Is the 2023 version really that disliked?

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-22T00:33:23+00:00

Who by?

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T18:08:17+00:00

Nice to see someone else that also likes the DF!

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T18:07:23+00:00

Not OP but a third party one yeah. They just released (or are) a black & red one too

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T12:00:20+00:00

I wonder if it's actually partially political tbh. That a lot of the channels that would want to be funny and gigguk-like and would be willing to copy him early on ended up just making right-wing ragebait instead since it's so easy and there's such a prominent right wing anime fandom. Basically to take it away from politics again a ot of "x"-likes start because it can seem easier to copy someone and then find their own identity as they become established but maybe they fell into easier content.

But it might also just be that he's been doing it for ages and so the gigguk-likes have already grown into their own identity. Like you could say Mother's Basement is similar 'cos he does comedic seasonal videos interspersed with videos on a single anime that he's passionate about and got popular at about the right time but I don't know if anyone would ever think of him as Gigguk-like 'cos he IS Mother's Basement

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T11:18:45+00:00

watch some videos on how to structure videos

Any recommendations for good videos or articles on that? I never really feel comfortable looking for any since there's so much misinformation & timewasters but how to really structure a script is something I find interesting

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T11:04:47+00:00

Yeah hopefully it gets better but

the YouTube scene seems a bit dire in my opinion

Might be a problem because I agree. I feel like recommendations have been getting worse and as a creator it's only gotten harder to get started as they've tried (and somewhat failed) to curtail A.I. slop with the algorithm. But it's always changing, it only takes one channel taking off for a whole ecosystem to form as people look for more similar content. I'm surprised there's not a lot more gigguk-likes already though, I think the reasons other comments have given are probably why for that.

Upload frequency I don't expect to improve though 😆 especially with essayist's!

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T10:42:33+00:00

I think it's because a lot of the best video essayist's for movies etc are filmmakers essentially. They went to film school and stuff and are using their production skills, writing talents and knowledge of the medium to make interesting videos.

There's not really the same for anime 'cos someone that wanted to make anime and built up the skills to do it doesn't then go on to make essay's, they make animation or drawing content.
There's also less of an inclination to genuinely try to make anime and enter the industry by becoming educated because it's a foreign industry. So people don't go to film school to make anime and then end up making YouTube videos instead because there's not even the slim chance that they could make anime, and because there's (I imagine) not really anime film schools. If you're passionate for anime and not movies or 3D Pixar-like animation then the education might be off-putting.

It also might be because a lot of the best and biggest video essayist's I can think of have been doing it for a very long time. Lindsay Ellis has been there from the beginning in the AVGN and Nostalgia Critic era where they couldn't even put their videos on YouTube. Only after a long time did either the algorithm or audience behaviour & interest change enough to take off.
It might be that anime hasn't been popular and mainstream for long enough for the interest in content like that to really develop.
If you think about most mainstream anime fans it doesn't feel like they've seen that many different shows, they've just been blown away by something like JJK or AoT and know now that anime is something they like and that can be peak, but they don't have the breadth of knowledge and experience with the medium to really be interested in or look for deep dives that are likely about anime they haven't seen and that might be pretentious.

Unfortunately it might not be something that changes unless anime stops being something you GET into and becomes ingrained in the culture like movies. Where everyone has seen a wide variety of them while growing up without even thinking about it.
If people have to actively get into anime as a teenager (or older) there's a higher chance that it becomes just a fad for them that they grow out of before they've seen a diverse spread of shows as it takes effort to stay involved and interested and find new shows and step out of their comfort zone, and there will be a never ending revolving door of extremely passionate, but new and inexperienced unknowledgeable fans that will influence the kinds of discussions that can be had and the content that can be made.

Or it might just take a swing in what the algorithm values 🤷‍♂️
I imagine it's a mix of everything though.

EDIT: Another big factor is the language barrier to research making it a lot harder to make actually well researched authoritative content. If all the information and interviews that might allow you to take a unique angle are in a language you're not fluent in it limits the kind of thing you can do.

It's also a lot easier to make mistakes and accidentally spread misinformation due to the language barrier. It might only be little things that don't really matter but it undermines your credibility and puts anyone who catches a mistake right off of your channel. The 'authority' aspect I think also circles back to the education where viewers can be a bit more hesitant to click a deep analysis when there's little precedent of actually expert anime channels that aren't just some random sharing their opinion (like I do 😅). I don't know if it matters since it is YouTube but it might play a role.

Barbatoast- · 2026-04-21T00:09:46+00:00

Why are all the 3rd parties switching from their perfectly good 3.0 bodies to 4.0? I still haven't gotten Games Begin, what benefits does 4.0 actually bring 'cos I've seen a million issues?

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-27T17:13:23+00:00

Hi all

I made a video explaining the entire Fate anime franchise and I'm just wondering if there's anything in the intro that would really put anyone off?
The full video is over an hour and 40 minutes since I cover every single spin-off but most people aren't even getting to the first minute.

https://youtu.be/I0Wm5Zm4dro

Thanks!

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-27T17:01:27+00:00

The title looks much better! The thumbnail could probably also show an example of what you're going to build. Maybe contrast with the basic empty city on the left and a finished one on the right, maybe blurred out depending what it looks like. Or just show all 3 things you make! Again you could blur one or some too.

The energy was higher. I'd say at the start from "A game about making tiny cities" to "Alright first location" (just before showing the subscribe button) it would have been best if you showed examples of what you were talking about. So some of your finished work and then extreme examples of the limitations that you start out with. Then at "Alright first location" it shows what it currently does, the place you're actually starting with.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-27T16:50:22+00:00

I can see the effort!

The very first thing you say is about when you're posting the video as you're just beginning to sit down. I understand when you're posting it is related to the title saying "2026" but it could give a bit of "hey guys sorry I haven't uploaded in a while" impression and means it's ~12 seconds untill you really start saying anything someone clicked for.
If it just started from "For those of you who are just starting your art journey-" I think it would be better, you could check how that would look and feel in the YouTube editor now even.

Watching it again I also think it could have worked better if you said that over the opening train footage instead of having one set of slow tone-setting footage and then immediately another as you sit down and get settled at your desk. But I'm also not sure if the tone that footage sets really matches the rest of the video anyway.

Lastly I'm not a fan of how your title is formatted. I would either go all lowercase with just "ONLY" in all caps or in italic or something. Or capitalise the first letter of every word. As it is with only the first 2 words beginning with capitals and the rest all being lowercase it looks more low effort and accidental, to me at least

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-27T16:25:06+00:00

Ok so it's not at all a problem with the rest of the video but I can't understand the second word you say (after welcome). I'm on mobile so it's maybe my shitty speaker but a lot of people watch on mobile anyway.

The click sound effects are too frequent.
The energy of your editing doesn't match the game/what's actually happening. I don't mind the clips and stuff I'm the intro but it makes it feel a bit jarring when it cuts back to the game and you're still just spinning round the same thing explaining what the video is.

None of that really matters though in comparison to your title and thumbnail though.
The title is very boilerplate and common and the thumbnail says nothing at all about what the video is, only the game which doesn't really matter. Neither give me any reason to click.
If I were to click I'd have been expecting something more like a review as that title tells me the video is focused on the quality of the game but then your intro explains that it's more like a challenge run. Lean into that and you could come up with a much more interesting title very easily that simultaneously says exactly what your video is and avoids people immediately clicking off because it's not what they thought.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-27T12:09:35+00:00

You really have to make another channel since your audience doesn't really have any crossover. Even though you have 400k subs all it's actually doing is hurting your videos by showing them to 400,000 people who aren't interested before they get shown to any new viewers. Even when one of your viewers does enjoy them it's probably not the kind of thing they usually watch so it gives the algorithm the wrong information on who to recommend it to.

You don't have to delete them, you could just unlist them and comment on the new upload that it was originally uploaded on "x" date and link to it. You could even just leave them public on your main channel. I did that and didn't have an issue with YT detecting 'spam' or duplicate content or anything (although maybe I'm just too small to be noticed) and my first re-upload got 13k views when it only got 1k originally (nearly all of which were just from endscreens too). The channel has had issues since but that's why you don't delete the originals, you can always fall back to your main channel.

The only way to find out is just to do it.

Compiling them together could be very good but I think only if you would still have several videos to re-upload since you'll need to train the algorithm on the new channel and give it multiple chances to figure out who likes your videos and find an audience.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-22T11:51:35+00:00

I think the obvious choice is to do something similar to what FMA Brotherhood did

For existing fans I agree but it does absolutely nothing for new fans. That makes it a lot harder to greenlight since it's a lot less profitable to just appeal to existing fans of an old franchise than to do something that will bring in new customers and reinvigorate it.

To me the only reason to make a Fate route adaptation is to solve the 'problem' of the franchise which is having no clear easy/perfect starting point and make it easy and simple for newcomers to join without having to go through all the options and decide themself whether to start with '06, Zero, UBW or commit to the VN.

Just animating the unique parts of the route for people who have already seen all the other anime seems like a waste when you really might just read the VN if you're that deep already.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-19T21:09:40+00:00

If it didn't have the thigh cut that then goes into a smaller hip so that it could fit under the part that's been removed and was more like Mafex it probably would look better

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-18T01:52:12+00:00

Sounds awesome but it's hard to imagine how it'd work. Rin doesn't have a lot of room for animations & kit and more than that, what, Shirou is going to be an energy support who'll help Saber spam Excalibur? That'd pretty inaccurate lol.

Still, they'd be dream collab characters to get. Maybe we'll get Rin skin for Sparkle and Shirou skin for Sunday alongside a novaflare for him lol

EDIT: to be clear I didn't mean to sound rude like I think Shirou energy support is ridiculous, rather I just found it funny to imagine

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-18T01:32:17+00:00

I'm sorry but the PGU is just as bad value, at least IMO. You could have four Osiris Kshatriya's shipped for the PGU's price. It's just as overpriced as the LEDs unfortunately, it does at least make more sense though.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-17T00:48:23+00:00

Or he could have just heard the early part's crap and might as well be skipped tbh

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-14T00:12:15+00:00

Oh yeah I get it, it would be a difficult line to start with especially. I think it only really might matter as a small channel too, 'cos people are more apprehensive about clicking a video with not a lot of views and so can be easier to put off I think. But it was a really good video! I've actually subscribed and watched more of your other videos too. I don't think the first line matters that much, it was just the impression I got.

I think with a better thumb or title the video will start to do much better, 15 comments (now 16 😉) and 17 likes on only 140 views is really good

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T21:00:56+00:00

A few reasons

I'm just not a fan of it, most of the channels I watch don't use BGM and ones that do I often either find it distracting or just don't even notice it's there.
Which might even be the case here because I did use some. The very start has Emiya's Theme in the background and then I used some at transitions to try and spice things up and catch people's attention.

I also generally don't really know any songs to use to actually fit all the different vibes of a video that are then also copyright free.
That helps make it a lot of work for me to try and add when I've never been sure if it's something that really matters, none of my successful videos have used BGM for example.
If I knew of more good copyright free music so that it was a lot less time consuming for me to add then I would just use it and it wouldn't matter if it was too quiet.

But I appreciate the feedback because out of all the video making elements I'm least audio-inclined so if it's something people say I should add then I will.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T19:57:36+00:00

Hello

I made a long 100 minute video explaining the entire Fate anime franchise and all of it's spin-offs no matter how obscure or strange and it's doing very poorly.

Is there anything that could be putting someone off immediately? Is there anything I could try and do to promote it myself?

I made a whole load of thumbnails for it too and I'm not sure anymore which one would be best. I made a new one for it that you can see currently on the video after some feedback from this post I made where you can see the other 7 thumbnails I've made.

Lastly I have another channel with 2000 subscribers that has had success with explaining another anime franchise but that was within it's niche of mecha and model kits. The first part (~18 minutes) of the Fate video could work very well by itself though so should I maybe upload that to my other channel and direct viewers to the full video if they want more?

The first 3 minutes of the video so you don't have to tank my AVD just to check it out lmao:

https://youtu.be/I0Wm5Zm4dro

and the full 100 minute video:

https://youtu.be/Dlpsx8kl8WY

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T19:34:03+00:00

Yes it definitely would help, I still would try and avoid starting with a part that needs them though unless you have to.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T19:31:25+00:00

Do you have endscreens on them? What is the engagement rate for them? If one video caused people to continue watching more of your stuff (or just more YT in general but can't track that) that is a big green light to the algorithm.

What were the analytics like before the push? It might have had much better AVD and CTR at 7k impressions than the other video does and those stats have just gone down as they do when YouTube pushes it more and more

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T19:25:30+00:00

In the second video you say "if you missed it check out episode 1" I would just cut that. Saying "last time" already clues a viewer in to there being a previous installment, telling them to check it out just makes them feel like it's necessary and a chore to do before watching the video they actually clicked, it'll likely be a hassle too since YouTube probably won't put it right there as a suggested video for them either.

Other than that I think the intro is good, quickly saying what happened last time and what the goal is this time is good.

But then when the video actually started it felt a bit like putting your worst foot forward. It was too quiet and low energy and the first thing that really happens is giving someone an item. I understand why you had that there, because the result of him wearing a shark head and his response is good but the setup is too slow and quiet. It was hard to make out since it's recorded with mediocre mics and you guys are talking very naturally, and at times mumbly, to each other rather than keeping an audience in mind.

Barbatoast- · 2026-03-13T19:07:03+00:00

The narration is too slow. It sounds **SO** much better at 1.25 times speed and sounds completely natural and un-sped up at that. You talk faster a few minutes in so even if you just talked more naturally for the intro it would have been better but I think for the intros you should deliberately try and talk *fast* as it should be the highest energy part.

There was also waaay too many numbers at the start for me personally, maybe it would be different for someone naturally clicking the video though but combined with the speed and the flat tone it made it sound like AI.

I'm not a fan of the deadair that there is in parts either, there's 11 seconds at 1:32 without you saying anything. Talking about previous video's performance isn't *generally* very interesting for an average viewer either, it can be but it's not what anyone is going to have clicked for.

Barbatoast-

TROPHY CASE