Otterpop Reviews! Mystery Skulls Animated, Episodes 1-4 (patron request!)

[@jesterday3965]

knowing way too much about this series makes it funny to hear a first time watcher's ideas about everything.

[@OtterpopTV]

Haha, oh yeah?

[@ayounimationstudio]

Same here lol

[@darkelysium2187]

Here are all the names of the characters. Purple - Lewis Blue - Vivi Yellow - Arthur Dog - Mystery Lewis' purple ghosts - Deadbeats Plant Lady - Shiromori Yellow Shotgun Guy - Lance (Arthur's Uncle) Samurai Girl - Mushi Green Eye Bat/Ghost Arm - Reverb (Or Envy by MS community) All the info is taken from the wiki or Mystery ben's blogs. Lewis, Vivi, Arthur, and Mystery are part of a paranormal investigation group (Much like the Scooby Doo gang). Before arriving at the cave, Arthur was jealous of Lewis and Vivi's relationship since they were spending more time with each other. In the cave, Arthur gets possessed by a ghost the Mystery Skulls community calls "Envy" but their actual name is "Reverb," who kills Lewis. Mystery, a kitsune disguised as Vivi's dog tore off Arthur's arm before it could fully possess him and trapped the ghost in the arm. Both Arthur and Vivi witness Lewis' death (Vivi who was at the bottom of the spiked pit, at the bottom right of the video). Lewis' curse prevents them both from remembering Lewis' death with Vivi unable to remember anything related to Lewis. (Vivi's eyes in the mirror were dark In Ghost and her eyes glowed purple along with any picture of Lewis during Hellbent). That's why Arthur's laptop was a map with crossed-out icons of Lewis. They were places and he was searching for Lewis. Shiromori was on her own mission to find Mystery, her flower petals track the life force of whoever they're attracted to. She was created from Mystery's blood hence Mystery's blood dripping over a flower in a brief flashback in Hellbent. It seems she needs Mystery's blood to sustain herself which is why she was going crazy like a drug addict upon cutting Mystery's cheek. The samurai Mushi who is possibly Vivi's ancestor because of her striking resemblence and magic ice powers, battled both Mystery and Shiromori in the past however she may have spared Mystery. He's quite protective of Vivi because maybe she's Mushi descendant? Mystery's heart or soul appears to be damaged and he sprouts a tail every time it bursts. Some speculate it might be damaged from emotional pain, maybe because he lost those close to him like Mushi? Or the patches on his soul might be there to seal his power. In the end, Mystery gets possessed by the same ghost that possessed Arthur's arm and killed Lewis, Reverb. That's why Lewis and his Deadbeats covered their ears at the sound of Mystery's ghostly howl and Arthur's arm was going haywire. It seemed that Reverb was after Mystery the entire time and waited for when Mystery was weakened to take control. Oh one more thing, The possessed Mystery is now called "Murder Mystery." TL:DR Scooby doo gang with dark lore

[@disgustof-riley]

Ghost arm is Lefty@

[@leparadox4856]

name the guy in the truck in freacking out

[@TheVTable]

@@leparadox4856Rooster

[@TheVTable]

Actually They confirmed the green evil dead arm’s name is Reverb (Rev for Short)

[@darkelysium2187]

@@TheVTable Ah, thanks for the new info.

[@myrkrormr]

If i recall the story correctly, Mystery Skulls animations were done by a fan, MysteryBen27. Mystery Skulls actually have an original music video for Ghost with live actors and such and its pretty hilarious, but they liked MysteryBen's animations so much that they decided to sort of hire him on as their official music video maker through his animations. so the animations basically became the official music videos for their songs, or at least these ones specifically. i could be wrong, its been a while since ive looked into it, but this is information i seem to recall. they do have a bunch of other songs with their own official music videos, but for these songs specifically, they seem to be accepted as the official music videos. however, looking at the Mystery Skulls youtube channel, i do not see MysteryBen27s animations on there, so i could be wrong.

[@WinstonWhitetail]

From what i recall, they originally commissioned Ben to make the animated video for Ghost, but production was taking longer than expected, so they had to make the live action version for the release and let Ben finish the video for later. After the success of Ghost, they basically are now the official artist/animator for the band and have been working on all the other videos for the 5 part series since (the 5th and final in the works atm!)

[@Fierycascade]

Honestly, I'm impressed by all the details you picked up on during your first watch. It took me multiple rewatches to fit together a lot of those pieces for Ghost.

[@charlesrodriguez3657]

Flower didn't bring Purple alive, Purple was like: "hey, who's touching my heart D:

[@thorveim1174]

you caught the story on he lewis (purple guy) pretty well, bar the lisste detail that the ghost is unaware that the yellow guy was possessed when killing him, thus thinking he did it out of jealousy. For the kitsune side, basically centuries ago the kitsune was evil, lived in a forest, and fed a plant with his blood, creating the plant lady as a form of minion. But the samurai girl with ice powers defeated him regardless and captured him, and eventually the kitsune became part of the family, taking on a dog form most of the time, staying with them through the centuries and staying with the descendents of the samurai as a companion, the blue girl being the latest in line (and as such the samurai isnt her past self, its her ancestor). So Shiromori (the plant lady) took that as her essentially father abandoning her, and started to track him to get more of his blood, getting ENRAGED when she realises the kitsune has essentially abandoned her for the sake of the descendent of their once common enemy. And all the while, the kitsune got emotionally scarred over and over. having to abandon Shiromoria nd then seeing her die (which reopened the wound), having the blue girl get her memory wiped, then gettign injured by what is essentially his own creation (also reopened that wound, note these two colors were the only one with a bandage), yellow for having to rip ou the arm of yellow who's now TERRIFIED OF HIM even if he doesnt really know why, having to lose Lewis (pink ghost) and the otehr colors being ties to unknown events (though characters using these colors do exist in the wiki)... all that trauma was too much, and that left him weak alongside his injuries, allowing the same spirit that possessed Arthur's (yellow guy) arm before and caused Lewis's death to possess him...

[@ALCvideoprofile]

You are WAY WAAAY smarter with your initial assessments of the videos than most reaction channels I have watched. Most people make really dumb assumptions after the first episode and miss some really key content. You pieced a lot of stuff together quickly Character names btw: Red = Mystery (a self insert of the animator Mystery Ben) Yellow = Arthur Blue = Vivi Purple = Lewis Older yellow dude = Uncle Lance Tree lady = Shiromori and just cause I LOVE this fact, the little ghosties are called Dead-beats

[@Bionickpunk]

Man, waiting for the 5th Music Video is agonizing. I hope they didnt cancel this project.

[@Kitsun_meh]

They didn’t! It’s just taking awhile for the 5th to finish!

[@Memelife69]

It gonn take a long time since the animation is amazing ❤

[@Icyangel10]

They made a statement that the 5th is taking longer than expected & they’re adding an epilogue.

[@AmethystWaves]

Been watching them since 2014, the gaps used to be longer between videos tbh

[@the711devin4]

They posted an update about 5 months ago saying that production is still under way, even going into specifics about which portions of the animation are in what stages of completion (spoiler free of course). It’s 7 and a half minutes of animation, so it’s understandable that it’s taking so long. Let’s hope for October 2024!

[@NCRLouTenant]

I love seeing fresh reactions to what is one of my favorite series on the internet. Also see you reacting to Helluva Boss so it's great to have someone else to add to my watchlist!

[@AnzuCanon]

love your reactions, it feels genuine compared to the other reaction channels i frequently see

[@OtterpopTV]

Why thank you! I try and provide as much meaningful commentary and analysis as possible for my reactions.

[@tr0nb0y]

Loved your reaction. Now you're stuck with us waiting years for the next chapter of the the saga. Like waiting for a fine wine or oak aged spirit to mature. Just takes patience.

[@WinstonWhitetail]

If no one else mentioned it yet, the names for everyone is Vivi Yukino for blue, Arthur Kingsman for yellow, Lewis Pepper for purple, Mystery for red, Shiromori for the plant lady and Mushi for the ancestor that looked like Vivi And for the mega form of Mystery at the end, they're named !?Murder Mystery?! And the hand at the end was the same one Arthur had they Mystery bit off when it got possessed (by supposedly the name of the green entity is Reverb)

[@Icyangel10]

I think Shiromori was brought to life by Mystery’s blood with their relationship falling apart thanks to Vivi’s ancestor & at the end the possessed hand Mystery got rid of possessed him. Also Arthur’s robot arm seems to be affected by supernatural stuff. This started out as a fan getting commissioned to animate the first one & the band liked it so much they wanted them to continue. Fun fact Lewis gets his name from the singer for Mystery Skulls(the band not the animated paranormal investigation group these characters are a part of).

[@TheArcSet]

Thanks for this. An insanely impressive and enduring series, with so many small details.

[@WinstonWhitetail]

You have to know our pain that each video dropped two years apart from each other, so we had to wait on cliffhangers from 3-4 ;w;

[@Brobore]

And now it’s almost 4 years since Future released. Still no 5 😢

[@WinstonWhitetail]

@@Brobore from their patreon updates, they plan to release it this year in october, so nearly there!

[@ShadowdaHedgie11]

Watching all of them back to back definitely did help me figure out stuff. Like what the Plant Demon's deal is. From what I can tell, the plant was originally just a flower, but then when Mystery the Kitsune/Kyuubi came across it, and got pricked on one of it's thorns, and got it's blood on it, it grew bigger and bigger. Later on, a samurai came to fight the kitsune, and supposedly, beat it, which seems to have made the kitsune tame and become a protector for the samurai's family. So the Plant Demon is searching for the kyuubi because they were something of a partnership, and because she fed off of his blood to grow. Which is how the flower became a demon to begin with, feeding off a nine-tailed kitsune's blood.

[@AlexEEZ]

Dude, OUTSTANDING analysis! I found out about the series a few days ago and I got immediately obsessed. So yeah, most of the things you said are what was going through my mind when rewatching the episodes after getting further context on the lore. Here are some things I think you should know about for part 5 when it releases (I don't claim to be correct about any of this, just speculation on my end!!): Shiromori (the poison ivy character) craves the blood of Mystery (the dog/kitsune). From what I've heard, Mystery would offer his blood to Shiromori in the past for whatever reason, I guess she just goes after him at some point to have some more. You can see her going coocoo crazy when she gives Mystery a cut on the cheek in Hellbent and when Mystery bites his arm later in The Future. I'm guessing they have a bond, just not a very healthy one... Mystery does, however, want to protect both Shiromori and Vivi (blue haired girl) equally it seems. He lies in devastation when Vivi smacks the ever-living f**k out of Shiromori's heart. Arthur's arm began malfunctioning after it got taken over by Lewis' pink spirit.. energy.. stuff..? When he slams his arm in the truck. It seems to absorb the supernatural control Lewis had over it before that, because he couldn't start the truck after the pink stuff took over it. He's seen hitting the gas immediately after that to get away. As far as I know, Lewis' locket never changed before Arthur (yellow hair guy) took a close look at it. I'm assuming the locket has some magical aspect where the person viewing it changes the vision of the past, Arthur includes himself in it and Lewis starts fading away? Which could hint at Arthur still not being over his envy. However, I'm not sure if it was meant to illustrate Lewis fading away, the animation makes it a bit vague. Maybe Arthur _did_ imagine Lewis along with the rest and he began crying because he realized Arthur still cares about him? It's kinda up to interpretation for me. But now that I think about it, that makes more sense. I think the green "possession" that takes over Arthur is the embodiment of his jealousy. Mystery is in fact that same kitsune creature that gets flashed back to every so often in the series. The number of tails he has increases with each time his soul gets damaged. So, beginning with one, after 8 heart punctures, he's left with 9 tails (sound familiar?). The color of the various substances coming out of his heart are a bit too convoluted for me to analyze... so I'll leave that be. Another thing I learned is that his "ultimate form" is called "Murder Mystery". Clever. His collar's logo also changes from a question mark [?] to an interrobang [!?]. At the end, Mystery's heart is seen being grabbed by a green hand. The community assumes that's the same green hand that Arthur used to push Lewis off the cave cliff. Mystery is seen witnessing the incident from behind Arthur and chomping his "possessed" arm right off, both in Ghost. The arm may just have a mind of its own and want its revenge on him, I guess? As for Vivi's eyes, I have no clue what could have happened. But I'm assuming, soon after that occurrence, she also witnesses Lewis impaled on the spikes below and she gets cursed with the dreaded memory of it. I think she does still recognize him as a ghost, though I'm not sure. The older guy with the shotgun is Arthur's uncle, Lance. He uses the shotgun on Lewis because he assumes Lewis is a big threat to Arthur, I suppose. He gets beat up and scolded by Lewis between the scenes and Arthur is seen carrying him on his shoulder later in the video. I'm still a bit lost on who the fighter girl is supposed to be, I guess your assumption that she's a younger Shiromori is.. somewhat possible? The character design makes me doubt that... but yeah, I'll update the comment if I get some more insight on what's happening there. That's all I could gather myself for now. I don't wish to be spoiled about the lore much though, I wanna figure out what happened myself, so hopefully part 5 clears that up a bit. :)

[@AlexEEZ]

OH MY LORD, I noticed a big clue in Ghost watching another reaction of this series!! Vivi is literally seen out another exit of the cave looking at the pit of spikes Lewis lands in! Completely proves my theory about that I think :D

[@AlexEEZ]

Another thing, the flashes in Hellbent actually tell you A LOT about the backstory of Lewis and Shiromori, I completely missed out on it. In Lewis' flashbacks, it's illustrated as if Arthur is envious of Lewis and Vivi's relationship, obviously. We don't know if that's to an intimate level, but it seems like it. Arthur is seen standing in the shadow of Lewis, clearly sorrowful. Obviously, after that, Arthur pushes Lewis off the edge (literally), but another thing is shown. Lewis kneeling dreadfully upon being impaled, with a yellow heart on the ground. The spike must've gone straight through where his heart is. And I guess that left him as a ghost with a skeleton-like appearance? In Shiromori's flashbacks, it's seen that she used to be a flower that Mystery would.. water? with his blood? I did make that connection already, but it also shows the flower seemingly having grown into a Sakura tree and Mystery lying on it. That's where we see the blue haired warrior girl. I don't know if she has any direct connection to any of the cast, like Vivi, but apparently she was trying to fight Mystery off and that's likely why Shiromori loses it when she sees Vivi as a reference to her when she picks up a bat and starts fighting back. Another possibility is that, yes, Shiromori is a sort of reincarnation of the warrior girl and we're just missing some context on that. OR maybe it is just Vivi in the past, and she just used to be a warrior? But then again, in the vision she has, she reaches out to shake the hand of the warrior girl, which turns into the bat with the ice ability. I'm so confused.

[@OtterpopTV]

I've heard a lot of people mention that the warrior girl is an ancestor of Vivi's, hence the resemblance, and Mystery choosing Vivi over Shiromori (like was also doing in the past) is why Shiromori reacts so negatively to Vivi fighting alongside Mystery.

[@AlexEEZ]

hm... it must've been Vivi, since Shiromori looks back at Mystery after her vision and Mystery goes "¯\_(ツ)_/¯" awkwardly. So like.. She's like - "You're on her side now?" - "Uhhhhh..." and then I guess she gets flustered and jealous and goes after Vivi instead.

[@AlexEEZ]

@@OtterpopTV Riiight. Sorry, I was writing my third reply when you posted this. I guess that would make sense!

[@Avell_Productions]

if im correct the 5th episode will release on new years eve this year hopefully, also that flower person is part of Japanese mythology

[@CesarEmilioCoy-t1u]

Is it just me or those the scissors remind anyone of the shushu from wakfu

[@WithASideOfTibbs]

I find it to be so coincidental that I was JUST watching some of your Terroriser compilation videos just a few days ago.. only to just happen to stumble upon this video when looking for reactions to this content!

[@OtterpopTV]

What a fantastic coincidence!

[@firedem0n5]

I'm 13:10 in and I love the analytics you have. You pointed out some things I've missed despite watching it several times. Also also (talking to past you) that possession, yeah that becomes clear about number 2 or 3rd song in with a soon to see character and the way she smiles ... I didn't see it till you pointed it out and paused on the picture of yellow guy both smiling and crying.

[@OtterpopTV]

I do what I can when it comes to analyzing stuff, especially with solid animation and story behind it! That's the gun thing about reactions/commentary, you hear things from new perspectives and even come across things you missed on your own watches!

[@firedem0n5]

@@OtterpopTV I'm looking forward to more of your reactions

[@zkeorys]

this was a very fun watch

[@aienma6660]

My theory is that in this story, Kitsune work differently... each tail they have, is due to the failing to protect someone close to them. As we see Mystery grow two tails after watching Vivi and Shiromori attack/harm/kill each other.

[@Cool_Chill]

lets gooooooo love this series

[@CesarEmilioCoy-t1u]

Can’t believe that she didn’t notice blue hair girl at 4:21at bottom left

[@brennanlangless8912]

And I’m definitely getting the old school scooby doo and the mystery gang lol

[@CesarEmilioCoy-t1u]

The purple dude’s name is Lewis

[@thetermintator9071]

Hope u keep it up ur so good

[@luisosmarrosalesmanuel8236]

Great video

[@leparadox4856]

"blue chick"

[@MarigoldWisp]

I can't tell if I'm going crazy or not but is this a reupload? I swear I've watched this way before and it had much more comments

[@OtterpopTV]

It is kinda of a re-upload, after I had to move some things to a brand new channel.

[@YamingNichols]

Demon fox

[@leonbeleren5659]

Am i crazy, or did you used to have more subs?

[@OtterpopTV]

On my other channel yes, but this is a new channel set up just for reactions and compilations of other creators' content!

[@Bruhster27]

you pretty much got the lore down

[@buttons551]

The ghost's main color is pink, not purple.