Megatokyo

   

A strip depicting Piro, Largo, Sonoda and Nanasawa, published on October 8, 2004.
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A strip depicting Piro, Largo, Sonoda and Nanasawa, published on October 8, 2004.

Megatokyo is an online manga drawn by Fred Gallagher (a.k.a. "Piro"). Gallagher does the artwork, story, and site design. Rodney Caston (a.k.a. "Largo"), wrote the scripts for the first year or so of the story (Fred Gallagher edited them), but now it is entirely Gallagher's strip. Gallagher was laid off from his day job in late 2002, and as of 2004 he does the strip full-time. The comic began on August 14, 2000.

The comic arguably popularized l33t to the mainstream of the Internet.

Spoiler warning: Plot or ending details follow.

Megatokyo follows the story of two Americans, Piro and Largo (mostly not based on the real-life Piro and Largo), who wind up in Tokyo, Japan after an incident at Eł. Much of the early humour is based on video game humor and inside jokes, as well as culture-clash issues, although the style has changed somewhat over time and now features aspects from a great number of different anime and manga archetypes: whilst Largo fights off the threats from zombie hordes via his Beowulf cluster, with an angelic Boo (a hamster of Baldur's Gate fame) trying to moderate his somewhat excessive behaviour, Piro's life has become similar to a dating-sim, with Seraphim (modelled on the author's girlfriend, and now wife) chastising him from upon his shoulder for his incidental run-ins with young women. Also residing in the house is Ping, a confused robotic PlayStation 2 accessory capable of becoming someone's dream girlfriend - or throwing buses if enraged.

All strips are available free of charge from megatokyo.com (http://www.megatokyo.com/) as well as in the books published by Dark Horse Comics with ISBN 1-59307-163-9 and ISBN 1-59307-118-3. (At one point I.C. Entertainment (formerly IronCat) produced a book collecting the strips now included in Volume One. However due to a breakdown in talks between Megatokyo and I.C. Entertainment, Dark Horse Comics is now publishing the collections.)

Criticism and Commentary

Megatokyo has been subject to substantial -- some claim unwarranted -- criticism. Some of this criticism no doubt stems from Megatokyo's lasting popularity, but there has been much legitimate critical discourse as well. Some critics dislike Megatokyo's artwork, which has changed over the years from a traditional American four panel comic strip to a page-per-strip graphic novel in the manga form. Critics also dislike its storytelling style, which moves extremely slowly, with a large supporting cast (and little exposition or on-site aids for keeping them straight) and, allegedly, no clear direction for the plot. This perception is perhaps exaggerated by the often erratic schedule of updates and filler art days the strip has featured in the past, making the slow pace seem even slower.

Megatokyo's supporters feel the more sophisticated storytelling and slow pace constitute an artistic vision on Fred Gallagher's part, citing source material including anime, manga, and the various Japanese dating sims that Gallagher has chosen to emulate and, in some cases, satirize. Further, while Megatokyo's style has changed from the four-panel form to a mangaesque one, that seems to have been a natural artistic evolution in Gallagher's style -- and if it has been criticized by some, it has been embraced by many others.

Artistically, Megatokyo is often lauded for its intricate pencilwork (the strip is done entirely in grayscale, without either digital or physical 'inking,' giving it a more nuanced appearance) and inspired, almost ethereal character design. Gallagher has been criticized for a perceived uniformity of appearance among his characters, particularly his female characters' faces, though this often is overstated, particularly given the care taken in costuming choices, hair and other design elements, and the noted "big eyes, small mouth" style of some manga which Gallagher is clearly emulating.

Many critics argue that Megatokyo was better when Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston co-wrote it. In those early days, the strip was known for a frenetic sense of humor, with a greater emphasis on slapstick, video game humor and per-strip punchlines. In the years since Caston left, Megatokyo has evolved into a far more story-oriented piece, with humor more an element of the whole than the main point.

Finally, some critics complain that the fictional Japan in Megatokyo does not resemble real-life Japan, the author having spent only a few weeks actually living there. Supporters counter that Megatokyo is meant to recreate the worlds of anime and manga, not to provide perfectly realistic depictions.

Characters

In Megatokyo, Japanese names are written in Western order, with the surname after the given name.

  • Piro - American manga (especially shoujo) freak who can speak Japanese. He is an amazing artist, yet refuses to believe this. He is currently employed as a clerk/mascot in MegaGamers, a retail store. Piro is the comic's incarnation of Fred Gallagher.
  • Largo - American computer games freak who usually acts before (or instead of) thinking and is obsessed with beer. He can speak L33t, but not Japanese. He gets a job as an English teacher at Shiritsu Daitou High School, becoming 'Great Teacher Largo' (reference to the anime/manga GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka). Largo is the comic's incarnation of Rodney Caston, former Megatokyo co-writer.
  • Tsubasa - A friend of Piro's from the internet, Piro and Largo bunk with him when they wind up in Japan. Later, he leaves Japan to "follow his heart" in America. He leaves Ping in the care of Piro and Largo. Tsubasa is a comic's incarnation Keishi Tada, Fred Gallagher's friend and primary consultant on all things Japanese. He writes the Japanese translation of Megatokyo
  • Ed - Sony employee, Dom's best friend and rival. Like Dom, he seems to have an unlimited supply of guns and a trigger-happy personality to match. After an encounter with Ping, he undewent a plastic surgery that turned him into a bishonen. His real life equivalent is Edmund Balan, Fred Gallagher's associate.
  • Dom - Sega employee, Ed's best friend and rival. Gun crazed and competitive to boot. Also known as SGD, Shirt (or Stick) Guy Dom. His real life equivalent does stick-figure guest strips when Piro is unavailable. Dom is the comic's incarnation of Dominic Nguyen, who currently works for Konami as a game or localization tester.
  • Yuki Sonoda - Japanese girl, High school student, daughter of the Tokyo police chief. Theoretically taking art lessons from Piro, but, in practice, something always gets in the way.
  • Erika Hayasaka (早坂 えりか Hayasaka Erika) - Japanese girl, Kimiko's roommate, a former idol (singer) and voice actress (seiyū). Works as a clerk/mascot at MegaGamers alongside Piro.
  • Kimiko Nanasawa (七澤 美子 Nanasawa Kimiko) - Japanese girl, Erika's roommate, a waitress in Anna Miller's, an aspiring voice actress (seiyū).
  • Ping-chan - PS2 accessory robot-girl. A non-H (implied: non-hentai; platonic love only - In actual Japanese "H" is not the same thing as "hentai") test model of the new Sony-EDS (Emotional Doll System), that fell into Tsubasa's hands somehow. She is designed to be used with dating sims, and after playing them she develops her own personality, based on choices in the games. Ping is only a beta version, however, and she does not deal with rejection well (and posesses great strength when angry).
  • Miho Tohya - Not much is known about her. She is a friend of Ping, but is a little creepy. Largo believes that she is in command of an army of Zombies, powered by the Necrowombicon, an ancient evil book found in the sewers and used to make the video game Daikatana. Miho is drawn to resemble a gosurori (a Japanese interpertation of Goth subculture), and is often described as "darkly cute."
  • Seraphim - A miniature angel who takes the role of Piro's conscience, struggling to keep Piro on the straight and narrow when it comes to romantic attachments. Seraphim is the comic incarnation of Sarah Wooden, Gallagher's wife, who has a penchant for fine clothes, and loves cats almost as much as they love the taste of her.
  • Boo - A small angelic hamster with strap-on wings, assigned to the role of Largo's conscience, a clearly impossible task, made only harder by the fact that Boo cannot speak, but only squeak (occasionally in L33t). A reference to the Boo character from Baldur's Gate, Minsc's 'Miniature Giant Space Hamster'.
  • Asmodeus - Piro's anti-conscience, from that 'other agency'. He tries to make Piro fall in love with Junior-high-school-age girls and to prevent Seraphim from sucessfully influencing Piro. His partner is a vicious winged cat named Belphegor. He is a comic incarnation of Ken Hashimoto, one of Megatokyo forum's administrators.
  • Junpei - The L33t Ninja, Largo's apprentice. He is introduced when Piro and Largo arrive in Japan, and Largo has no passport. Customs tells Largo that, in order to get into Japan, he must defeat Junpei in mortal combat. Largo, being unsurpassable in all matters electronic, easily wins the contest by defeating Junpei in a match on the Mortal Kombat arcade game.

Groups and minor characters

  • Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division - A division of the Tokyo police force that pilots mecha to stop giant monsters and other threats from rampaging through the city. Yuki's father, Masamichi Sonoda, is an oft-encountered employee of the Cataclysm Division. After using Ping-chan to soundly defeat an alcoholic turtle of unusual size, Largo became a TPCD agent.
  • Yuuji Sonoda - Yuki's brother, a member of the Erika Hayasaka Fan Club.
  • Erika Hayasaka Fan Club - A number of people obsessed with Erika Hayasaka, or at least her former persona as an idol (singer) and voice actress (seiyū). The club rediscovers her whereabouts during the comic's story, long after her sudden (and complete) disappearance from the public eye.
  • Rent-a-Zilla - Massive lizard hired by Junpei on occasion, paid in pork rinds.
  • Zombies - Usually ravers; Largo is bent on destroying this undead horde.
  • John Romero - The once-great game designer of games, such as Doom and Quake. He formed the game development house Ion Storm, infamous for making Daikatana (a notable flop of a game after great hype), and after that he was promptly fired. Now he's broke and jobless.
  • L33T D00D - Strange raver type dude that appears whenever Largo must face the Z0/\/\B13 |-|04RD35 (zombie hordes; Tohya and Ping) in c0mb47 (combat; arcade games) and advises him in L33t which is invariably translated into erudite language (i.e. "1'm4 0wnz0r j00" becomes "I shall defeat thee"). He owes Largo a debt of gratitude for saving his life (see this strip (http://www.megatokyo.com/index.php?strip_id=9)).
  • Asako and Mami - High school students and friends of Yuki's. They think she has a crush on Piro, and they may be right.
  • Junko - The "angry schoolgirl" in Largo's class, she is usually the one who has something to say when Largo does something outrageous in his role as "teacher." She helps Largo disperse the fanboy horde that threatens Erika.

Origin of name

Tokyo of the future in Japanese animation (see anime and manga) is often referred to as 'Megatokyo' or 'Neo-Tokyo'. In many of these stories, the city has been destroyed by natural disaster or nuclear war, but then re-built bigger and better than ever. See features like Bubblegum Crisis, AD Police, and Akira for more. The name was given to the comic purely because it was a spare domain name that Largo had lying around. Largo originally set the site up as an anime news site running Slashcode, but it failed and was eventually replaced with the comic.

Basic plot beginnings

Piro and Largo start the story by trying to get into the Electronic Entertainment Expo (Eł). Eł, only open to the media, refuses to allow them entry. Largo gets heavily drunk and nude in a bar, insulting the entire con. He wakes up on an airplane. Piro, after the events, had decided that they should get out of the country for a bit, buying two one-way tickets to Japan. After arriving in Japan, Piro and Largo find a game store, and purchase all sorts of games and electronic gadgets (including Largo's infamous "Cool Thing"). They then return to the airport, only to find their credit cards are maxed out. They are now stuck in Japan.

Forums

The Megatokyo forums (forums.megatokyo.com) are the Internet forums for the popular web comic Megatokyo. Launched on September 29th, 2000 in their present incarnation, they have become quite popular, with almost 40,000 registered members. Although owned by Fred Gallagher, the comic's creator, the forums are mostly administrated by Cortana, Fred's personal friend. An expansive team of moderators also assists in forum management. Several mods, such as Char, have become known in the Internet at large due to the forums' popularity. The forums, particularly Central, have spawned numerous sub-communities. An Internet Relay Chat channel for the Megatokyo forums also exists, which is #forum-m at Freenode.

Megatokyo Central

Originally begun as a forum for general discussion of the comic, this forum eventually became the home of miscellaneous threads (some would say spam) that do not belong in any other forum. This included threads pertaining to the sciences and politics until the creation of the Hard Questions Room and Party System forum for these respective topics. Central is famous for its often brutal treatment of newbies as well as for witty posters too numerous to mention. This forum is moderated by the three Super Mods, Char, Yagami, and omoikane, as well as CrackPr0n-EET, Largo, and wombat74, who is also a moderator of #megatokyo, the comic's official Internet Relay Chat channel, which is located on Aniverse.

Newbies in this forum would do well to remember not to create "I love Char" threads or introduction threads, as they are unneeded spam and Char is considerably less female than his avatar may suggest. Users would also be advised to read the FAQs in this forum and others to help create an atmosphere of more intelligent communications.

Story Discussions

This forum is dedicated to discussion of the Megatokyo comic's plot, characters, and related things, as well as fan art. Mr. Gallagher begins a thread here for each new comic that is posted. This forum is moderated by Yagami and omoikane as well as Asmodeus, another of Fred's personal friends and a character in the comic.

The Music Forum

All things pertaining to music and musicians belong here. This includes critiques of new songs as well as requests for help from aspiring music artists. Seawaffle, one of the newer mods, watches this forum, along with Cymbaline.

Party System

One of the two newest forums, this forum was created to provide a home for threads pertaining to sociology and politics. The forum's regular participants heralded the move of these topics from Central, which some of them view as vapid and unintelligent. Cymbaline and Lyynxx, two of the Forums' newest mods, are in charge. Cymbaline has been criticized by some for his harsh moderating practices on this board, while others argue that such measures are necessary to prevent the forum from becoming a flame war. However this forum does not appear to exist anymore possibly due to a lack of interest from forum members.

Art and Drawing

This forum exists for all artists to post their work as well as view and critique others' work and exchange tips. Pantmonger, Merekat, and kai moderate this forum.

Creative Writing

Like Art and Drawing, this forum exists for review of original work, although this work is in the written form. Any type of writing is welcome here, although poems are the most frequently posted. Dom, short for Dominic Nguyen, Fred's editor, was formerly the sole moderator after Tats, who also moderated The Music Forum, lost his modship. Tonic and Lyynxx, the Forums' two newest moderators, were given moderating powers in order to assist.

Gamer's Central

This forum, as the description states, is for "all things gameing (sic)." Video games from all consoles are discussed here, as well as computer games and collectible card games. Dom, Cymbaline, Char, and Largo moderate this forum. There is also an IRC channel for Gamer's Central, #mtgamers@irc.aniverse.net.

Tech Talk

Technological help is asked for and received in this forum. New developments in computers and operating systems are also discussed here. Recently, the forum has received heavy criticism from many who allege that it is heavily biased towards non-Microsoft software such as Mozilla Firefox and Linux. Magus, Largo, and Ukyo, the server administrator for ColoGuys, which hosts Megatokyo, moderate this forum.

Role Playing Games

This many-sided forum includes discussions of traditional tabletop role-playing games as well as threads where posters can participate in scenarios and games. Members of various factions dedicated to characters in the comic frequent this forum. Char, Dom, Natsuki, and Largo moderate this forum.

Hard Questions Room

Along with Party System, this forum was created to provide an alternative to Central for serious topics. Yomiko, one of the forums' most visible and controversial users, was heavily involved in lobbying for this forum's creation as well as in its early life, but she soon left to found Science or Die [1] (http://www.scienceordie.org), her own forums dedicated to the studies of science and technology. As of the moment, Science or Die is not in service and Yomiko has returned to the forums posting mostly in Central. Seawaffle moderates this forum in addition to The Music Forum.

Anime, Manga, and Cosplay

As the name suggests, this forum is dedicated to discussion of anime, manga, and cosplay. Many of the forums' users are fans of these things, since the comic is manga-styled. Oddly, discussions of cosplay on this forum usually end up as discussions of crossplay. This forum is also features the occasional "picture thread" where forum members post images of anime characters and japanese models(referred to as "Idols"). Asmodeus, Yagami, omoikane, and Cymbaline moderate here.

Dating Sims and Visual Novels

This forum is dedicated to Japanese dating sims and visual novels. Although many people deride these things as replacements for interaction with real females, the users of this forum disagree. Yagami, Asmodeus, and tsubasa moderate this forum.

No Save Points

Serious (and occasionally non-serious) discussion of posters' real lives goes in this forum. The name is derived from one of the Megatokyo comics, in which the main character, Piro, remarks that life is like an RPG "without save points." The topics on this forum are often controversial. Natsuki and Char moderate this forum. CrackPr0n-EET was recently re-modded here as well as in Central, a move that has generated some controversy.

No Save Points, like its predecessor, "Ask Shoujo Manga," has a reputation of being full of angsty teenagers with boy/girlfriend troubles. While addressing this was the original (and some say primary) purpose of the creation of this forum, there have been several attempts at steering the topics of conversation from typical angst and towards higher goals, such as philosophical conversations and topics which try to focus upon the problem and not the individual experiencing it.

Ask Shoujo Manga

Like No Save Points, this forum's title is also based upon the Megatokyo comic; in this case, it stems from Piro's habit of reading shoujo manga for answers to life's questions. The forum is now closed for posting, but is kept for archive purposes. It was originally titled "Ask Dr. Natsuki," referring to its moderator, but the name was changed due to her inactivity.

Notable threads

The Megatokyo Forums, as any large forums are bound to do, have spawned numerous topics that have become known around the Internet. In particular is the "Neko Neko Wai" thread. [2] (http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/r/w/rwa118/mtstuff/nnw/) A spam topic grown horribly out of control, the thread's title has entered Internet lexicon as a phrase denoting something silly or ridiculous. While later threads have surpassed the length of NNW, there were a significantly lower number of users back when the great spam thread was active. The Ode to Char (http://forums.megatokyo.com/index.php?showtopic=1669719) thread is another memorable thread, growing to over thirty pages in length in mere hours. Less notable was the Kelet Invasion, which involved numerous posts of pictures involving this Internet fad. For almost a year now the Kelet has remained in hiding, but rumors persist that it will return.

Another notable forum happening is the magical girl incident. Back when the forums were still using UBB.threads, any of the mods could give out custom titles to users. This lead to much groveling and begging for titles up to the point where it got the attention of Fred. He wiped every single custom title from the database and set things up so that anyone with over 1000 posts got the title of "magical girl". It did not take very long for the forum population to take note of this. [3] (http://forums.megatokyo.com/index.php?showtopic=742029) Eventually, all the titles were restored to normal, and a rule that only forum staff and those chosen by them could have a custom title was put into place. Much later, the top user post rank, which is for users with over 10,000 posts, was changed to '"Magical Girl".

On September 19th, 2004, Megatokyo Central's local inhabitants donned their tri-cornered hats and eyepatches to celebrate International Talk Like a Pirate Day. The thread, entitled, "Piratey Fun! (http://forums.megatokyo.com/index.php?showtopic=1684388)", grew to an astounding 50 pages (over 1200 replies) in a mere 24 hours. This broke the record set by the infamous "Ode to Char" thread. Rum, songs, and pillaging were enjoyed by all during the holiday. One unique feature about this thread was the fact that it stayed on topic the entire time, a thing rarely seen in the Megatokyo forums.

The Clans

The clans are an integral part of some areas of the forum, predominately the Story Discussion forum. Forum members join together under the banner of specific characters or items from the comic, attaching pictures to their signatures to signify their alleigance. Clans based in other forums, such as FWAP, are less numerous, and often less serious.

See also

External links

Translations

de:Megatokyo es:Megatokyo fr:Megatokyo ia:Megatokyo it:MegaTokyo pt:Megatokyo



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