PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER!

Overview

PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER! is an animated martial arts and anime parody video created and directed by artist Speedoru and released on Newgrounds and YouTube in July 2023. The animation, which is presented as a found piece of lost media, became one of the artist's most popular videos over the following months, inspiring fan art and content. The video was purportedly, according to Speedoru, shadowbanned by YouTube after it was uploaded.

History

On July 15th, 2023, Speedoru uploaded an animation titled PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER! on both his Newgrounds^[1] and YouTube^[2] accounts, garnering over 333,000 views on the former and 5 million on the latter in 10 months (shown below).

The video is jokingly described as a piece of lost media found on a VHS tape discovered in the creator's dad's basement. The video parodies retro shonen anime visuals and narrative tropes in a crass style typical of Newgrounds animations. It follows the young martial artist Gogo Matsumoto as she enters a fighting tournament in which humans compete against demons, with the winner having their wish granted by the Demon Warlord.

Online Presence

The video and its characters garnered significant online popularity over the following months and became the subject of fan art on social media, particularly on Newgrounds^[3][4] and X / Twitter^[5] (examples shown below).

On July 29th, 2023, Dovendraw published a documentary about the animation to his YouTube^[6] channel, garnering over 380,000 views in 10 months (shown below): The video, titled "The Cartoon Youtube Tried to Ban," features an interview with Speedoru and documents the thought process and work that led to the creation of PUNCH PUNCH FOREVER!, as well as the purported shadowban it experienced on YouTube from July 20th to 24th, 2023. In the interview, it is confirmed that Speedoru intends to extend the setting of the video to a full-fledged animated series.

External References