Web Video / MandJTV

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John Michael Groth, usually known as Michael, Mikey, or MandJTV, is a Pokémon YouTuber. His content centres around the video games, but occasionally references the TCG or manga. He is also known as the creator of Pokémon Talk, and for his frequent collaborations with fellow Pokétuber PM7, AKA John (whose middle name also happens to be Michael).

Mikey has 3 main YouTube channels, each focused on a different type of content:

• MandJTV: His main channel, typically focused on list content about the video games, with topics ranging from "most annoying Pokémon to evolve" to "most interesting Pokédex entries from [insert game here]", among many others.
• MandJTV Plays: Focused on edited invokedSelf-Imposed Challenge playthroughs of games, such as single-type runs, runs where he plays as though he's a member of an evil team (using only Pokémon that they use in-game), and friendly competitions with PM7.
• MandJTV Extra: Focused on content that doesn't work for the algorithm as part of either of his other channels; typically long-form, mostly unedited first-time playthroughs of new games, and community-focused content such as his monthly "Pokémon Meme Review" series.

MandJTV's content contains examples of the following tropes.

• Accidental Misnaming: Mikey's noted that he's so used to pronouncing "Yveltal" as "Yah-vul-tahl" as a joke that he sometimes forgets that that's not how you're meant to say it.
• Actor Allusion: When he plays Pokémon Pokopia, he's thrilled to realise that Squirtle and Bulbasaur are the first two Pokémon you meet in the game (outside of Professor Tangrowth), and decides to use their Pokémon Talk voices when he's reading their lines.
• Adaptational Backstory Change: In the Team Sky videos, it's revealed that Iron Jugulis was created by Team Night Sky's scientists.
• Adaptational Context Change: In The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero's plotline, the protagonist is part of an exchange program between Uva/Naranja Academy and Blueberry Academy. In the Team Sky playthrough, Mikey comes to Blueberry Academy when Carmine calls him over after spotting Night Sky Mikey talking to Briar and the foreign exchange part is depicted as a cover story she came up with for him.
• Adaptational Villainy: A Downplayed example in his Team Sky playthrough of The Hidden Treasure of Area Zero. In his canon, both Briar and Kieran were influenced by the villainous Team Night Sky leader, whereas in the original game, Briar is just irresponsible and Kieran is having an actually realistic reaction to being constantly defeated by the Player Character, coupled with generally being a teen. However, neither of them were aware that Team Night Sky is evil — Briar is stated to have just not given much thought to this new research partner, and Kieran is, as in the original game, going through some stuff, and the TNS leader was just able to bend his ear.
• Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: In his Team Sky playthrough of Pokémon Violet, Team Sky!Mikey ends up saying "Go Team Sky" very reluctantly for a while after meeting his supposed future self.
• Artifact Title: The "J" in the channel name is the first initial of his brother, who initially made videos alongside Mikey, but stopped relatively early into its lifespan. Mikey kept the name for brand recognition.
• Beat Without a "But": Mikey admits in "If Every Pokémon Could Evolve" that since he's only connecting Pokémon to other existing Pokémon, some of his choices are quite a stretch. For instance, when he says that Miltank could evolve from Chansey:
  Mikey: As for how the egg thing becomes a cow, well, actually, you see... [Beat] Tauros would be a branch evolution from Deerling.
• Berserk Button: Mikey has several. They seem to be genuine, if played up somewhat for the camera.
  • Johto's Early Instalment Weirdness, including the lack of focus on Johto Pokémon (including only granting access to some of them in Kanto, and how fully half of its gym leaders, one of its Elite Four, and its Champion have no Johto Mons at all) and the weird difficulty curve.
    • On the subject of said weird difficulty curve, Whitney. In particular, how she sulks after you beat her, and how tough her Miltank is, due to being a fully-evolved Pokémon on only the third gym with a very annoying build. For that matter, claiming that the Miltank is easy if you use [insert specific strat here^note most commonly, using the traded Machop]; if you make that claim, expect Mikey to immediately start ranting about how, if you need a specific strat for an opponent encountered in a casual playthrough, said opponent is not easy (as these games are meant to be kid-friendly).
  • Unova's ridiculously high evolution levels, to the point where you can't get several good Pokémon (e.g., Braviary, Mandibuzz, Hydreigon, Volcarona) fully evolved for the League and still roughly match the bosses' levels.
  • How little attention Pokémon X and Y give their new gimmick (Mega Evolution) and their Champion (Diantha). Anything he makes about Kalos' Gym Leaders will likely mention the former, and he'll almost certainly complain about the lack of focus on Diantha if she's mentioned.
  • The many poor design decisions of Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl, to the extent that he made not one, but two videos on how bad they are.
    Keeloker^note one of his editors, in a note on "If I was a Gym Leader in Every Region": (is it really an MandJTV video if he doesn't throw shade at BDSP)
  • The anime's inconsistencies with the games, including incorrect Pokémon sizes and ignoring type matchups.
  • Versions of the "1 billion lions versus one of every Pokémon" meme showing up in "Meme Review". Mikey has made it abundantly clear that, given how physics-defying even regular Pokémon can be, he'd put his money on the Pokémon every time, no contest, and that for several Legendaries and Mythicals, he'd put his money on just one of them to beat 1 billion lions even without backup.
  • He doesn't get angry at it per se, but if Mikey mentions Glaceon, he'll likely reference its perpetual Late Character Syndrome, and make it clear he doesn't like how often it got shafted before Gen VIII.
  • The lack of a Ghost-Rock type in the game (as of Z-A), given that Sableye (obsessed with gems), Spiritomb (comes out of an Odd Keystone), and especially Galarian Corsola and Cursola (bleached coral, so they're literally possessed rocks) are all perfect candidates for it.
• Bookends: Both the first and last entries in "9 Ways to Break a Pokémon Game" involve getting a Nidoking in Gen I^note the entries are in order of least to most egregious, so the first entry is just "Nidoking is a powerful Pokémon with a good TM moveset that you can get very early", while the last entry is "here's a glitch that lets you get a level 100 Pokémon (from a list including Nidoking) before the first gym". Mikey Lampshades it by noting, "We've come full circle!"
• But Thou Must!:
  • One of his minor bugbears with Pokémon games is how their dialogue options often boil down to this (although he generally finds it funny/silly rather than truly annoying). For instance, in his Pokémon Legends: Z-A playthrough:
    Dialogue Options: "I could take the rooftops"/"I could climb the wreckage"
    [Mikey picks "I could take the rooftops"]
    Naveen: You think you could climb that wreckage and then go via the rooftops?
    Mikey: That's another... silly fricking Pokémon dialogue where they give you two options and the response is identical either way.
  • Also brought up in the Team Sky videos, when Team Night Sky notes that Mikey has "a weird tendency to go along with what others tell him to do", to which Mikey protests with "I'm never given an option to say 'no'!"
• Catchphrase: Many:
  • Mikey has "Greetings, Pokéfans! Michael here, and [statement introducing the topic of the video]" at the start of every main channel video, and "hail yeah" whenever Castform comes up.
  • Grunty Boi has, "Ha-ha! It is I, Grun-ty Boi!"
  • The Team Sky leader has "Go, Team Sky!", accompanied by an eagle cry.
• invokedCommon Knowledge: Discussed in his video on the most iconic Pokémon memes, where he points out that the infamous IGN review of Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire ("7.8/10, too much water") was intended as a quick summary of a more thoughtful article. He then notes that said review's main point about water was the predominance of Water types on NPC teams (especially in Alpha Sapphire) and in wild encounters, leading to imbalanced teams with overleveled Grass and Electric types compared to everything else.
• Compliment Backfire: One episode of Meme Review begins with Mikey stating that all of his viewers are "first-place people", only for them to get hit by a Lego Blue Shell.
• Convection, Schmonvection: The games' use of this trope is Discussed in his video on how deadly each gym is. He notes that applying Real Life logic to the version of Clair's gym in Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver implies that anyone who entered would instantly be burned to a crisp even if they didn't fall into the unguarded lava, as the heat alone would be enough to kill you in what seems to be an uncooled building. This makes it one of only two gyms to get a 10/10 for deadliness in the video (the other being Skyla's gym in Pokémon Black and White, which involves firing challengers out of cannons). Although he notes that even if the building is cooled, lava gives off enough deadly gasses that those would also be enough to kill you.
• Decomposite Character: A minor one due to rival renaming and making said rival out as "some random dude", but in the Team Sky playthrough of Pokémon HeartGold and SoulSilver, Team Sky!Mikey treats Blue as Landon's Identical Stranger.
• Entertainingly Wrong: When Grunty Boi gets pulled through a wormhole to do Episode RR, Hau greets him with the line, "A-lo-la!" Grunty Boi deduces that he must be in... Hoenn.
• Even Evil Has Standards:
  • As Grunty Boi, he’s willing to steal Pokémon from trainers like little kids and the elderly, beat up people to do Giovanni’s bidding, and imprison Silph Co. employees in Pokémon FireRed: Rocket Edition. However, he thinks that Ronnie is a major liability with his over-the-top evil behavior and is deplorable for attacking Daisy after she was defeated in battle. He also thinks that alternate Giovanni brainwashing Lusamine in Episode RR is going too far. In the latter, he doesn’t understand why other evil teams want to destroy the world (although that does mean he's more positive towards Ghetsis, arguably the most despicable Pokémon villain but one who only wants to rule the world).
  • As pre-Heel–Face Turn Team Sky!Mikey, he was willing to lie, manipulate, and steal to accomplish his goals. However, he refuses to recruit children to his team and he also thinks that Kamado banishing him from Jubilife despite all the good he’s done for the village is despicable.
• Evil vs. Evil: Before his Heel–Face Turn, it's often made clear that Team Sky!Mikey doesn't like any competition with other evil teams of the region if the week and will go out of his way to stop their schemes and crush them. This is most prominent with his beef with Teams Magma and Aqua (often calling Team Sky the best Hoenn evil team and indirectly throwing shade at them) due to his disdain for anything not sky-related.
• Evolving Credits: Once he brought back the "Meme Review" title sequence after migrating the series to MandJTV Extra, he updated it with clips from more recent videos. This meant, among other things, that Grunty Boi, Team Sky!Mikey, and Milkman Mike all got to make appearances, as did his beard.
• Eyepatch After Timeskip: Team Night Sky, an evil(er) version of Team Sky from a Bad Future, has an eyepatch for no explained reason.
• Freeze-Frame Bonus Team Sky!Mikey's Galar jersey Number is 384, Rayquayza's national Dex number.
• Freudian Slip: Dr. Fuse lets out one after fusing a Mewtwo and a Genesect and naming the fusion with a number like his other Mew and Mewtwo fusions.
  Dr. Fuse: "Mewsect"? Hah! No, it's Mewsex! I mean... (wheezes) Mewsix.
• Fun with Subtitles: Happens a couple of times in his video on the most iconic Pokémon memes. Number 7 on the list is "7.8/10, too much water", and so the "7", which appears on-screen a couple of seconds before Mikey reveals the entry, is incorporated into the name of the meme. A later entry on the list is Slowpoke memes; the name of the meme takes several seconds more than any other name did to appear after Mikey announces it, and the graphics for it stay on-screen for several seconds after the background cuts back to Mikey discussing it.
• Future Me Scares Me: Team Sky!Mikey has this reaction to Team Night Sky!Mikey, insisting on battling him immediately. He's particularly shocked by how willing he is to ruin the beauty of the sky. It actually spurs Team Sky!Mikey to make a Heel–Face Turn just because he's so horrified at what a genuinely evil version of him would be like.
• Gone Horribly Right: As Team Sky, he originally wanted to conquer the skies. When he meets his evil future self who managed to achieve his goals, present-day Mikey is horrified to learn what will happen if he becomes truly evil instead of being who he is today.
• Has a Type: Mikey makes no secret of his attraction to the designs of Karen, Flannery, Skyla, and Perrin. However, it's only once he sees the latter in-game that he realises, somewhat embarrassedly, that the common connection between the four of them is that they wear shirts that expose their midriffs.
• Heel–Face Turn: Team Sky!Mikey vows to reform Team Sky after seeing how deadly a truly evil version of himself can be.
• Hold Your Hippogriffs: In "The 1st Pokémon You Should Catch in Every Game", Mikey refers to Pokémon Sword and Shield's Dynamax Adventures (which allow you to get a high-level Suicune immediately after the tutorial) as "the Copperajah in the room".
• Hulk Speak: Combined with Angrish when he's getting confused about why Fortree City is home to a Flying-type specialist, rather than the obvious:
  Mikey: FOR-TREE, ITS BUILT IN TREE. WHAT THE — FLYING, WHY FLYING? BIRDS BUILD NEST IN TREE?, why— NO? THAT'S IN TREE, NOT TREEEEEEEEEE. PUT WINONA IN LILYCOVE.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: During his Team Sky playthrough for "Pokémon Legends: Z-A", he reprimands Lebanne for speaking disrespectfully to Taunie and says that only he can talk to her like that.
• Hypocritical Humour: Mikey has, on multiple occasions, mocked Mega Camerupt for having an "M" on its forehead and asked what sort of loser would do that... while wearing a cap with an "M" on it himself.
• I Hate Past Me: Team Night Sky!Mikey has this attitude with his Team Sky counterpart, deeming the latter an idiotic doormat with an F in evil.
• Incoming Ham: Dr. Fuse announces his presence in the Team Sky playthrough of Pokémon Infinite Fusion with a loud, sudden "WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!"
• Ironic Name: During his Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen playthrough as Team Sky, he names the rival Landon, but due to Mikey picking Charmander because it evolves into a Flying-type, Landon ends up picking Squirtle. That is, the guy named after land ends up picking the water starter.
• Joke and Receive: In his Team Sky playthrough of the Pokémon Violet DLC, Team Sky!Mikey comments that he can't find his evil counterpart anywhere, hyperbolically stating that it's like he's disappeared into the middle of the ocean. He then gets a phone call from Carmine, who tells him that she's spotted Team Night Sky!Mikey... at her school in the middle of the ocean.
• Lampshaded Double Entendre: In his updated video on every Gen I Pokémon that hasn't received any attention since, Mikey asks why Cloyster hasn't gotten anything, given that its "counterpart", Onix, did^{explanation (NSFW)}Cloyster and Onix are known for resembling female and male genitalia, respectively. He then adds a "teehee", accompanied by a note from his editor stating that Mikey specifically asked for that joke to be left in.
• Late to the Realisation:
  • During his Team Sky playthrough of Pokémon Legends: Arceus, it takes him a bit to realize that he’s in the past. It takes until the Coronet Highlands to realize that he’s in ancient Sinnoh, hence why a lot of the names sound familiar to him.
  • Mikey only realises as he's entering the endgame of Pokémon Legends: Z-A that Eternal Flower Floette's flower is the same shape as the Ultimate Weapon. He admits to feeling "very dumb" for taking 12 whole years to spot what should be an obvious similarity of shape.
  • It also take him until the postgame episode of Z-A to realise that you can and should withdraw your Pokémon during Rogue Mega battles. To be fair, it's not as though the game makes this fact especially obvious.
• Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Team Sky!Mikey makes an off-handed comment in his Unova video about how Rock Tomb sometimes feels way more accurate than other times. This is a nod to the fact that its accuracy got buffed in Gen VI, and so it actually is more accurate in some of his videos than others; however, since the canonical timeline of Team Sky videos is their release order, from his perspective, its accuracy fluctuates.
• Loose Canon:
  • Mikey has stated in an episode of "Meme Review" that any Team Sky playthrough of a fangame is not as canonical as a playthrough of an official game. That said, Team Sky!Mikey's Heel–Face Turn formally happened in a fangame (This Gym of Mine), so they're clearly important at least some of the time.
  • When discussing the franchise's lore, Mikey will typically ignore spinoffs unless they provide information that neither directly appears in nor contradicts the mainline games. For instance, in his video on Pokémon that appear in the wild despite it theoretically being impossible for them to evolve (at their given levels or at all) or hatch under natural conditions, he decides to allow all friendship evolutions on the grounds that the anime showed Ash's Pikachu evolving from Pichu in the wild due to a strong friendship with a Kangaskhan and her joey. Similarly, he'll often make reference to how Pokémon Origins shows gym leaders (specifically Brock) having full teams of 6, but dialling back their number and levels of Pokémon in order to have a fair fight that tests challengers' skill level rather than raw strength, especially if he's talking about giving them expanded teams.
• Malaproper: Team Sky!Mikey occasionally gets into this, saying "Paladea" for "Paldea" and "Ghetosis" for "Ghetsis".
• Mood-Swinger: Team Sky!Mikey in his trip to Unova. He loves Unova because its legendary can fly! No, he hates it, because he can't get any Flying-types before the first gym! One of the gym leaders is a Flying-type specialist? He loves this region! Two of the other gym leaders specialise in Ice and Electric? He hates it! One of the fossil Pokémon is a Flying-type? Best region ever! He has to go deep underground for one of the gyms and to learn about the legendary (the latter of which involves sinking through quicksand)? Worst region ever!
• Mood Whiplash: The titular fanfic in "The Pokémon Story I Can't Believe I Wrote" has its climax seemingly end with the hero defeating the main villain in a Pokémon battle, thus stopping his plans...only for said villain to suddenly pull a gun on the hero and get shot down in turn by Wallace. As Mikey points out, this is the first and only time guns ever appear in the story, making for a bizarre case of tonal whiplash; the best explanation he can come up with for it was that he was frustrated by the Why Don't You Just Shoot Him? nature of the series' villains at the time.
• My Country 'Tis of Thee That I Sting: In his video on Pokémon's "lost islands", he notes that Liberty Island from Pokémon Black and White is very American... in that it's called "Liberty Island", has a lighthouse "shining with the light of freedom" that only authorised personnel may enter, and there's a vending machine:
  Mikey: Wow! This "lost island" has capitalism! This place is sickeningly American!
• No Yay: Invoked for comedy in "I Played Pokemon as a Champion who Lost" — the Sun and Moon player character's mom is reimagined as ex-champion Orange's landlady, who he expresses an attraction to. The underlying element of the original context makes the joke very uncomfortable, which is clearly the point.
• Older Than They Look: A Running Gag across all of his playthroughs. Even in non-character playthroughs, Mikey typically acts as though he's in the game itself. Given that the protagonists of Pokémon games are always children, this leads to a fully-grown (and, in later videos, bearded) adult man being mistaken for a boy.
• Other Me Annoys Me: Most of Mikey's characters tend to rub each other the wrong way on the occasions they cross over. Team Sky!Mikey and Grunty Boi are pretty much always at each other's throats when they appear together (generally for an ad spot in a Team Sky video), and Dr. Fuse's meeting with the former begins with him yelling at Team Sky!Mikey for intruding into Pokémon Infinite Fusion (although they end up working out an agreement). And, of course, Grunty Boi and Mikey's relationship was initially based on Grunty Boi robbing Mikey; only later did they become friends.
• Poor Communication Kills: Grunty Boi's playthroughs of games inevitably end up going this way, because (out-of-universe) Mikey's still playing through an unmodified version of the game, meaning that he has to end up battling various Rocket Grunts, even though (in-character) he's trying to help them. Mikey justifies this in-character by either acting as though the Grunts and Admins are flat-out ignoring him (as in his Let's Go, Pikachu! and Pokémon SoulSilver runs), or by having Grunty Boi assume that he's coming up against impostors (as in his Episode RR run).
• Pretentious Pronunciation: Carrying over from Pokémon Talk, Mikey will generally insist on pronouncing Arceus as "Arkoos" and Yveltal as "Yah-vul-tahl".
• Punny Name: The character he plays as in his first Pokémon Infinite Fusion playthrough is called "Dr. Fusinal Dayinite" ("fusing all day and night").
• A Rare Sentence:
  • In "Guess the Pokémon from the Cropped Picture", we get this gem when Mikey's complaining about the difficulty to Trinity (who made the quiz he's doing):
    Mikey: The shadows are killing me, because I can't perceive that they're a shadow without the comparison of the light! This is a philosophical message of some kind!
  • After the Rogue Mega Meowstic fight in Mega Dimension went poorly, Mikey reflects:
    Mikey: I think I had a poor donut. Which is a very silly thing to say so seriously.
• Running Gag: If Unown is discussed in a video, they'll typically be arranged into a message asking the viewer to subscribe.
• Sailor Earth: Team Sky began life as this (although the character has grown past it at this point): a Rayquaza-themed counterpart to Hoenn's two other evil teams, with the goal of expanding the sky just like they want to expand the land or the sea (albeit with less of a clear idea of what that actually means).
• Self-Deprecation: The merch plug in his Pokémon Infinite Fusion playthrough is framed as Dr. Fuse being promised funding by "some schmuck" (i.e., Mikey) if he promotes his stuff. The doctor absolutely thinks he's come out ahead.
• Sequel Hook: "Pokemon Shield, But I'm Team Sky" ends with Team Sky!Mikey reading a bulletin saying that legendary birds were spotted in Galar, setting up the DLC-based episode.
• "Shaggy Dog" Story: In his video on how he obtained Ho-Oh in Pokémon Colosseum, after a whole lot of frustration (including one failed attempt) spent trying to snag Ein’s Shadow Raikou, which Mikey hoped to use on his team for the Mt. Battle Challenge, not only does it turn out to have a Special Attack IV of either 3 or 4 (when IVs range from 0-31), but its Nature is Adamant — which lowers Special Attack (its main stat) and raises Attack (when the only damaging Physical move that Raikou learns in Gen III is Quick Attack). And on top of all that, Raikou hadn’t gained a single level after all the grinding he did with it because a Shadow Pokémon doesn’t gain EXP until the third bar in their Heart Gauge is depleted. Mikey ended up leaving Raikou in the PC and continuing to use the Ampharos that he had been using up to that point as his Electric attacker/Paralysis user.
  OHHHHH, I HATE EVERYTHING ABOUT THIS STUPID CAT!!!
• Shirtless Scene:
  • Some of Grunty Boy's sponsor segments have him shirtless, due to him advertising hygiene products.
  • "Pokemon Type Stereotypes" depict both the Water and Fighting-type specialists as Walking Shirtless Scenes. The Water-type trainer even lampshades this by actively refusing to put a shirt on.
• Shout-Out: His video on ranking every Pokémon gym by how deadly it is was explicitly inspired by the Unraveled video that does the same for Super Smash Bros. Ultimate stages.
• Signature Mon: Rayquaza serves this purpose for Team Sky, who take their green-and-yellow colour scheme and aerial theming from Hoenn's third Olympus Mon. The Team Sky leader will inevitably try to catch it in any game he can. Team Night Sky is similarly themed around shiny Rayquaza's colour scheme — both because it's black like the night, but also probably because it's yet another way to one-up what their leader sees as his prior failings.
• Sitcom Arch-Nemesis: He has let his hatred for several Pokémon be made very apparent over the years:
  • Miltank. He finds the prominent nipples/udders on its design to be gross, and, of course, Whitney's Miltank is notoriously difficult.
  • Kabuto, as shiny-hunting it in Pokémon Let's Go led to him spraining his wrist.
  • Drowzee, due to a wayward comment of his in a collaboration with PM7 leading to John and his audience joking about him having a crush on it.
• Stunned Silence: Mikey spends several seconds in total silence with his jaw hanging open after he first sees L's face in Pokémon Legends: Z-A. As the video on his best moments of 2025 points out, he'd previously stated multiple times that Lysandre was fully dead at the end of Pokémon X and Y, so given that he'd deliberately avoided spoilers, this reveal was naturally quite the shock for him.
• Surprisingly Creepy Moment: His video on every weird or interesting Pokédex entry from Pokémon Legends: Z-A singles out Mega Dragalge's dex entry as an example. The entry specifies that Mega Dragalge's poison "causes the regenerative power of cells to run wild", which, Mikey points out, is the description of cancer, making this entry wildly dark even by Pokédex standards. He states that it would honestly be less creepy if Mega Dragalge's poison just melted your face off or something.
• Take a Third Option: A few of his complaints about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl boil down to other Pokémon games having come up with multiple different good solutions to particular design problems, which these games ignore in favour of a third, worse option. Specifically:
  • Translating a game designed for strictly grid-based movement to a version allowing analogue movement. Pokémon Let's Go redesigned the world layout to give you more room. Pokémon Omega Ruby and Alpha Sapphire kept the world layout identical, but allow you to revert to grid-based movement at any time. BDSP don't do either, meaning that on narrow ledges or in tight gaps, if you didn't enter them perfectly straight-on, you have to constantly wiggle the analogue stick around and either bump into walls or worry about falling off said ledges.
  • Making new evolutions introduced in Gen IV accessible. Original Diamond and Pearl locked the items for these new evolutions to the postgame, but also locked the precursor evolution stages to the postgame — a weird, but workable choice. Platinum instead makes the precursor stages available in the base game, but moves their evolution items to that zone as well, which Mikey considers the best choice. BDSP, on the other hand, lets you get the precursor stages in the base game thanks to the revamped Grand Underground, but locks their evolution items to the postgame, a fact Mikey was very unhappy about when he discovered it mid-playthrough.
• Take That!: Team Sky!Mikey describes Rose trying to convince Leon the tournament should be cancelled so he can deal with the energy crisis that's coming in 1000 years' time tomorrow rather than, say, the day after as the dumbest conversation he's ever listened to.
• That Came Out Wrong:
  • At the start of the June 2023 episode of Meme Review, Mikey wishes a happy Pride Month to those who celebrate, noting that while he himself is not gay, his girlfriend is... before having to clarify that she's bi.
  • In the Team Sky playthrough for Pokemon Platinum, Mikey declares that Fantina and her opulent dress "must fall", before promptly having an embarrassed BSOD moment when he realizes that the wording sounds like he's demanding that she strip for him.
• Then Let Me Be Evil: Team Sky!Mikey isn’t truly evil. However, an alternate version of him became truly evil after his battle with AI Turo broke something in him. This led to him not only coming up with a better plan to conquer the skies than his younger self could ever imagine, but also succeeding and becoming unstoppable in his own timeline. He also recognizes that his younger self isn’t actually evil since he hardly committed any crimes since arriving in Paldea.
• The Triple: With a slightly longer list. A Pokémon may be used on a Team Sky team if it is Flying-type (or evolves into a Flying-type), has the ability Levitate (or evolves into a Pokémon that has that ability), can learn the move Fly (like Dialga and Golurk), clearly flies in at least one battle animation (like Hisuian Decidueye and Fezandipiti) or floats in a flight-adjacent manner^note regular floating without Levitate isn't allowed, because then practically all Water types would be allowed, for a start in at least one battle animation (like Drakloak), or... is Mightyena. It's on the list because Team Sky began life as an analogue to Teams Magma and Aqua, and both Maxie and Archie use Mightyena on their teams despite it not fitting any better with their themes. One thing he gets particularly excited about in Paldea is the idea of having a Flying-type Mightyena via Terastallization, only for that to be shot down as he learns that the Poochyena line can't be found in Paldea. He eventually gets that wish in the DLC-based sequel episode.
• Underestimating Badassery: When the Team Sky leader meets Steven Stone in Emerald and Omega Ruby, he assumes he's just some random nepo baby, given that his appearances in Emerald (Team Sky's home universe) are sporadic and don't give any indication of his battling prowess. This persists until he gets to Omega Ruby's League, at which point he realises that Steven is the Champion in this universe, at which point he immediately realises how strong the guy is.
• Willing Suspension of Disbelief: He notes up-front in his video on how dangerous each gym is that he's ignoring a) the presence of Pokémon within them, and b) teleportation pads and arrow tiles, which he just assumes must be as safe as anything else in an office, as you literally find the former in the Silph Co. HQ, and the latter in the Team Rocket hideout.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Team Sky!Mikey dreads dealing with Ice, Electric, and Rock types, especially if he has any team members that are quadruple weak to any of those types. More often than not, he’ll be stuck dealing with Rock types as the first gym and not have any valuable team members to clear the gym.
• Would Hurt a Child: Implied in "Pokémon Violet, but I'm Team Sky 2"; Team Night Sky Michael mentions that one of the outcomes to his plan was to have Kieran capture Terapagos and then take it from him by force, implying that he would have been willing to harm Kieran if he didn't give up what he wanted. This is in stark contrast to the regular Team Sky leader, who refuses to even recruit children to his team, far less harm them.