Subject: What are the best things to watch on Youtube right now?
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Posted on: 2020-09-23 13:18:27 UTC

That's not a rhetorical question. Please provide your own answers below. However, here's a few of mine:

The obvious answer from me is, of course Alfabusa. I've talked about the titan of the 40k fandom that is If The Emperor Had A Text-to-Speech Device (or TTS, to fans) before, and a new episode is due in at the end of the month so now's a great time to jump in to the most popular and arguably greatest fan work in the fandom (Its primary competitor for that title being the radically different but equally astonishing Astartes fan short film)

To my mind, 40k is always at its best when it walks the line between serious space opera and black comedy. For all its overly-serious posturing, 40k isn't a serious setting, and while you can use it tell serious stories, it doesn't take itself that seriously. It probably isn't a good idea to take 40k that seriously yourself either. And all TTS does is push the dial waaaaaay over to comedy by presenting an absurd cast and series of ludicrous gags in what still manages to be a surprisingly faithful rendition of the setting. TTS, at its best, is a celebration and laugh-out-loud funny mockery of everything 40k is. All while telling a genuinely engaging story with a likeable, well-characterized cast, and somehow managing to top itself in both production values and jokes with each new episode. At the same time, if you're a newcomer to 40k, it manages to provide a serviceable introduction to the lore and world while giving you a glimpse of why people like 40k so much. And I speak from experience there: TTS was instrumental in getting me into 40k. I will admit, however, it takes some time to reach those heights: The early episodes are... alright, but they're nowhere near what I'm describing: they're a series of shorts that are mostly just jokes and profanity from the Emperor with little story and a lot less substance and quality than the series would develop later. The series hits its stride in the low teens ("series 2"), when it gets an actual theme song and the episodes gradually creep to an average length of over ten minutes. But stick with it: those early episodes are short and absolutely worth going through. Oh, and also make sure to watch the shorts... look, you can just go through the official playlist, that's everything that's required to understand episodes (although it leaves off some shorts, Vox Logs, and the glorious podcast, so feel free to dig around a bit...).

But TTS isn't actually what prompted me to think about this subject. That was the rather excellent Anime Youtuber Mother's Basement pointing out that Nozomi Entertainment has uploaded the dubs and subs of almost every anime they've licensed to Youtube. And that includes some absolute classics, like Dirty Pair, His and Her Circumstances (an adaptation of a romantic comedy light novel directed by Hideaki Anno -- yes, that Hideaki Anno), and Revolutionary Girl Utena (the show that did for magical girls what Evangelion did for mecha: it's interpretive, surrealist, and... might have a lesbian relationship in it? I honestly need to watch this one... it also put its director, Kunihiko Ikuhara, on the map, and he would proceed to continue to direct really weird, out-there shows with large quantities of homoeroticism in the future). But Mother's Basement also pointed out that another thing they licensed and put on youtube is The Irresponsible Captain Tylor (dubbed and subbed, although you'll have to jump to sub if you want to watch to watch the nine OVA episodes that were made after the end of the series). And nobody ever talks about The Irresponsible Captain Tylor, despite the fact that it might be one of the funniest anime of the entire 90s. Actually, it might just be one of the funniest anime I've ever seen, and it's facing some pretty stiff competition there from shows like the Ghost Stories Dub, Gintama, Cromartie High School, and Amagi Brilliant Park (totally check those out by the way, they're all great).

The Irresponsible Captain Tylor is about a 20-year-old aimless nobody who joins the military because a hot girl in a recruiting ad told him to, and because he wants an easy life and figures the military is the best way there. He gets in by sweet-talking the petty officer in the most ludicrous way possible, and teaching the AI running the aptitude test how to love, thereby making the computer explode. And that's just episode one. Meanwhile, everyone else is annoyed that this incredibly irresponsible fool is getting in the way of the very serious space opera war story they're trying to have. Alternatively, it's about an insanely talented genius who puts on the act of being absurdly, ludicrously irresponsible and stupid to get people off their guard. There's actually no way to know for sure. But it's seriously one of the funniest things you can watch. Trust me on that one.

So... yeah, that's two suggestions. But what have you all got? I'm rather curious.

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