YMMV / Meta Runner

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Regarding Lucks, are his actions really just to protect himself and TAS Corp, or is it also a twisted way of trying to atone for what happened to Lucinia? Though Belle's speech in "Fatal Error" heavily implies the former, there are hints spread throughout Season 2 that Lucks was not always as corrupt as he is in the present and that he may feel some semblance of guilt toward Lucinia's fate (his reaction to overhearing Masa say her blood is on his hands in particular). Plus, in the final seconds before his death, Lucks gives the implication that he had at least some idea of what Sheridan is planning.
• Awesome Art: The 3D animation looks absolutely amazing, and the style for Season 2 looks even better.
• Awesome Music: The Season 1 opening theme "Always Running."
  • The Season 1 ending theme "Breeze" counts as well.
  • The show itself has some rather amazing background music to go with it, including the music that played during Tari and Masa's fight against Belle in Tempest during Episode 9 (Which contains similarities to the music during Belle's speed run in Episode 1), the Triumphant Reprise instrumental of Always Running that played when Tari fought Belle while performing the Deep Mountain Clip in Episode 10, and Dr. Sheridan’s sinister and mysterious theme, as well as the many Dark Reprises it receives in Season 3.
    • Belle's leitmotif, "Red Hot Champion", is just an absolute banger. It even gets a remix in Season 2.
  • The Season 2 opening theme, “Only Up”.
  • The Season 2 closing theme, "Steady".
• Broken Base:
  • The initial reveal of the series caused a split between fans of Luke and Kevin's main series. One half of the base was amazed from the trailer and were okay with the series since it meant SMG4 was expanding into different ventures and were excited for a more serious web series. The other half wasn't as eager, feeling it was a ripoff of RWBY and actively fearing that the series would take time away from SMG4. Luke and Kevin went on to address the latter half's fear, assuring them that the Mario bloopers would still be uploaded weekly as they always have and that they hoped the fans would enjoy the series, but the debate rages on.
  • The Art Evolution of Season 2 got this on its initial reveal. Many debated on whether it was an improvement from Season 1 or not, especially in the cases of Lucks and Theo.
  • The reveal of Tari's appearance in Skybreakers in the Season 3 teaser got this as well, the criticizers in particular comparing her design to Melony, which doesn't help since she is a controversial character herself, but were at least relieved when it was confirmed by Glitch that this design change only occurs when Tari's in the game, while the "real world" scenes still uses the Season 2 artstyle for Season 3. The debate itself died down by the time the full trailer premiered.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Twice in quick succession in "Soft Lock", with Lucks getting punched in the face by Masa and Evelyn getting locked in her own gaming pod by Sofia and Lamar.
  • Also after being an unnecessarily petty, spoiled brat to Tari for a duration of her time working for TAScorp, Tari manages to defeat Evelyn during their match in corrupted Ultra Jump Mania. Watching Evelyn have a breakdown over it is immensely satisfying.
  • If you thought Masa decking Lucks in the face in "Soft Lock" was satisfying, it goes further in the Season 2 finale. With Lucks finally getting his wrongdoings exposed to the authorities and Masa giving him a proper beating in and holding him at gunpoint, with the same gun Lucks used to shoot off Masa's arm in the Season 1 finale as well. Top that off with Belle also giving Lucks a well-deserved "The Reason You Suck" Speech.
  • And finally, as shocking as the moment is, Masa being framed to shoot Lucks in the face pretty much guarantees that Lucks' crimes have come to an end and he can no longer hurt anybody.
  • Watching Evelyn get incredibly easily taken down by Tari in "Overload" is incredibly satisfying, especially after her presumably killing Theo before then.
    • And finally, after everything she's done throughout the series, Evelyn ends up getting arrested for being involved in Sheridan's plan.
  • After being nothing but a psychotic monster, it is refreshing to see Sheridan get electrocuted to death by Marco.
• Complete Monster:
  • Dr. James Sheridan, upon being revealed to have survived the lab incident, is the true mastermind of the series. Originally a scientist working for TASCorp, he, under the threat of being terminated, initiates Project Blue as a means of revolutionizing the gaming industry. His ego bruised by Derek Lucks stealing the idea of the Meta Runner arm from him, Sheridan went into hiding, orchestrating events which climaxed in hacking Masa's arm to force him to shoot Lucks. After incriminating Masa, Sheridan joins forces with Evelyn Claythorne and tries to kill his creation Tari and revive Lucinia to make her part of his team. Torturing and brainwashing Belle and Masa, Sheridan's madness reaches its peak when he transfers all Meta Runners into his server to force them to kill each other over and over while their physical bodies decayed.
  • Evelyn Claythorne is a Spoiled Brat willing to sink to her lowest to satiate her immense ego. Resenting Tari for getting more attention, Evelyn tries to kill her upon learning of her and MD-5's plan to expose TASCorp. When Dr. James Sheridan recruits her with the promise of exacting vengeance on Tari, Evelyn sadistically rips data fragments from Tari and personally crushes Theo to death to drag out Tari's despair. Fully complicit in Sheridan's scheme, Evelyn sends several Meta Runners into his server sentencing them to a painful death and respawning, taking sadistic glee in this.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Sheridan making Masa kill Lucks is pretty messed up. Creating an A.I. duplicate of him who acts like an Extreme Doormat? Hilarious. Very hilarious.
• Fandom-Enraging Misconception: While Tari has an Alternate Universe counterpart in the SMG4 bloopers, Meta Runner is not a Spin-Off of SMG4 - it's actually the opposite, as SMG4's Tari was solely created as a teaser for Meta Runner prior to its official announcement, mainly to get fans familiar with her so they wouldn’t be completely thrown off by the show’s announcement. She became a major character due to fan popularity.
• Foe Yay Shipping: Not explicitly confirmed, but since the moment they met, Belle seemed to take quite a liking to Tari. While this is obviously showing basic kindness and decency towards a stranger as a normal person would, as the series goes on Belle begins to show much interest and concern for Tari, despite them having become enemies by association. The fact that she calls Tari "honey" and "babe" in nearly every interaction, in addition to getting rather close to Tari's face when she lectures her on what Meta Runners do to be the best in a manner you could interpret as subtle flirting, which leads to the idea that Belle is gay, which some find somewhat fitting considering her personality And with the new theory as of Episode 6 that her old friend Lucinia may in fact be Tari (or at least associated/related to her in some capacity), it's possible, if you really go with this theory, Lucinia was Belle's crush/girlfriend, that is, if Belle actually is gay.
• Harsher in Hindsight: In the SMG4 videos, the video "The Big Bad Bully", which featured Wario bullying the SMG4 Tari, was posted on the Saturday before the tenth episode's premiere, which pretty much put our Tari through hell before ultimately ending on a sour note for her for the first season.
• He Really Can Act: Not only does Anthony Sardinha do an amazing job making Dr. Sheridan sound like a madman, whether he's losing it putting Project Blue together or convincing Evelyn that he can make her dreams come true, he manages to not sound anything like Lamar despite sharing the same voice actor. Even his disguised voice doesn't sound much like Lamar.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Luke Lerwichagul frequently putting Egoraptor's voice clips in his Mario machinimas certainly comes to this when said YouTuber actually collabs with him in "Fast Food Fight".
  • A Nosy Neighbor character turns out to be a villain that’s been manipulating things from behind the scenes.
  • The trailers for Season 2 implied that there would be a fight scene in Pocket Gakusei, which merely turned out to be a Bait-and-Switch. In the series finale, Tari and Satsuki-chan team up to beat a brainwashed Lucinia in a legitimate fight scene.
  • Or Heartwarming in Hindsight or even Harsher in Hindsight, depending on how you look at it. Belle calling Tari endearing names like "babe" and "chick" becomes awfully prophetic once it's revealed that Tari is made from pieces of her girlfriend's consciousness.
• Hype Aversion: One of the biggest reasons this series is divisive among fans of SMG4 is because of the sheer amount of promotion and praise it has gotten, from having many videos' intros dedicated to it to the SMG4 channel banner remaining a promotion for Season 2 after it had concluded its run, which have turned off those who are uninterested from wanting to watch it.
• I Knew It!:
  • Lucinia being a Virtual Ghost in the TASCorp server started to gain wind in early Season 2 given the numerous hints that she was helping Theo and Tari. The Season 2 finale confirms this, having her, or at least part of her, appearing to Tari after she sends Theo back to the real world.
  • From the very beginning of the series, two highly prominent theories as to Tari's past were that she was an A.I. or that she was Lucinia, with the biggest evidence being that she was never shown in the Project Blue flashbacks despite Dr. Sheridan explicitly addressing her. The Season 2 finale reveals that both theories are correct in a sense. Tari is the combination of fragments of Lucinia's consciousness and the AI that was downloaded into Lucinia's arm during Project Blue.
  • Although Lucks claims to be the inventor of the Meta Runner arm, some people have theroized that Dr. Sheridan was the true inventor and Lucks stole his thunder. The third-to-last episode reveals they were exactly right.
  • Some people have theorized but were afraid that Tari would die by the end of the series in order to fully revive Lucinia. Come the final episode, their fears were pretty much confirmed.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Evelyn's brattiness and Irrational Hatred for someone as innocent as Tari (who did nothing to her, mind you) made her even more hated than the series' Big Bad Lucks. A part of it may have to do with some ambiguity as to whether Lucks' intentions really were as noble as he claimed in spite of his underhanded tactics, in complete contrast to Evelyn's pure selfishness. Even when she becomes a more active threat working under the real villain Dr. Sheridan in Season 3, her attitude is still as obnoxious as ever, while Sheridan himself gets a chuckle out of fans thanks to his loony demeanor and wacky jokes.
• Love to Hate:
  • Evelyn got this reaction from some viewers immediately thanks to her bratty attitude. It’s also why she’s the favorite character for a lot of the production team.
  • Dr. Sheridan. Despite being a psychotic and crazed scientist who believes his actions of warping every Meta Runner in Silica City will change the world when they obviously don't, he is still popular among viewers and fans thanks to his sense of humor.
• Memetic Molester: Lucks, no thanks to his creepy "I want her." line from the trailer/Episode 4, which outright got lampshaded by Belle. It got to the point where Lucks' voice actor David J.G Doyle used that line to introduce himself as Lucks for both "Meta Runner Voice Actors Read Memes" videos.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "You are not getting away!" "I just did."^{Explanation (spoilers)}A conversation between Belle and Tari just before the latter triggers a Game-Breaking Bug.
  • Many people compared Masa's deep voice to Batman's, more specifically Kevin Conroy's voice.
  • OI!^ExplanationWith Belle having the thickest Australian accent in the cast, combined with this true blue exclamation, fans were quick to use the voice clips for all manner of shitposts, from peppering it in with the rest of her lines, to using the sound clip to recreate songs.
  • Spellbreak copied Tempest! ^{Explanation (spoilers)}In September of 2020, ads began to pop up for a new game called Spellbreak where you pick up magic spells and use them to fight off other players (complete with foes dropping their spells upon death for others to use) in a battle royale setting. Meta Runner fans were quick to point out the suspicious similarities with Meta Runner's own fictional game, Tempest.
  • "Say goodbye to your waifus! They're mine, now!" ^ExplanationA rather hilarious quote from Evelyn in season 2 Episode 2.
  • "This is the same guy who made (insert SMG4 video here)."^ExplanationWith how much more serious and dark this series is compared to SMG4, many have pointed out that Luke and Kevin are the same people who made videos like "Mario Gets His PINGAS Stuck In The Door"
  • The dreaded Cliffhanger endings^ExplanationMany fans have taken notice of how episodes tend to end in cliffhangers, including the finales. The GLITCH channel acknowledged this in Nethaniel Bandy's "How Meta Runner TRIGGERS You!" video, promising that Season 2 would have less cliffhangers. This was a lie.
  • Masa's arm got revenge!^{Explanation (spoilers)}With Lucks getting killed by Masa's hijacked arm, many joked that Masa's arm was getting payback for when Lucks shot off half of it back in "Shutdown", taking vengeance when Masa was unwilling to.
  • It Was Sheridan All Along! ^{Explanation (spoilers)} After the seventh episode of WandaVision revealed “Agnes the Nosy Neighbor” to be Agatha Harkness, a few Meta Runner fans realized that “Fatal Error” did pretty much the exact same twist two months prior, with the “Annoying Neighbor” from “Firewall” turning out to be Dr. Sheridan.
  • X shoots Lucks ^{Explanation (spoilers)}Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Stitching together Lucks's death scene with clips from other shows to make it look like someone else shot Lucks.
  • Marijuana^ExplanationThe automatic closed captions on YouTube has a common tendency to mishear "Meta Runner" as "marijuana." Fans have not ignored this.
  • Tari punches Evelyn in the face^ExplanationThis scene from the second episode of the final season is noteworthy for the well-deserved karma it invokes as well as exemplifying Tari's Character Development.
  • Ahoy Matey!^ExplanationPetey's notification to Tari towards the end of the third episode of the final season was turned into a template with fans putting in random dialogue in place of what Petey is telling Tari.
• Moe:
  • Due to the animation in this series giving more attention to detail than the bloopers, Tari gets to really stand out as just adorable, as exemplified here.
    • Theo stands out even more, due to his tiny size and his naive but bubbly personality.
  • Taken up to eleven with the chibi versions of them (as well as every other character) used in Sofia's demonstration in Episode 6.
• Moment of Awesome: This series, as it went on, gained so many of these moments that the series got their own page.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Lucks was already established to be a Corrupt Corporate Executive demonstrating it by giving Tari excruciating pain when her metallic arm was being experimented on in the real world. Even Belle believed that he was going too far and all but states that he was killing her. And if that didn't convince you enough, Episode 10 has him shoot off Masa's Meta Runner arm and threaten to kill him on the spot if Sofia didn't show herself, and breaks Theo's cartridge, holding him and his chip hostage and threatening to effectively erase him as collateral to guarantee Tari stays with TAS Corp. Lamar's line sums it up well.
    Lamar: Lucks, you freaking psychopath!
  • Evelyn crossed it in episode 7 of season 2, when she deliberately tells Lucks of Tari and MD-5's new plan the moment she sees something fishy. Keep in mind that this plan involves getting Tari out of TAS Corp, which aligns with Evelyn's interests (and was made clear to Evelyn in her conversation with Tari in the previous episode), yet she calls her out to Lucks out of pure spite. She goes even further in Season 3 when she teams up with Sheridan and accepts an opportunity that would give her the opportunity to get Tari killed.
  • Dr. Sheridan crosses it in the Season 2 finale, when he hacks into Masa's arm and uses it to kill Lucks, framing Masa for his murder in the process.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: The fandom is split between Tari X Belle and Lucinia X Belle. The latter ship wins.
• Shocking Moments:
  • Lucks’ death in “Fatal Error”. On the one hand, Lucks probably had it coming to him. But what makes it so shocking is the timing and execution; not only does it come right after the heroes have accomplished their main goal of exposing Lucks’ illegal activity, but it turns out to be the doing of Dr. Sheridan of all people, by hijacking Masa’s arm to shoot Lucks in cold blood and pin the murder on him, shining the events of the entire series up to that point in a different, darker light.
  • Belle and Lucinia's Big Damn Kiss in the final episode also falls under this to a lesser extent.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Some fans were rather disappointed about how the show focused more on the plot and characters rather than world building the concept of a world where video games are everything, which had been a heavy advertising point for the show prior to its premiere. Though this could be rectified if the planned spin-offs come to be, as the lore of the setting has been confirmed to be fully fleshed-out behind the scenes.
• The Woobie: Tari has it severely rough for her. In no more than two weeks after waking up with no memories, a lot of painful stuff happens to her. Including being put through severe pain when Lucks had some TAS Corp scientists tamper with her arm, being hunted down and captured by TAS Corp, seeing all the friends she made put through physical and emotional pain when Operation: Silent Demon failed, has to witness Theo (Her first friend in all of this madness) vanish before her eyes and be used as collateral for her guaranteed surrender, and has to give herself up to Lucks and TAS Corp. Yikes.
  • Come season 2, and while she does get a slight boost in confidence from training and manages to escape and rescue Theo, there's the revelation that she's really an A.I. merged with a fragment of Lucinia's consciousness that was somehow given human form, and thus she had no past life to begin with.

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