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Megatokyo

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Megatokyo is an online doujinshi drawn by Fred Gallagher (a.k.a. "Piro"). Gallagher does the artwork, story, and site design. Rodney Caston (a.k.a. "Largo"), helped with the first year or so of the story, but now it is entirely Gallagher's strip. Gallagher was laid off from his day job in late 2002, and so he is doing the strip full-time now. Megatokyo follows the story of two Americans, Piro and Largo, who wind up in Tokyo, Japan after an incident at E3. 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 (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 as well as in the book published by I.C. Entertainment (formerly IronCat). However due to a breakdown in talks between Megatokyo and I.C. Entertainment, future books, including reprinting of Volume One, will be handled by Dark Horse Comics with ISBN 1-59307-163-9 and ISBN 1-59307-118-3. The strip is sometimes the target of criticisms on the Internet. Some dislike Megatokyo's artwork, which resembles Japanese manga without, critics claim, completely recreating the usual Japanese style. Some also dislike its storytelling style: Piro prefers long story arcs to immediate punchlines, which some people expect to find in comic strips. Finally, some allege that the fictional Japan in Megatokyo does not resemble real-life Japan, the author having spent only a few weeks living in the country. Supporters counter that Megatokyo is meant to recreate the worlds of anime and manga, not provide a perfectly realistic depiction of the country.

Table of contents
1 Characters
2 Origin of Name
3 Basic Plot Beginnings
4 External Links
5 See also

Characters

Note that the surname is written before the given name in Japan.
  • Piro - American manga (especially shojo) freak, who can speak Japanese. He is an amazing artist, yet refuses to believe this. Currently employed as a clerk/mascot in MegaGamers, a retail store. Piro is the comic incarnation of Fred Gallagher.\n* Largo - American computer games freak, usually acts before (or instead of) thinking, obsessed with beer. Can speak leet, 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 incarnation of Rodney Caston.\n* Tsubasa - A friend of Piro's from the internet, Piro and Largo bunk with him when they wind up in Japan. Now "following his heart" in America. Left Ping-chan to Piro and Largo.\n* Ed - Sony employee, Dom's best friend and rival.\n* 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 incarnation of Dominic Nguyen, who currently works for Wired Magazine.\n* Sonoda Yuki - 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.\n* Hayasaka Erika - Japanese girl, Kimiko's roommate, a former idol singer and voice actress (seiyuu). Works as a clerk/mascot at MegaGamers alongside Piro.\n* Nanasawa Kimiko - Japanese girl, Erika's roommate, a waitress in Anna Miller's, an aspiring voice actress (seiyuu).\n* Ping-chan - PS2 accessory robot-girl. A non-H (implied: non-hentai; platonic love only) 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. \n* Tohya Miho - Not much is known about her. She is currently a friend of Ping, but is quite 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 used to make the video game Daikatana.\n* Seraphim - A shoulder angel, taking the role of Piro's conscience, struggling to keep Piro on the straight and narrow when it comes to romantic attachments. Comic incarnation of Sarah, Fred's wife. Has a penchant for fine clothes, and loves cats almost as much as they love the taste of her. \n* 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 he cannot speak, but only squeek (occasionally in l33t). A reference to the Boo character from Baldur's Gate, Minsc's 'Miniature Giant Space Hamster'.\n* Asmodeus - Piro's not-conscience, from that 'other agency'. He tries to make Piro fall in love with Junior-high-school-age girls and whatnot. His partner is a winged cat named Belphegor.\n* Junpei - Ninja, and Largo's apprentice. We first meet him when they arrive in Japan, Largo has no passport. In order to get into Japan, Largo had to beat Junpei in mortal combat. Largo, being unsurpassable in all matters electronic, easily won the contest of Mortal Kombat.\n* Junko - A schoolgirl in Largo's class, she is usually the one who has something to say when Largo does something outrageous in his class. She is currently helping defray the fanboy horde situation. Formerly known as the Angry Schoolgirl.

Groups and Minor Characters

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 (E3). E3, only open to the media, refuses to allow them entry. Largo gets piss-drunk and pantsless in a bar, insulting the con. He wakes up on an airplane. Piro, after the events, decided they should get out of the country for a bit. He buys two one-way tickets to Japan. After arriving in Japan, they find a game store, and walk out with all sorts of games and electronic gadgets (including Largo's infamous Cool Thing). They head to an airport, only to find their credit cards maxed. They are now stuck in Japan.

External Links

\n* The Megatokyo website\n* Reader's Guide to MegaTokyo, lots of information on Megatokyo plot and characters\n* MegaTokyo Fan Network, a fan site (taken down due to the owner losing interest in Megatokyo, but the forums are still online)\n* I.C. Entertainment, former book publisher of Megatokyo\n* Dark Horse Comics, current book publisher of Megatokyo\n* Fredart, other art by Fred Gallagher.

Translations

\n* German\n* Spanish #1 (stopped at strip 85)\n* Spanish #2\n* Italian\n* French\n* Finnish\n* Serbian\n* Portuguese (Brazil)\n* Interlingua

See also

\n*Online comics\n*leet\n*Megatokyo forums \n\n\n\n Category:Web comics\nCategory:Megatokyo

"If you can't get rid of the skeleton in your closet, you'd best teach it to dance." - George Bernard Shaw (1856-1950)