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YMMV / Beatrice the Golden Witch
aka: Digibro

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  • Archive Panic: Despite being a fairly new personality in the video-making community, her many channels have caused her content to fall under this trope. Her main channel already highlights a good deal of content but over time her vlog channel has amassed a great amount of videos and as of Summer 2016 updates more frequently than her main channel, and there's even a Let's Play channel she runs with her brother Victor. There's also the fact that some of her videos on her main channel could very well be considered mini-series and some of her vlogs are an hour long. For viewers' convenience, she maintains a YouTube playlist containing every video she's ever made or appeared in. It contains over four thousand videos.
  • Audience-Alienating Era: 2018 due to taking a more experimental and oftentimes ambitious approach with the content over her channels, usually suffering from Attention Deficit Creator Disorder. The first half of the year she spent so much time working on such projects as 'How They Marketed' (an ambitious self-referential anime analysis series focusing on their marketing) and a documentary about rapper Denzel Curry, which led to a slower output for her main channel anime analysis content as well as possibly contributing to a drop in Patrons by the middle of that year. The projects were hardly finished if at all. This lead to her course-correcting with a massive influx of content during the last half of that year with her daily uploads during the month of October and launching a separate channel focused on video games, 'I AM GAMES' with her then best friend and housemate Tommy Oliver. This did reasonably well and and had enough fans but was not successful enough that she put that channel on hold early 2019 (Although Tom Oliver would use that channel sporadically since then). By the end of 2018 though, her Patreon and main channel sub count recover to a relatively healthy degree despite the risks taken over that year.
  • Broken Base:
    • Her reviewing style, and especially her videos on Sword Art Online and The Asterisk War, tend to make her polarizing. Some think she's an interesting critic, providing detailed and valid analysis over stuff a lot of people wouldn't think much about, and helpful in justifying people's dislike or admiration for a show. Others consider her overly nitpicky and so unabashedly biased to the point where they can't take her seriously.
    • Among her fans, there is some contention over her Asterisk War series. Unlike SAO, the criticism of the videos isn't because of her negative opinion on the series, but because she wrote 12 videos' worth of content about it. A lot of people enjoy the videos and have no problem with how long Beatrice's spent on it, given that they feel that she has insightful and interesting things to say and covers a wide variety of subjects, but another group feels that she made her point pretty quickly and that ragging on it for so long got old.
    • Her video on ERASED has gotten an extraordinarily mixed reception, even moreso than her work on SAO. Some people consider her reasoning valid regardless if they like the show or not, others think that it's a poorly made video with Beatrice pretentiously complaining about minute things that wouldn't bother most people regardless of whether they like ERASED or find it overrated.
    • Did it again with ShinSekai Yori, doing a video on the anime with the title stating it is worse than Sword Art Online. Which says a lot coming from the person who spoke negatively about SAO to the point of being seen as having been a catalyst for people to start critiquing it similarly. In the case of ShinSekai Yori, a lot of people disliked the way she criticised the story elements, often trying to correct her on mistakes she made or point out faults in her reasonings. Basically, she was supposedly looking at it from the wrong angle. The result was that she couldn't provide some solid arguments here, which was strongly disapproved by those who like the fact that she can usually do this very well. Some have admitted however that a couple of her other complaints were pretty valid and/or reasonable, such as the ones about the art, sound and characters, with occasionally a few small ones about the story.
    • The fact that she drops a lot of anime especially because a lot of the shows she drops are very popular or well-received. Some don't mind this because it allows her to focus on other anime and talk about shows that aren't getting as much attention alongside of the fact that most of the shows she drops just aren't very good anyway. Others however feel as if she doesn't give the shows she watches a fair chance especially if she only watches a few episodes before dropping a show or if she drops a show that gets better later. Though this has been slightly alleviated as she has admitted that just because she drops a show that doesn't mean she'll never return to it and as of recently has picked up shows she previously dropped such as Chivalry of a Failed Knight and actually enjoyed it.
    • Her video "just shittalking other anime YouTubers for like half an hour, oh god what have i done" has caused a huge split in the YouTube anime community. While most agree that many of her points about how the anime community's way of analyzing anime could use some work, the way in which she did it involved trashing everyone who is remotely popular as an "anime analysis". Some think Beatrice was right for calling out the people she did, while some see Beatrice as being a Jerkass about it.
    • Her even more controversial video "That Anime Snob is a fucking idiot" which called out the YouTuber for trying to start drama and being a Troll. Snob's haters loved it and thought it was finally the callout she deserved, but others criticized Beatrice for seemingly being a hypocrite and going out of her way to start drama by releasing the video itself.
    • Beatrice has made it very clear that she doesn't care much for the shows that the anime fandom hypes up each season and has always been more interested in more obscure media. She usually goes into each anime season expecting that her favorite show will usually be one that no one cares about or has created very divided reactions in the anime community. Because of this some see Beatrice as an "anime hipster"note  and often find her choices for anime of the year to be weird. Others see this as the edge that Beatrice has over other anime reviewers. A lot of her fans praise her for being able to try everything and putting her focus or giving a different perspective on shows that other anime reviewers aren't or have given attention to.
  • Ensemble Dark Horse: Best Guy Ever who has been appearing in podcasts with Beatrice for quite a while is very popular among Beatrice's fans. Got even more popular when he started making anime videos himself and was one of the strongest presences in the seasonal Weebcasts.
  • Fandom Rivalry: Beatrice has made note of the fact that there is a rather strong one between her fans and fans of That Anime Snob. This mostly stems from the fact that aside from writing Snob and Beatrice have very different camps for critique. Snob believes in traditional critique and mostly bases his opinions on writing with very little attention given to characters, personal biases, and other production elements while Beatrice is more analytical and is not afraid to express how a show fits in with her personal biases and values production elements as much as writing.
  • Fan Myopia: In her "How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Skip Akashic Records" video, she states that while fans of various series she drops or criticizes will often message her asking her to give the show another chance (or less civil phrases than that), it has almost no effect on what she chooses to watch, given that it's happened to her so many times over so many seasons. At the same time, she does acknowledge that just like those fans, she has her own biases and understands that hearing your favorite anime criticized won't make you very happy.
  • Growing the Beard:
    • A lot of her viewers feel as if her video on Hunter × Hunter was where she really began showing her true colors as an anime analyst.
    • Hiring her video editor Davoo was a well-received decision on her channel as it allowed her to get videos out faster and many felt Davoo's editing added a lot to her videos.
  • Heartwarming Moments: Her hour-and-a-half long thesis on why K-On! is her favorite anime of all time. It's very refreshing to see her spend a long period of time talking about a show that she likes, and it's nice to hear about her personal attachment towards the show and characters.
  • Hilarious in Hindsight:
    • In the video on Sword Art Online II, she briefly discusses the treatment of in-game international money transfers as a 'legal grey area', and how in reality it would lead to a government crackdown. Two years later, and Counter Strike: Global Offensive was subject to a very similar controversy regarding the treatment of in-game skins as a currency.
    • In her "We Have Accepted Mediocrity" video, she proposes that Kyoto Animation should open a Patreon to rescue itself from the failing profit margins of the modern anime industry. She had the right idea, but the wrong studio.
  • Love to Hate: Openly admits that she loves to trash on Sword Art Online to the point where she admitted to finding value to it over The Asterisk War, and ERASED because of how fun a show it is to rag on.
  • Memetic Mutation:
    • Referring to A-1 Pictures as the "McDonald's of anime" after she made the comparison in one of her The Asterisk War videos.
    • She coined the "A-1 Face" to refer to A-1 Pictures trademark style of drawing characters' faces, most notable by their extremely pointy chins.
    • Thanks to "What Is Anime?(And What Isn't?)" being Beatrice's channel trailer for years, "Anime is a Japanese colloquialism," will forever be known as one of her signature phrases.
    • Ghiaccio is Beatrice's explanation 
  • Misblamed: Seeing as how Beatrice gives praise to their production efforts and has sang praises for K-On!, Tamako Market, Lucky Star, Haruhi Suzumiya, Sound! Euphonium a lot of her viewers think she is a fan of Kyoto Animation. However, she admits that with few exceptions she's only really a fan of the Naoko Yamada directed shows and not many of the Tatsuya Ishihara directed shows.
  • More Popular Spin Off:
    • Beatrice initially started off making videos about My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic and her anime videos were something she did after the fact. As of 2016, Beatrice has garnered many new fans from her anime videos most of which have no clue of her origins.
    • Her anime videos as a whole qualify as initially, she started with a series called "Useless Anime Knowledge" that provided quick factual information about studios and shows while analytical diatribes were something she did every now and then. Nowadays Beatrice is more known for doing analytical diatribes rather than quick factual videos.
  • Overshadowed by Controversy: She attracted controversy in 2016 for admitting to viewing loli- and shotacon content, alongside a lot of stances regarding this topic that alienated part of her audience. While she is still around, it did get her role on Inanimate Insanity as MePad replaced.
  • Reviews Are the Gospel: Explained in detail by Pedantic Romantic in her series "How Digibro Killed an Anime". PR believes Beatrice (going by Digibro at the time) played a pivotal role in the shift in public opinion in regards to Sword Art Online with her original review video. Beatrice argued all her points well enough to make sensible conclusions and point out logical flaws. The haters now had ammo for their views and those who enjoyed the show had no counters. Beatrice even released a video on how to criticize Sword Art Online that took off so now everyone is hating on SAO.
  • She Panned It, Now She Sucks!:
    • Beatrice herself notes she got a lot of this due to her SAO videos, where she utterly roasts the anime for long periods of time. Seemingly played straight in the case of ERASED if the like bar on the video is any indication; it's not as reviled as SAO and was very hyped until its conclusion, which many people found underwhelming (Beatrice's opinion was that it was dull from the beginning). On Twitter, she explained that this was part of why she was reluctant to comment on a lot of popular shows because her opinions on them are often negative. She's since resolved to have an opinion on them regardless.
    • One of the earliest examples of this trope she's received was on her video about Terror in Resonance, which was one of the most popular shows of the Summer 2014 season garnering a large fanbase at the time. While she did like the first three episodes, she ultimately ended up disliking the show, and her video on it was one of the first negative anime critiques she ever did. Fans of the show didn't take to well to it, though on the flip side, many of the show's detractors (especially those who are fans of That Anime Snob) didn't get what she saw in the first three episodes of the show.
    • Before she reviewed the show, a lot of people often mentioned the fact that she dropped From the New World in the first four episodes because she disliked it. This especially caused a stir among her viewers because it is often considered to be one of the best shows that A-1 Pictures has produced. Many fans of that show often feel as if she didn't give it a fair enough chance, or only disliked it because she didn't like how it looks when she has openly stated she hated other aspects of the show aside from visuals. On the last day of August 2018, she released her anticipated and severely negative review of the show, explaining pretty much most of why she hated it. See Broken Base above for the reactions of her viewers.
    • An inversion of this trope occurred after her video on Kabaneri of the Iron Fortress. Whereas the vast majority of audiences who watched it felt it ended up being a disappointment, Beatrice thought it was a solid show using the Rule of Cool in defense of her arguments towards liking it. Some viewers even went as far to say that Beatrice is "hypocritical" since she is known for being harsh on Sword Art Online which like Kabaneri is contentious among the anime fandom but fans of the series often defend it for the same reasons Beatrice defended Kabaneri.
    • While not as extreme as the example with ERASED, she did get some flack for the video she did on Re:Zero with Endless Jess. It didn't help that for months many of her viewers kept asking her about her opinion on the show with the hopes that she'd either talk about it with glittering praise or tear it to shreds. In addition, she already generated this reaction when she talked about the first episode for the Weebcast and many felt she was being unfair on it. Her opinion on the show ultimately ended up being its So Okay, It's Average. While Beatrice actually gave the show credit for a decent amount of good aspects and didn't find it to be offensive like Sword Art Online or The Asterisk War, she ultimately didn't like it because she found it boring. As such, some of her viewers felt she was being unfair on the show and would have preferred her to give more reason for disliking the show other than "it was boring"note  This is far from a strong opinion however as there are some viewers who felt as if Beatrice wasn't hard enough on this show.
    • Can even happen to shows she doesn't make big videos on, be it shows she watches on her After Dark channel or talked about in her Weebcast appearances. Usually, when watching random shows in bulk she's guaranteed to come across ones that are popular that she doesn't like or ends up dropping which sometimes leads to comments in defense of those shows. Any look at the comments for her "Finish or Fail" videos will often have accusations of her being "overly" cynical or jaded, overlooking that she praises at least one or two shows in each installment and some of her drops aren't even for bad shows but rather shows she felt were just So Okay, It's Average.
  • Tear Jerker: In a vlog discussing the quality of recent anime she mentions that over history many creative minds in the anime industry have passed on such as Satoshi Kon and Osamu Dezaki. Following this she talks about how Madhouse founder, Masao Maruyama couldn't find anyone to replace Satoshi Kon for their dream project and how his current focus is finishing up all of the projects he wanted to complete in his life now that he's of old age. The idea of Maruyama passing on eventually almost made Beatrice cry while making the video.
  • They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
    • A lot of her fans dropped her after she changed from Digibrony to an anime Youtuber.
    • A lot of Beatrice's older fans hated her newer content (up to early 2021), in large part because her overall content went from several well-polished analytical videos on anime subjects and themes, to mostly her making quick video logs discussing her thoughts on various subjects. While part of this is due to having different youtube channels dedicated to different things, her video log channel uploads multiple videos a day, whereas her main channel has only a few videos uploaded a month. Basically, her videos went from being long and analytical with fewer uploads, to shorter and more frequent, but much less polished.
    • Reactions to the Ygg Studio rebranding in 2021 have, overall, been negative. Beatrice set most of her older videos to private. The like-to-dislike ratio for anything that they upload nowadays (post-February 2021) that isn't directly related to discussing animation is strongly negative, usually below 50%, showing the fanbase's strong negative reaction to her new content, including music movies, lifestyle videos, and her and her friends' personal thoughts (compare to the animation analysis videos, which still consistently net approval ratings of above 90% and far more positive comments sections with far less criticism). Her subscriber count has fallen drastically since the rebranding, and though the main channel maintains a subscriber count of about 316,000 as of June 2021, few of Ygg Studio's videos are able to break 10,000 views. Her new manager, Riley, responds to fan comments and questions in Ygg Studio's video comments, but he is constantly attacked and blamed for the changes, despite Riley asserting (and Beatrice confirming) that all of the controversial changes were done by Beatrice, and that Riley specifically advised her not to go through with many of them. Comments criticizing Beatrice, Riley, Ygg Studio, and fans who are interested in the new direction have many more upvotes than comments supporting the channel's new form.

Alternative Title(s): Digibro, Diginee

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