Megatokyo

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Template:Infobox Webcomic</ref> | ended = | genre = Comedy/Drama/Action/Romance | ratings = }}

For other uses, see Megatokyo (disambiguation).

Megatokyo is a popular webcomic originally created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, and now solely written and illustrated by Gallagher. It is written and drawn in a manga-influenced style. The comic was started on August 14 2000<ref name="Start"/>. Megatokyo's contents and comic strip on the website are available completely free. The contents are generally updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Unofficial translations into other languages are available elsewhere on the web.

Megatokyo centers around Piro, a man in his twenties who is obsessed with manga and anime; his friend Largo, a gaming enthusiast; and their adventures in a fantastical imagining of the city of Tokyo, Japan.

Megatokyo took its name from its Internet domain, which had hosted a short-lived news site of Caston's before the start of the comic. The news site in turn took its name from the city in the Bubblegum Crisis anime series. Megatokyo frequently uses "L33t speak", and some argue that the comic helped to introduce that style to a more mainstream audience.

Contents

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Plot

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Image:Megatokyo - 0619.png

Megatokyo follows the story of two Americans, Piro and Largo, who are stuck in Tokyo and are unable to get home. The two protagonists are based on Megatokyo's two creators (or their online personas), but are fictional characters with lives of their own. Piro, as an otaku, is a shy and somewhat under-confident person who cherishes Japanese pop culture including manga, anime and dating sim games. Largo, the more extroverted of the pair, is obsessed with computers and gaming; somewhat unable to distinguish between the fictional and the real world, he sees elements from his games in everything around him like a modern day Don Quixote.

The two arrive in Tokyo after an incident at the E³ gaming exposition and find themselves with no money to buy plane tickets home. After living for awhile in the apartment of a Japanese friend of Piro's, they are eventually forced to make an independent living in Japan. Piro finds work at a store called "Megagamers" that specializes in selling anime, manga and video games, while Largo takes on somewhat irregular jobs with the "Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division" and as an English teacher at a local high school.

Megatokyo's pace and style indirectly correspond to the history of the comic itself. Much of the early humor consists of video game culture jokes, as well as culture-clash issues. During this early phase, the story moved along at a haphazard pace and was often interrupted by pure gag episodes and "dead piro" days. This has changed somewhat, however, with the greatest changes occurring after Gallagher completely took over Megatokyo - most prominently: slower pacing, increased detail of character personalities and a larger focus on romances between characters.

The comic features aspects from a number of different anime and manga archetypes, usually making light of the genre's various clichés: Junpei, a ninja who takes on Largo as his "l33t master"; giant saurians (such as "Rent-A-Zilla") roaming the streets; the "Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division", which fights the monsters with giant robots and oversees the orderly and periodic destruction and reconstruction of predesignated areas of the city; Ping, a cute robot girl who becomes friends with Piro; and a school girl, Sonoda Yuki, who possibly is in love with Piro and has just started taking art lessons from him. Largo somehow manages to become an English teacher at a high school and teaches them about l337, games and hacking. Dom and Ed (real-life friends of Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston) play characters associated with the Japanese stereotype that all Americans are armed to the teeth. Hayasaka Erika is a former idol, singer and voice actress, while her roommate, Nanasawa Kimiko, is aspiring to the same career. One of the more mysterious characters is Tohya Miho; she befriends Ping and seems to enjoy psychologically toying with others.

Megatokyo is divided into chapters, each consisting of approximately 100 pages. Chapter 0, which subsumes all of the comic's early experimental phase, covers a comic time span of about six weeks. Each of the subsequent chapters chronicles the events of a single day. The seventh chapter, Known Bugs and Security Flaws (#743), started August 2005.

Usually, characters in Megatokyo speak Japanese, although some speak English or l33t (subtitled). Under most circumstances, when a character is speaking in Japanese, it is signified by surrounding the English text with angle brackets. Not every character speaks every language, so occasionally characters are unable to understand one another; in several scenes, a character's speech is written entirely in rōmaji Japanese to emphasize this. Largo, for instance, speaks no Japanese at all, and thus cannot converse with some of the characters without the help of an interpreter. Template:Endspoiler

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Chapters

  • Ch 0 - "Relax, we understand j00"; 1 - 129
  • Ch 1 - "Do you want to save before you quit?"; 134 - 192
  • Ch 2 - "things change little by little.."; 196 - 301
  • Ch 3 - "Am I Your Number One Fan?"; 307 - 397
  • Ch 4 - "Low Ping Rate"; 402 - 514
  • Ch 5 - "Color Depth"; 526 - 633
  • Ch 6 - "Operational Insecurity"; 639 - 729
  • Ch 7 - "Known Bugs & Security Flaws"; 743 - Current

The gaps in the strip number indicate omake manga or other nonplot related strips. Chapter 0 was not given a title in the web version but the book version retroactively gave it the above title.

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Major characters

Template:Main

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.
  • Piro- The protagonist and the comic version of Fred Gallagher. He is a fairly skilled artist who speaks fluent Japanese, and is constantly doubting and deprecating himself.
  • Largo- The second protagonist in Megatokyo and is the comic version of Rodney Caston. He is a technically gifted gamer who is fluent in l33t. Piro brings him to Japan after he gets drunk at E3.
  • Hayasaka Erika- A former idol (singer) and voice actress. She works at Megagamers, a small store that sells games, anime and music, among other things.
  • Nanasawa Kimiko- Erika's roommate. She is an aspiring voice actress and is soft spoken, introspective, and shy. She works at an Anna Miller's restauraunt.
  • Ping- A robot PlayStation 2 accessory built by Sony. She desires to make people happy but often misinterprets emotions and situations. Her best friend is Tohya Miho.
  • Tohya Miho- A manipulative and enigmatic goth girl. She is fluent in both English and Japanese and enjoys toying with both Largo and Piro. She later befriends Ping, and to a lesser extent Yuki.
  • Seraphim- Piro's "conscience enforcement agent" and the comic version of Fred Gallagher's wife, Sarah.
  • Boo- A hamster with strap-on wings. Is currently assigned to Largo as a temporary conscience.
  • Dom- An employee of Sega's Black Ops, with whom his method of gaining employment was rather suspect. He is the Megatokyo-world avatar of writer Dominic Nguyen, who is responsible for the infamous Shirt Guy Dom stick-figure comics which periodically appear as stand-ins.
  • Ed- An employee of Sony's Enforcement Division, Ed's prime objective in Tokyo is the neutralization of the Playstation 2 accessory, Ping, by any means necessary. Ed is the Megatokyo-world avatar of Edmund Balan, an associate of Fred Gallagher.
  • Asmodeus- Piro's anti-conscience, who attempts to undo everything that Seraphim has tried to instill in Piro. He is the comic version of Ken Hashimoto, one of the Megatokyo Forum admistrators, and handler of Megatokyo's translations.
  • Junpei- A ninja who fought Largo in Mortal Kombat because Largo had no passport. He later apprentices himself to Largo in order to learn his "l33t ways".
  • Sonoda Yuki- A 15 year old high school student. Early in the series, she comes upon Piro's sketch book, and comes to have a small infatuation with Piro and the way he draws.

Template:Endspoiler Template:Megatokyo

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Books

Image:Megatokyo vol1 1st edition.jpg Image:Megatokyo vol2.jpg Image:Megatokyo vol3.jpg Image:Megatokyo vol 4.jpg
Covers of Megatokyo books 1 (1st edition), 2, 3 and 4.

Megatokyo comics are now published by DC Comics under their CMX Manga imprint.<ref name="CMX_announcement">Template:Cite web</ref> Currently, volumes 1-3 are available through Dark Horse Comics. As of February 9 2006, three volumes are available for purchase. At one point Studio Ironcat published a book compilation of strips that are now included in Volume One. Gallagher and Ironcat were unable to come to an agreement on further volumes, and so Dark Horse Comics was the publisher of choice for Megatokyo volumes 1-3. The Megatokyo books have also been translated into German, Italian, and Polish.

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Sales

As of July 2004, Megatokyo is the tenth best-selling manga property in the U.S.<ref name="ICV2july2004">Template:Cite web</ref> Volume 3's highest ranking in bookscan is 3 ending February 20 2005.<ref name="ICV2march2005">Template:Cite web</ref> This makes it the best selling American manga.

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Reception

Megatokyo has been subject to much analysis from webcomic fans. Some critics dislike its slow pace and apparent lack of clear direction or resolution for the many plot threads that run through the Megatokyo story.<ref name="Websnark">Template:Cite web</ref> This perception is exacerbated by the often-erratic update schedule; In order to prevent the front-page content from appearing too stagnant, Gallagher has occasionally resorted to "filler-art days" and strips by other authors and artists that contain no continuity with any storylines. The complaints about the speed of updates have even prompted Gallagher to install an update progress bar for readers waiting for the next installment.

As a story-oriented comic, Megatokyo has a large supporting cast, as well as several storylines at any given point in time. However, there are no on-site aids for the uninitiated, confused, or forgetful; the Megatokyo website has had story and cast pages which have been "under construction" for several years. A number of fans have created their own resource sites, including plot guides and character pages, indicating a need for such resources.

In addition, much of Megatokyo's humor and appeal requires several different types of knowledge to be understood, and thus the comic can be hard to approach by those unaquainted with such things. However, an article in The New York Times noted that, although Gallagher and Caston did not want Megatokyo to rely on obscure knowledge, it couldn't be helped:

"Their work sits at the intersection of several streams of obscure knowledge: gaming and hacking; manga, from which Gallagher lovingly and virtuosically cribs the black-and-white manga style (large, dewy eyes, long soap-operatic story lines that entwine science fiction and teenage romance, and hairstyles of unlikely heft and spikiness); the boom in Web comics over the past few years; and comics themselves."<ref name="NYT">Template:Cite web</ref>

Professionally, Gallagher is now working full time on Megatokyo. He was one of the first webcomic artists to have the ability to profit from his hobby, but with this change the customary complaint about the speed of updates was renewed. With Gallagher's full-time status, the criticism is that updates should be more frequent than when Gallagher was only working on the comic part-time.

Artistically, Megatokyo is often praised for its intricate pencil work (done entirely in grayscale, without either digital or physical "inking,") and inspired character design.<ref name="Anime_News_Network">Template:Cite web</ref> Gallagher has been criticized for an uniformity of appearance and simple design of his characters, particularly with his female faces, which some say are identical, with hairstyle and attire as the only distinguishing features. <ref name="Websnark">Template:Cite web</ref> Conversely, it is noted that Gallagher takes great care in costuming choices, hair and other design elements. Template:Citation needed

Originally, the strip was known for a frenetic sense of humor, with a greater emphasis on slapstick, video game humor and gag-a-day format. In the years after Rodney Caston left, Megatokyo has evolved into a very different kind of webcomic, focusing less on the types of humor that defined it in the beginning, and more on the romantic relationships between characters - which, some argue, means that Megatokyo has become simply another traditional bishoujo series.<ref name="thecomicbookguy">Template:Cite web</ref> This has lead to a section of former fans feeling that Megatokyo was better when Caston was writing it. Additionally, without Caston's input, it has been said by some that Caston's alter ego Largo's violent gamer antics appear forced and seem to be just an afterthought on Gallagher's part. Template:Citation needed

Arguably, buffering some complaints is the sense of humility Gallagher typically gives off. As Tycho of Penny Arcade notes, "We've gotten on famously ever since I figured out that he legitimately detests himself and is not hoisting some kind of glamour."<ref name="pennyarcade">Template:Cite web</ref>

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History

The comic was started as a joint project of Gallagher and his friend (and later business partner) Rodney Caston, with Caston writing the scripts and Gallagher supplying the artwork. Caston sold off his ownership of the company in May 2002. Since then, the comic has been managed entirely by Fred Gallagher. In October 2002, Gallagher was laid off from his day job as an architect, and he has since taken the comic as a full time job.

Rodney Caston's departure from Megatokyo was not fully explained at the time. Initially, Gallagher and Caston only briefly mentioned the split, with the news of it publicly announced when Gallagher posted a news post officially announcing Caston's departure. On January 15 2005, Fred explained his version of the reasons for the split in response to what he felt was a "mean spirited" comment by Scott Kurtz of PvP, where Kurtz implied that Gallagher had stolen Megatokyo from Caston:

While things were good at first, over time we found that we were not working well together creatively. There is no fault in this, it happens. I've never blamed Rodney for this creative 'falling out' nor do I blame myself. Not all creative relationships click, ours didn't in the long run.<ref name="departurerodney">Template:Cite web</ref>

Four days later, Caston posted his version of the event on his website:

After this he approached me and said either I would sell him my ownership of MegaTokyo or he would simply stop doing it entirely, and we'd divide up the company's assets and end it all. This was right before the MT was to go into print form, and I really wanted to see it make it into print, rather then [sic] die on the vine.<ref name="rodneyversion">Template:Cite web</ref>
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Changes

Originally Megatokyo was laid out in four square panels per strip, in a two-by-two square array as a compromise between the horizontal layout of American comic strips and the vertical layout of Japanese comic strips. Soon, the limitations of this format became apparent, and the comic changed into a manga-styled free-form layout, which allows for both large, detailed drawings and small, abstract progressions as the needs of the script require. This change happened in the spring of 2001, during Chapter 0 and the first year of Megatokyo's publication.

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Megagear

An online store called "Megagear" sells art supplies and Megatokyo merchandise. Megagear was created by Fred Gallagher and his wife as an independent online store to be used only by Megatokyo. MegaGear launched officially on August 1 2004.<ref name="MegaGear">Template:Cite web</ref> It replaced a Megatokyo store that had formerly been part of thinkgeek.com. This online store, in addition to banner advertisements and sales of Megatokyo books, provides a source of income for Megatokyo's author. As of September 2 2005, "Megagear" has offered environmentally friendly hemp clothing.

They now also offer Applegeeks merchandise.

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References

<references />

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See also

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External links

Fan translations
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Fan sites

es:Megatokyo fr:Megatokyo ia:Megatokyo it:MegaTokyo ja:メガトーキョー pl:MegaTokyo pt:Megatokyo sv:Megatokyo

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