SiIvaGunner is easily my favorite YouTube channel, and it’s nowhere near close. What seems to just be a troll channel made to bait people has a shocking amount of effort put into it, far beyond just the excellent rips (seriously, “i love(d) you” / Subwoofer Lullaby - Minecraft might be in my top 25 pieces of music ever). There’s events, there’s great art, and there’s a shocking amount of lore for this goofy little channel.

Anyways, all of that is just preface for the main topic: holy fucking shit, this Halloween event is everything I’ve ever wanted. I just cried at fucking CRAZYBUS!!!

(Here’s the original CrazyBus theme, for reference)

So for more preface, in 2018, SiIvaGunner ran a tournament called King for a Day, where 16 fighters with their own themes would receive a bunch of arrangements of songs that fit into their sourcelist, and viewers would vote on a winner based on those remixes. The winner, (who would wind up being Unregistered Hypercam 2, a character based on early YouTube tropes) would then get to take over the channel for a day—but really, the takeover wasn’t that important, it was more about seeing more of the great arrangements.

In 2019, they would run King for Another Day, a sequel to the tournament with double the contestants as well as a losers bracket, making there be about four times the amount of matches and arrangements as its predecessor. On top of that, there was also a blog (known as the Mojo) made to “report” on all of the characters in-universe, showing what they’re like, how they interact with others, what their motivations are, etc. I still think this might be one of the coolest Internet things ever, purely because of the sheer scale and talent put into it.

Practically every character is great, which is insanely impressive for a cast this size—I think that each and every one of them has at least something going for them, whether it be in their arrangements or on the Mojo. My favorite of them, however, is the fourth place winner MissingNo. Oh my GOD, I love MissingNo, I would die for it.

The official art of MissingNo from SiIvaGunner: King For Another Day, created by ackrostation.

look at this cutie patootie!!

First off, its source list is glitches/buggy games, Creepypasta, unused content, and IDM. I love all of these things!!! I’ve always found glitches and unused stuff super interesting, Creepypastas are a lot of fun (and have a ton of good music), and IDM is a pretty bangin’ genre. So just based on that, this thing rules.

And then the actual arrangements are great too! Several of these have actually entered my rotation: ‘M ‘s Theme, merciful, Elegy of ZZAZZ, Meeting With A Terrible Fate, You’re Too Slow, Dark Pixel—there are too many bangers!!!!!! And then it winds up being my favorite contestant on the Mojo too!

Mmmokay. So, I love tragic characters, and I think interpreting MissingNo to fit that is a super sick concept. Because in Pokemon Red and Blue, where it’s originally from, encountering MissingNo is sort of comparable to making a deal with the devil—you get 128 of whatever item you have in the sixth slot, but your Hall of Fame data is forever corrupted. Interpreting MissingNo to not be intentionally doing this, instead actively trying not to all the time, is a really interesting way to portray it.

I think that “scary thing that doesn’t want to be scary” is such a perfect concept when it’s executed well. The sort of self-hatred that comes from that, oooough, it’s such a great narrative driving force. The way it awkwardly interacts with the other characters, trying its hardest to not corrupt them or freak them out when it’s in its nature to do so is a great trait to play with, and I think its arc of being taught how to have friends is really, really sweet.

I cannot believe they made me care so much about a literal computer error. Or, I mean, I guess I can, I played OneShot. Which, hey, speaking of, MissingNo. even has a remix of a OneShot track! A scrapped one, at least. It turns out it’s also my favorite arrangement of MissingNo’s!

So after the tourney ended, the team announced that the semi-finalists—MissingNo. and Law and Disorder, the duo of Phoenix Wright and Monokuma—would be receiving consolation prizes for their performance in the form of playable games!

Two years later, they were canceled. Bummer. So people had been hoping for some sort of event relating to them after that, and that eventually happened! Earlier this year, Law and Disorder got Lethal Proceedings, a three-day event with an overarching story, 150 rips, and MONOKUMA SKATEBOARDING HELL YEAH!!!!

A screenshot of a modded version of Jet Set Radio with Monokuma as a playable character.

Most people then assumed the Halloween event for this year would be MissingNo related. They weren’t wrong! But OH MY GOD this event has been so much better than my MissingNo. loving head would've ever thought.

So, we’ve got

Oh yeah, and the event has been two weeks long oh my GOD DUDE

This is the event I have been dreaming about for years. This is so peak. There’s been so many great rips, dude, I’m so obsessed.

I’m gonna ramble about that CrazyBus rip that made me cry now, since I really really wanna talk about it.

Oh my god, I think this might be one of my favorite rips on the channel. It genuinely says so much about MissingNo without needing to say anything. CrazyBus is a game with some importance to MissingNo, as its last rip before elimination in KFAD2 was an arrangement of its title theme. What was once a cacophony of screeching, dissonant pitches, gains its composure in order to wistfully play "A Quick One Before the Eternal Worm Devours Connecticut" by Have a Nice Life. The track gains new instruments as it progresses: a second channel at 1:00, harmonizing with the main melody; at 1:30, a drone-like instrument joins in, floating in and out wistfully like a choir belting their lungs out. The second channel taps into the higher ends of its pitches, just a tad gratingly, but still melodic and tastefully. But it cracks—the higher frequencies become more and more common, the notes becoming less and less on key, eventually losing that original melody, the song crumbling and decaying, regressing back to what it was before—ear-grating, dissonant chaos that goes universally shunned.

I cannot believe this channel made me analyse a CrazyBus remix from the perspective of a block of buggy code.

As I’m writing this, there is currently a premiere set for 15 minutes from now, presumably announcing an end to the event and an album release.

I am so glad we got a MissingNo event. It was everything I ever wanted from one.

Addendum: The premiere ended. Um. Holy shit. I have so many thoughts, but oh my God, I think that might have cemented this as my favorite event on the channel. I think I'll need to make that it's own post at some point. I need to process that. I love MissingNo and the SiIva team so much. That's all for now!