"I mean, who the hell does he think he is? He's nobody! All he did was spend most of his free time making a series of amusing cartoon videos available to the public, completely free of charge!"
Few people can be credited with starting an entire genre. In 1818, Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, launching the entire field of Science Fiction. In 1841, Edgar Allan Poe wrote "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," singlehandedly creating the Detective-Story genre.
... and in 2006, LittleKuriboh (born Martin Piers Billany on February 3, 1983) one of a few, blessed people, joined their ranks.
For fun, he made a Gag Dub of Yu-Gi-Oh!, but instead of doing the whole episode, he followed the abridging format of some online scripts. He called his video Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series, and thus The Abridged Series was born.
Later on he started Naruto: The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show, first as an April Fools' Day prank, but then decided to make some more.
He also has a version of Dan Green, and plays him as an egotistical jerk who thinks Girls Have Cooties.
His YouTube account (which was originally meant as an in-character account for the Abridged Series version of Yugi, but was appropriated by LittleKuriboh himself after his original account was banned) can usually be seen here,
except it has an unfortunate tendency to get banned. Current Status: not banned.
He also has Twitter account, which he frequently updates. He got married to West Coast voice actor Marin Miller (who has had guest appearances on his work way before that). They also now have a Patreon page.
He is also associated with Team Four Star, the group behind Dragon Ball Z Abridged. He's also made at least two guest appearances on Atop the Fourth Wall, two on The Spoony Experiment, and three on The Nostalgia Critic. First in his review of Ponyo on the Cliff by the Sea the Top 11 Strangest but Best Couples and most recently co-reviewing Dragonball Evolution with him and MasakoX.
He is a fan of The Slender Man Mythos, following Everyman HYBRID and taunting HABIT every chance he gets, and occasionally doing Let's Plays with the cast of Marble Hornets. Heart of the Cards help him.
His works includes:
- Yu-Gi-Oh! The Abridged Series
- Naruto: The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show
- The Mark Remark
- Marik Plays Bloodlines
- Marik Plays Slender
- Kaiba Plays FNAF
- Yami Plays Fallout
- LittleKuriboh Watches YGO GX
Roles in other projects:
- 50% OFF: Coach Sasabe
- Ajin: Sokabe
- Atop the Fourth Wall: Bandit Chief (Voice over)
- commodoreHUSTLE: Baxter (Confidants episode)
- Danganronpa 3 Abridged Thing: Jin Kirigiri
- DEATH BATTLE!: Frieza
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged: Freeza, The Narrator
- Godzilla: Planet of the Monsters: Minor characters
- Hells: Rokku
- Hellsing Ultimate Abridged: Sir Shelby M. Penwood, Walter (before being Darrin'd by Weekly Tube Show)
- Hunter × Hunter: Ortho Sibling Brother
- Kate & Mim-Mim: Mim-Mim (British dub)
- K-On! The Movie: Sushi Shop Manager
- Mobile Suit Gundam SEED Destiny: Herbert Von Reinhard (HD Remaster Dub)
- Pokémon The 'Bridged Series: AJ, second Pikachu, Farfetch'd
- Sailor Moon Abridged: Doctor, Moonlight Knight
- Star Wars: Not in the movies proper; however he does the voice for the Audio Description track in the Star Wars films from The Force Awakens onward (as seen here).
- Tales of Zestiria: Slenge
- Tome: NYLOCKE, DRAGON OF INSERTING THINGS
Provides Examples Of:
- April Fools' Day:
- In 2008, he said that he was ending the series and uploaded a "Final Episode" video, which was just a fandub of the ending of the actual anime with a few words changed. It even used "Don't Stop Believing" like the finale from The Sopranos, complete with cutoff.
- For 2009, he released Naruto: The Abridged Comedy Fandub Spoof Series Show, stating he was going to stop doing Yu-Gi-Oh Abridged as an April Fool's joke, and a full episode of Zorc & Pals!
- In 2010, we got CARD GAMES ON MOTORCYCLES! Almost certainly a Homage to Harry Hill's "Ear Cataracts?!"
- In 2011, he made a new episode in the style of older episodes, and got himself "banned" from the very community that inspired the series!
- In 2012, he claimed to sell Yu-Gi-Oh! Abridged to Michael Bay, and posted Michael Bay's version of the first episode. As of November 2013, it's been taken down for copyright infringement along with his account... again.
- Comical Overreacting: A fair amount of his comedy is this.
- His Patreon announcement video had him and his spouse wailing and weeping after he was diagnosed with a chronic, but non-fatal, medical condition.
- His Patreon announcement video
- Converted Fanboy:
- After years of unrelenting Take Thats at Yu-Gi-Oh! GX and Jaden in particular in his abridged series, once he started actually watching the show for his LittleKuriboh Watches YGO GX series, he came to unironically love the show and its protagonist. He also became a fan of the Elemental HERO monsters in particular for their prominent butts.
- Watching Shin Kamen Rider (2023) introduced him to the Kamen Rider franchise, from which he would then get into Zero-One, Ryuki, and Kuuga. The announcement of Kamen Rider Gotchard would particularly get his attention with its similarities to GX, and further reinforce his penchant for the Elemental HERO archetype.
- Dead Fic: Most notably Spirit on Fanfiction Dot Net. He has a few other fics there, too, and they're all SUPER good. But mainly one-shots, or discontinued.
- Fanservice: This is invoked and parodied in his Patreon announcement video, where his partner Marin is weeping, but as he hugs them, they insist he put his arm lower so the camera can see their cleavage.
- Faux-To Guide: "Dan Green Presents Abridging 101."
- A God Am I: In the Dragonball Evolution crossover review with other TGWTG contributors.
- I Need a Freaking Drink: This is what apparently caused the surprising and yet hilarious results of LK's comedy roast at Youmacon 2011. The lesson learned is to never give him and his spouse a large bottle of tequila… unless the situation demands a Crowning Moment of Funny.
- In the Style of: He reviewed the first issue of the Yu-Gi-Oh! manga in a style like Atop the Fourth Wall, even recommending that show a couple of times in the video.
- Irony: In spite of making the single biggest meme about 5Ds....He thinks objectively that 5D's is the best Yu-Gi-Oh show.
- Large Ham: In the case of his role of Nylocke in TOME. Just listen to the trailer starring him.
- Let's Play: Currently doing one of Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines in-character as Marik and another of Five Nights at Freddy's 2 as Kaiba.
- Man of a Thousand Voices: Just about the only thing he can't do is female voices. He tries, but they're not normally very convincing. Thankfully, due to the lack of female characters in Yu-Gi-Oh!, that's not too big of a problem.
- Martin Billany, Destroyer of Fandoms: A running gag on Twitter says that he ruins every fandom he touches (or talks about). The list ranges anywhere from the Yu-Gi-Oh! fandom to the "sliced bread" fandom and beyond.
- Melodrama: His Patreon announcement video spoofs this by starting out with him being told he has a chronic, but non-fatal, condition, and Martin and Marin treat it like a Soap Opera Disease.
- Nice Guy: Just listen to Wha-Chow. He's seriously pretty nice.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Mostly averted, though some quirks from his original Midlands-ish accent can be heard, such as the enunciated G in words ending with "-ing," and the enunciated S in "us," making it sound like "uzz."
- Out-of-Genre Experience: The January 9, 2017 video Mark My Words. Due to his focus on the latest YGOTAS, he wasn't able to create a The Mark Remark episode for the past week, so in lieu of that, he created an opinion piece where he drops the jokes about Seth Rollings and Roman Reigns' mild smugness, and goes almost 100 percent serious while discussing his thoughts on the current state of both WWE brands.
- Poe's Law:
- Averted when it comes to the show itself as fortunately anyone who knows about The Abridged Series knows that LittleKuriboh actually likes the source material, of course. How he treats the other Abridged Series makers is sadly a different story as the reaction to "Without Yugi" is a very straightforward example of this trope. (To make a long story short, it's a classic case of how some people thought it was a hateful attack even though it wasn't.)
- He even trolled people who took The War of the Abridged Series Creators seriously!
- The Power of Love: The reason he immigrated to the United States was to live with his spouse.
- Running Gag: His Kami-Con promos are nothing but a series of Flash-animated running gags about Yami Yugi introducing a guest character, epically failing at spelling their name, then closing with music from the Persona series.
- Self-Deprecation:
- Aside from the aforementioned proposal video, he also takes shots at himself for his frequent Schedule Slips.
- He's also taken potshots at himself over the
Seasonal Rot the series had in the latter parts of Season 2 and Season 3.
- Small Name, Big Ego:
- Parodied. LittleKuriboh has at several points attacked other Abridged series, even at one point making a rap insulting them all, but it was all done as a laugh. Of course, many people didn't get it.
- A running gag in an episode of Wha-Chow was based on a person on a Q&A panel accusing him of being this.
- Smart Mark: He includes quite a bit of wrestling references in his videos. Culminated in his creation of the satirical wrestling recap series, The Mark Remark.
- Spoofed with Their Own Words: A video parodying the abridger "Chicken Wings" and his Abridged Dragon Ball Z episode. It's almost an an exact copy of the original video, just with the voice slightly exaggerated.
- Stylistic Suck:
- Iruka's hilariously inept One Piece Abridged in the A Brand New Abridged Series video.
- Not to mention Joe-kage's Bleach Abridged, and Turkeylegs' Dragon Ball Z Abridged.
- Iruka's hilariously inept One Piece Abridged in the A Brand New Abridged Series
- Troll: He seems to love repeatedly baiting HABIT, Big Bad of Every Man HYBRID like no ones business.
- Top Ten List: Subverted in the YGOTAS 2nd Anniversary Spectacularmathon. They forgot to bring the footage of nine of the items, and had to play the same clip ten times.
- Wild Mass Guessing: During his review of Chapter 1 of the manga, LittleKuriboh does some guessing of his own, concluding each theory with "Now that I've said it, it must be canon!" Basically, Ushio is a highlander and Grandpa Mutou has been chopping of everybody's hands and replacing them with disproportionate replicas in an attempt to make his own appearance seem less horrifying. Also the story with Ushio takes place in Gekkoukan High School
- Word of Dante:
- Actually invoked when LK reviewed the first manga issue of Yu-Gi-Oh!, as noted above. He even provides the page quote.
- And does it again in Episode 49 of YGOTAS by stating Tristan's middle name is Timothy.
- And before that, in Marik's Evil Council, he states Bandit Keith's middle name is Steve.
- Actually invoked when LK reviewed
- Yaoi Fanboy: Considering how art reflects the creator, writing Slash Fic of Bakura and Marik, and the amount of time he spends shipping his male characters together in the shows themselves, LK is definitely this. As his Fanfiction.net page proclaims, "Yes, I'm LittleKuriboh. Yes, I write gay porn."
