Desu Des Brigade/Characters
Professor Otaku
Prof has been reviewing things for a quite a bit longer than his peers, and coincidentally has the most primitive reviews, just his avatar snarking at some esoteric anime.
- Berserk Button: May just be a side effect from the performance, but the Prof seems to hate cuteness of any kind. He doesn't hate every cute show, but facepalms if the moe seems included for no reason other than fanservice. And hey! That's what most anime is these days!
- Relatedly, he also loathes girly anime. Which is exactly why February/March 2011 was Girly Anime Month...
- Blue Oni: To Ark.
- Caustic Critic
- Covert Pervert: "Huh boobs what?"
- Deadpan Snarker: Though more exasperated than deadpan, Prof doesn't get mad as much as bitter.
- Distaff Counterpart: He now has one, voiced by Overactor
- Heroic Sacrifice: Gave his power to Vix in order to save JO.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold
- He Who Must Not Be Seen: Until, y'know, he was.
- In fact now he's being seen in real life a lot more in recent videos outside of Anime Dissection.
- The Hero
- Ink Suit Actor
- Nice Hat
- No Sense of Direction: In Vixen's Let's Play of Final Fantasy I.
- Noble Bigot: Towards Vix, he calls her Sugar Tits and other insulting nicknames, but is still a decent character.
- Rule 63: Profette.
JesuOtaku
By far the most successful and analytical of the Brigade, JO is notable for her in depth and objective reviews and her large amount of shows: JO Anime Reviews, In-Betweens, New Lyrics, and various Lets Plays.
- Abuse Is Okay When It Is Female On Male: Her crossover review of Sucker Punch with Film Brain was a pretty severe example of this.
- Adorkable
- ADCD: Let's see, she reviews anime, is making a retrospective on all the Digimon anime, dubs Anime Theme Songs, is analyzing the Trigun anime, has another job reviewing even more anime on Anime News Network and oh yeah, is currently working on a Radio Drama adaptation on the ENTIRE Fruits Basket manga (also, she works at a theater).
- Author Filibuster: She used her FLCL review as an opportunity to go on a rant about how Studio Gainax are complete HACKS when it comes to making Psychological Dramas and that they should stick to over-the-top goofiness and simple morals. She addressed this fact on her Twitter, and stated that the reason she did this was because FLCL was just way to simple for even her to talk about in length.
- Blue Oni: To Vixen.
- Break the Cutie: Bennett the Sage's goal for her. So far he's failed all three times.
- Brief Accent Imitation: Takes on a self-admittedly goofy Brooklyn gangster accent for her Baccano! review.
- Cloudcuckoolander: It's not as apparent in her reviews, but if you watch her Let's Plays, especially the Star Fox 64 and Super Mario 64 ones, it becomes clear that JO is something of one.
- Her twitter is also a good source especially after she's had 5 cans of coke.
- She also mentions in her Azumanga Daioh review that among her friends, she's known as the Osaka of the group.
- Cool Big Sis: She lets her little sister make cameos in the live-action intros, and off-screen shares some of the more child-friendly anime with her.
- Covert Pervert: As demonstrated in Pocky Spot 22.
- Dear Negative Reader: Released a full-length one over her twitter sometime around mid/late-2011 in response to the frequent complaints about her aforementioned ADCD.
- Fake Brit: She makes fun of this trope at the beginning of her Hellsing review.
Hello, and welcome to the JesuOtaku anime review. Your mission today is to sit right where you are and listen to me talk about vampires in a very balony British accent. May God and Her Majesty be with you. Amen.
- Farm Gal
- Heroes Love Dogs: She's been shown playing with a roommate's dog and her love for wolves is part of why she loves Wolf's Rain.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: She has at least two cats who can show up in a review with her, notably Leo.
- Multicolored Hair: Recently sporting black hair with red highlights.
- Pink Product Ploy: She bought a computer case which was part of a PC Nash came out to build for her because of its unique pink color.
- Pretty Fly for a White Guy: In the opening to Samurai Champloo review and her first line of the Digimon retrospective. The snarktitles are not impressed.
Aow! It's August!
- Running Gag: Her gripes about GONZO and their varying production values.
- The Smart Guy
- Squee: Not herself, but her snarktitles don't pass the chance in the Ouran High School Host Club review.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders:
"Seriously I'm straight but that gurl is dead sexy."
"Wow. It's times like this I wish I could whistle. You could stop traffic with a body like that." (in addressing Elizabeth from Trigun)
- Tomboy: From the way she dresses to the shows she likes, JO is pretty masculine.
- She makes it crystal clear in the start of her Mahoromatic review that dolling herself up is not a hobby of hers.
Arkada
The loud and proud Canadian badass, Ark is an oddity, he doesn't review the old school shows like Prof, nor Moe and Porn like Vix, and since Jesu Otaku reviews the bigger/cult shows, Ark seems to stick to recent releases that don't get the love and attention they might, or might not deserve.
- AcCENT Upon the Wrong SylLABle: He's unfortunately prone to this, some more egregious examples include Na-RU-to and Ah-KEE-ra.
- Lampshaded in his review of Eve no Jikan, he even has a clipboard with the proper pronounciations on it.
Dammit, why am I not better at pronouncing these things?
- Badass Longcoat
- Canada, Eh?
- Cloudcuckoolander: Mostly in crossover videos.
- Enemy Without: In his Desert Punk review, Ark had to go head to head with his real life self Tristan, over whether or not it was okay to make a masturbation joke since Tristan has a girlfriend. Arkada wins by pointing out that TRISTAN has a girlfriend, not him.
- Handsome Lech: He's not a bad looking guy, but sometimes the way he talks makes one think he never gets any.
- But his whispering voice over his drawn avatar in the Fourth Wall Mail Slot section is pure Mr. Fanservice.
- An Ice Person: Vixen assigns Ark as this in her Let's Play of Final Fantasy I, as he's from the snowy wastes of Canada, eh?
- The Lancer
- Large Ham
- Mismatched Eyes: More apparent in his avatar, his right eye is green while his left is blue.
- Nice Hat
- Red Oni: To Prof.
- Stupid Sexy Flanders: To Crispin Freeman and Steve Blum, but mostly Crispin Freeman, but who can blame him?
- Tall, Blond and Handsome: The tallest of the four, blond, and quite attractive.
- That Reminds Me of a Song: Loves bursting into song.
- The Man Behind the Man: He actually owns the website. This is used to defeat Vix in her The Little Mermaid review.
Vixen
The curvy and angry fanservice queen of the Brigade. Vix sometimes reviews Hentai, which brings out all that hilarious bile. She also does reviews of disney films, which show her a bit calmer if no less snarky, and the Twilight franchise, which brings out even more bile than usual.
- Ambiguously Brown: She's half-Filipino.
- Animal Motifs: Fox
- Anti Heroine
- Comedic Sociopathy: Has killed Mal multiple times.
- Cute and Psycho
- The Dark Chick
- Gag Boobs
- Green-Eyed Monster: Played for laughs.
- Mean Character, Nice Actor: Her more sociopathic streak is a bit of an act.
- Ms. Fanservice
- Of Corsets Sexy
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: Her cartoon avatar's eyes turn red when she's mad.
- Red Oni: To JesuOtaku
- Rule 63: Xen.
- Villain Protagonist: During her The Little Mermaid review where she imprisoned JO's voice in a tree (leaving her real self mute) and used it as a bargaining chip to get Prof's power.... too bad Ark controls the site.
Malakye
The poor Moe loving video editor of the site, Mal is definitely not a major player, now has Mal's Monthly Manga and Sake Shots, so that may be changing.
- Adorkable
- Anti-Villain: He says he's a supervillain, yet he's mostly talk and is one of the nicest members of the Brigade.
- Badass Cape
- The Big Guy
- The Chew Toy: Vix likes to kill him. A lot. Though not as much these days.
- The Faceless: Though a recent V-Log revealed what he looks like, so mystery solved.
- Kill It with Fire: In Vixen's Let's Play of Final Fantasy I, with his trusted Fira.
- Mad Scientist: Created Tsubake.
- Mask Power
- Mr. Vice Guy: Has crippling addictions to moe, porn, and sake.
- Robot Buddy: Vocaloids actually. First there was Miku, who despite being silent for production reasons, was well loved due to her real-life stardom. But then Vixen blew her to hell, and he built Tsubake for this.
- Robot Girl: Both are also this
- Token Evil Teammate: Is a self-proclaimed supervillain with a Killer Robot sidekick.
Miku
A digital celebrity in Japan, as well as a favorite singer of Mal's, who helped Mal with Weekly Highlights and served as the site's mascot... Until Vixen tied her to a rocket and exploded her out of jealousy.
- Real Life Writes the Plot: Her replacement by Tsubake was because the Brigade, while no action had been taken, didin't want to take the risk of getting their collective asses sued since they don't own Miku.
- Robot Buddy: To Malakye.
- Robot Girl
- Virtual Celebrity: Was this both in her actual career and on the site.
- The Voiceless: Because Mal was too cheap to buy another microphone for her.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair
Tsubake
Another Vocaloid, created by Mal from Miku's parts and more. She speaks in a robotic monotone and is very loyal to her master despite his obvious shortcomings, and believes they will one day rule the world. She also has her own aspirations for world domination, a rivalry with Vixen and a deep disgust for all of humanity.
- A.I. Is a Crapshoot
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: According to Vix, she has no genetalia.
- Bastard Girlfriend: According to Hugh.
- Berserk Button: Don't call her a blow up doll. Unless you're funding her, you won't survive.
- Also as the beach video showed Naked Humans. They're lucky she didn't kill them.
- Breakout Character: As you can tell by the sheer number of tropes compared to the Brigaders.
- Covert Pervert: According to the "Want You Gone" video she has a large collection of Yaoi porn, to the point where losing it was one of the two times she's been genuinely upset(not just grossed out by humanity.)
- Creepy Monotone
- Cute and Psycho
- Deadpan Snarker
- Early-Bird Cameo: Was mentioned in Mal's section of the site before her proper appearance on Pocky Spot.
- Early Installment Weirdness: Was more subserviant to Mal, if still as violent when she first appeared. This changed quickly to the point where just Mal reprogramming her to call him Master counts as a serious threat.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Got jealous of a troupe cosplaying as Miku.
- Humans Through Robot Eyes: As clearly displayed by her trip to the mall, Tsubake does not grasp human culture, especially Christmas.
- Taken a step further in the second Christmas special, where her disgust with humanity and the shock of finding out Malakye is her equivalent of God causes her to have a mental breakdown
- Kill All Humans: A subset of her world domination plans, evidenced by the fact that she calls us all meatbags.
- In fact it's a widely stated view of hers.
- Killer Robot: Has killed dozens of people, and whoever she hasn't killed (Brigaders aside), she's horribly mutalated or tortured.
- Laughably Evil
- Morality Pet: While Mal isn't stopping her rampages, he's the only one who can stop her wrath.
- My Master, Right or Wrong: Subverted. While she regards Mal as her master, she has no problem pointing out his addiction to moe porn and sake, not to mention going into a catatonic shock after realizing that Mal is her creator, and by religous logic her God.
- Not to mention she considered being reprogrammed to call Mal "Master" a punishment.
- Not So Above It All: Her secret stash of Yaoi Porn showed that while she may hate us all, there is a little tiny bit of humanity inside of her, as shown when she thought she lost it, and was actually geuinley greatful that Vixen got it back for her.
- Refuge in Audacity: The only reason her murderous actions aren't too disturbing is because they're so entertaining.
- Robo Speak: Speaks in a very emotionless monotone.
- Robot Girl
- Sitcom Arch Nemesis: To Vixen.
- Ted Baxter: As shown on her Formspring account, she thinks little of the other Brigaders and also thinks she's unstoppable and that nothing is a threat to her.
- Token Evil Teammate: Took this position from Mal and ran with it.
- Turned Against Their Masters: Mal orignally programmed her to be Moe. She fixed that and plots the brigaders' deaths on a regular basis.
- Vocal Evolution: At first, she spoke with a Machine Monotone, but after her voice box short-circuits in Pocky Spot 35, she gets a new, more expressive voice.
- What Is This Thing You Call Love?: Ripped a guy's arms off for trying to kiss her under the mistletoe. She's also both amazed an horrified at the lengths "Meatbags" will go to get laid.
- She also ends up on a date with a Walmart self-checkout named Hugh..unfortunately, she didn't realize it was a date and thought they were planning world domination while Hugh thought she was a dominatrix.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Has a large collection of Yaoi porn apparently.
- You Gotta Have Pink Hair
- Your Size May Vary
Kagami
The first Sixth Ranger to join the Brigade, Kagami makes AMVs and showcases them with her show K-Station. She got onto the group In-Universe by blackmailing them with a possible lawsuit about Tsubake killing her boyfriend.
- Black Widow: It's implied that she's the one who killed her boyfriend.
- Frivolous Lawsuit: As seen in the introduction, it was either let her in, or face a massive lawsuit.
- Lady in Red
- Red Eyes, Take Warning: When we first see her.
- Sixth Ranger
- The Faceless: Has thus far only appeared as an avatar... until the Megacon video.
Rabbit
The second Sixth Ranger to join the Brigade, she hosts To Read Or Not To Read, Which tells people whether or not to read certain Manga.
- American Accents: Well, she's using one. Just not a particular one.
- Animal Motifs: Obviously, a bunny girl.
- Bi the Way: Just check her Twitter/Formspring. Also mentioned wanting a girlfriend in at least one of Vixen's reviews.
- Clingy Jealous Girl: As seen in Vixen's review of Kaichou wa Maid-Sama, she mocks the main male character when Vixen calls him perfect and throws water on her when she starts getting too attracted to him.
- Cloudcuckoolander: In recent appearances.
- Cute and Psycho: Probably the most adorable member of the site... who also electrified Hitch's balls just for the hell of it.
- Drop-In Character: Is seen quite often in Vix's newer reviews due to being her roommate.
- Early-Bird Cameo: Did Vixen's Strawberry Panic several months before actually joining the site.
- Fake Brit: Inverted. She's naturally British, but uses an American accent for her show.
- Hot Librarian: Does her show in the Brigade HQ's Library.
- Ink Suit Actor: Though as of her latest review, she's switched to live action.
- Les Yay: With Vixen, though in this case they invoked this on purpose to get her on the site.(In-Universe anyway).
- Meganekko
- Kid Appeal Character: One of Vixen's closest friends in real life and in-universe and recently joined the cast of Vixen's reviews, as well as being the youngest member of the team.
- Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Averted. Her American accent sounds as natural as her British one.
- Seventh Ranger
Hitch
The final Sixth Ranger to join the site. He hosts Anime Movie Review which looks at... um Anime Movies.
- Chivalrous Pervert: While He enjoys Hentai and knows his stuff about the subject, he has a lot of respect for women. He also enjoys strong female leads and deplores rape.
- Did Not Do the Research: He criticized Kunihiko Ikuhara for "making" Star Driver.
- Doing It for the Art: Hitch's most recent upload, Top Ten Sing-alongs took hours to edit and put together. Every opening has its own unique timing ball, a matching font, and bounces along the lyrics in sync with the music. Its clear he put alot of effort into this episode.
- He also put together and uploaded a preview of AMR - on his birthday.
- Eighth Ranger
- Face Palm: His reaction to this in his Vampire Wars review after believing that "Project D" stands for "Project Dracula"
Kuki: Well, if they are using "Dracula"...
Hitch: How much of you wanna bet it's "Van Helsing?"
Kuki: I shall be known as "Bat!"
Hitch: (doing it repeatedly) Face palm! Face palm! Face palm! Face palm! Face palm! Face palm!
- Female Gaze: His Brigade avatar has a noticeable crotch bulge. This wouldn't be noteworthy except that no such thing exists on any of the other male Brigaders' avatars.
- And you only see him in his videos from the waist up so we can't confirm if it's part of his outfit or this trope.
- Kindhearted Cat Lover: When not reviewing, he's actually a very sweet guy who adores felines. This extends to using Lolcats as censor bars.
- One Steve Limit: Averted. He and Prof both go by "CJ".
- Loveable Sex Maniac: To a degree, but he somehow contests Prof for the site's biggest pervert after La Blue Girl.
- Meganekko: He likes women with glasses.
- Straight Man
- Tempting Fate / Brick Joke: After learning of the afore mentioned Project D being done at a NASA base, he said, "I am so outta here the moment they mention space vampires!" Much later in the review, near the end, when the vampire tells Kuki about their battle with evil aliens across the universe...
Hitch: Done. I am not doing space vampires! No! Done. Done! Dammit!!
- The Smurfette Principle: Inverted, Prof and Ark brought him on in universe to even out the ratio of female to male Brigaders... and because he owns a sombrero.
Steven Lajr
Known as Holy Diver on YouTube, he teams up with Vixen to review the Twilight franchise.
- Caustic Critic
- Groin Attack: On himself. See below.
- Heroic BSOD: Shot himself in the balls when he found out that Breaking Dawn was being split into 2 films.
- My God, What Have I Done?: Immediately regretted it.
- It Seemed Like a Good Idea At the Time
- Red Oni, Blue Oni: The red to Vixen's blue, ironically.
Hugh
A Walmart scanner that Tsubake met during her trip to Walmart. He later asked her out under the impression she was a dominatrix... yeah the only reason he's still alive is that he has loads of money and now works as Tsubake's weapons supplier.
- Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Seems like a nice enough guy...until you realize that he only asked Tsubake out because he thought she would have sex with him, and then blew up at her for it. He also steals money from innocent people.
- Covert Pervert
- Dogged Nice Guy
- Happiness in Slavery: He's perfectly alright with his job, provided he takes a little bit from the people who use him.
- He also happily funds Tsubake... despite the fact that she would kill him the second he stopped being useful and he's well aware of this.
- Hopeless Suitor: He didn't have much of a chance before he called Tsubake a fetish doll, and she freely admits he's just there to give her money as far as she's concerned.
- Secretly Wealthy: By stealing money from the people who use him.
Profette
An Opposite Gender Clone of Professor Otaku who showed up at the end of his review of Prétear. She also reviewed Fushigi Yuugi and Prof went back to normal... but she ended up sticking around.
- Distaff Counterpart
- Gender Bender
- Giant Space Flea From Nowhere: No clue as to where she came from, why she came here, or why she's still here.
- No Fourth Wall: Is self aware that she's a fictional character.
- Opposite Gender Clone
Ditzen
A combination of Ditto and Vixen, Ditzen is Vixen's ditzy clone who lives in the attic and takes over the Q&A for her.
- As Long as It Sounds Foreign: She choose her name as a combination of Ditto and Vixen because Pokemon is Japanese... seriously, that's it.
- Attic Dweller: But unlike most examples of this trope it's not by choice. It's either live in Vixen's attic or get shot.
- Cloning Blues
- The Ditz
- Meaningful Name: Doubly so -- her name is both a combination of Ditto and Vixen to show that she's a clone and shows off that she's The Ditz.
Steve and Joe
A pair of stock footage cameramen who appear in every episode of AMR to Hitch's annoyance. They shoot Hentai and comment on the sex related clips on the show.
- Stock Footage: From the Hentai Anime "Chain of Lust." There, their names were Masaki Kitazawa and Koji Miyamoto.
- Stop Helping Me!: They show up in Hitch and Vixen's review of La Blue Girl and insist on talking about the clitris in their usual fashion despite Hitch telling them not to, correctly guessing he'd get more electric shocks as a result.
- Those Two Guys
- Phrase Catcher: SHUT UP!