine just going through the events as they happened, and pointing out how crazy everything really was. The trouble is that all the jokes based on the series itself could only last so long before going stale. That's the reason that not only the quality has decreased, but the updates have become less frequent; he's exhausted his original source of humor.

I don't think it's happened yet, but it's only a matter of time before the series suffers Hype Backlash.

Do you really think a Beavis estraz Weevil would know the song is Swedish and not just assume anime fandom thing = Japanese? It fits with the character.

I agree that 31 was a serious low point. It's not so much the gaffes so much as it is quite obvious that at that point, LK was not having fun with the series anymore. You can just tell from it (and Crapsule monsters 2) just how much he does not like his fans. I would say the series has started to bounce back though, and from Dork Side of the Moon onwards, you can tell he's starting to enjoy himself again. His livejournal and the video Without Yugi more or less confirm that he's got the fire for creating back. It's really sad watching a creator become bitter towards his own work and fanbase, but I think LK has gotten over that now.

I side with the japanese purist, but that doesn't mean I didn't find the "author tract" funny, nor was I offended by it. And jokes like the George Lucas joke doesn't seem pretentious to me since, like everything (except the shoehorned annotations obviously. I can agree with you on that one.) it was all in the context of the show ("Kaiba hates you more than...") and not really that explicitly inclined. But then again I am indifferent to Star Wars so who knows. But I think a lot of the jokes you're complaining about are too passive in this way to earn any real scorn even if you didn't find it funny. (for instance, littlekuriboh doesn't make fun of the Japanese fanboy but it's the characters themselves who are annoyed by him - when they say stuff like "crazy alien language" it borders on making fun of themselves and not the fanboy) Darkblade's observation I think coincides with what I'm trying to get at. (but by the way, I'm not sure if it is, but if the sped up version is japanese in origin, then (and you may disagree with me) I say calling it japanese is no less than 100% justified)

These are just my thoughts. And personally I thought it was a good episode... In this ep alone, the "most powerful card in all of duel monsters!" gag.. the break-necks-with-my-mind scene at the end .. and even the cancer Pokemon joke (is that wrong?)... great stuff.

Darkblade: Ersatz.

I didn't know it was Swedish. The reason it is an internet meme is because of anime, soooo....

Jeez..."decaying husk"? Someone sounds bitter.

Frankly, I think you've gone too far over the line with a review like this; you're demanding that this show, which someone created in his spare time for free, live up to your exorbitant expectations. I mean, who really cares if "Caramelldansen" is Japanese or Swedish or Swahili (I never knew, nor do I really care, as I'm sure most people don't, either). Please stop worrying about insignificant minutiae—it's an internet cartoon series, get over it. With a review like this, you've made yourself out to be one of those whiny, overly-demanding, geeky fanboys that probably deter Little Kuriboh and others from creating series such as these, which were originally as side projects by fans of the show and nothing more. It's no wonder why LK would refrain from making new episodes (which, by the way, have been of great quality lately). In short, while legitimate criticism may be good, this seems more like unwarranted bitching from a fanboy who takes this internet cartoon series way too seriously. And no, I'm not Little Kuriboh, if you're wondering.

Just because it's free doesn't protect it from criticism. Seriously. He gave good reasons for it being bad, and personal attacks like that are trite.

I never attacked him personally, just the tenor of this review. And I never said that criticism for the series wasn't warranted, just that it should be substantial; this review just struck me as a list of personal nitpicks rather than legitimate points of criticism. I'm trying to say that, as is true with any series in any medium, fans often hold the series to such a ridiculously high standard that anything that fails to meet those expectations on a consistent basis is seen as a "huge disappointment" and it "sucks". I'm asking the reviewer to gain some perspective - it's a cartoon series on YouTube, for Pete's sake.

By itself, the whole Caramelldansen thing would not be an issue. However, he was using it as a Take That, and thus it's a strong indication of the bigger problem with the episode, that being Little Kuriboh allowing Author Tract to take over the episode, and I was using those "nitpicks" as an indication of that issue. I go by the idea that if you want to do a Take That, get the facts straight, because it looks worse on you if you get a simple, easily verified fact wrong.

I admit that in retrospect, the "decaying husk" comment was uncalled for. Even one of the comments suggested that it's finally gotten back to form, so it looks like I can simply pass the declining period as a Dork Age.

Honestly, it's not easy writing episodes and making them funny. He has a life too, you know. He can't spend all his life on this series, making it funny. This could've been one of his rushed videos. For all anyone knows, he could've been having some personal family crisis. Plus, he's doing this for free. (As a few people mentioned above.) The only thing pushing him to do this show is the fact that he enjoys what he does. Perhaps he was having a bad week and put less effort into it than usual. Personally, I found this episode amusing. The overused Pokémon jokes were funny, too. It depends on how you look at it.

What is this "free" bullshit? When will people learn that is not a valid defense of criticism? WHEN?

How is it not valid? It doesn't cost you any money to watch this series, you don't have to watch it (the reviewer seems to hate it quite a bit, and yet it's clear he'll keep watching for the heck of complaining about things), and in fact Little Kuribh ends up losing out. He spends his own time and money to make these videos for a fanbase consisting majorly of people like the reviewer, who can't take the time to just laugh at it. Anybody who actually thinks that the origin of Caramelldansen is a reason that it sucks should not be watching it.

The people who cry so much about it are a lot like the fanboy in this episode. And it's not a Take That specifically at fanboys, as pointed out earlier, the main characters are shown as being rather ignorant too. There was no "decaying husk," there was no "declining period," there was no Dork Age. Period. The reviewer just comes off as a fan who thinks the series is about what they want rather than just one guy doing it for fun.

The review is pretty much hateful and bitter, and it pretty much falls into Complaining About Shows You Don't Like territory. The review is as bad, if not worse, than it claims the episode to be.

So what if I don't pay for it? Crap is still crap (or vice versa, but not in this case) whether or not it's free.

I've mentioned it before, but I'm amazed at how "bashing" reviews tend to attract more comments than "gushing" or "dismissive" reviews.

Wow, I just realized how angry my last comment sounded. Sorry about that. Anyway...

"So what if I don't pay for it? Crap is still crap (or vice versa, but not in this case) whether or not it's free."

Two problems: A) It's not crap. If you think it is, you clearly didn't watch it. B) There's a huge difference between a multimillion-dollar production that takes years to make and hundreds of people to create... and one guy working out of his house doing it for fun. If you're holding the two to the same standards- well, you're doing it wrong, frankly. That isn't a total defense from critcism, but you do have to look at it differently.

There were no good reasons for it being bashed the way it was (the reason this attracted so much attention- because it was bashing stuff that didn't deserve it). Seriously, does it really matter where Caramelldansen came from? Does it? Is it really going to kill you that he got it wrong? Does it affect the plot or the humor content? No, not really. Go back and watch the beginning of Episode 30 again- it's pretty much the same thing as people complaining about getting a card name wrong. Wow, so what? I can see that as a minor nitpick, but for somebody to list that as a reason why it "sucks"... that's just taking it too far.

The problem is people taking an Internet spoof series as Serious Business. It's not. If you actually think the creator is making an episode just to complain about things he doesn't like, you don't know what you're talking about. LK isn't serious about half this stuff, and according to him, he really respects George Lucas. So why is it killing you that this guy's just making some jokes about some stuff?

Long story short, this review doesn't give reasons why it's bad. It makes up reasons to justify the reviewer's hate of it. And that, again, is why this review is getting attention.

I liked it. Am I a terrible, horribad person in your eyes, mr. Reviewer?

For that, no.

For the record, I take back what I said about the series decaying as a whole after seeing Episode 38, which was awesome. I don't feel like editing the actual review though since revisionism isn't to my tastes.

Honestly, his Weevil/Rex episodes have never been the best. I don't think it's that the quality as a whole decreased, but that those characters suck in this series, and the episodes they are in suffer because of it. In fact, many of the series' better episodes have come after this episode, including 33, 35, 37, 38, 42, 43, and 44.