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Megatokyo

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

Megatokyo is a popular webcomic written and drawn in manga style by Fred Gallagher. The comic was started on August 14, 2000 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. After a while, artistic differences surfaced between the two creators, and Caston sold off his ownership of the company in May 2002, a development that remains controversial to this day. Since then, the comic is created and 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.

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. One of the most well-known features of Megatokyo is the frequent use of "L33t speak", and some argue that the comic helped to introduce that style to a more mainstream audience.

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Plot

Megatokyo follows the story of two Americans, Piro and Largo, who are stuck in Tokyo with no way to get home. The two protagonists are based on Megatokyo's two creators (or their online personas), but they are fictional characters with lives of their own. Piro is a shy and somewhat under-confident person who cherishes Japanese pop culture like manga, anime and dating sim games. Largo, the more extroverted of the pair, is obsessed with building high-end computers and playing games on them; 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 without the money to buy plane tickets home. After living in the apartment of a Japanese friend of Piro's for a while, they are eventually forced to make an independent living in Japan. Piro finds work at a computer game store called "Megagamers" while Largo takes on somewhat irregular jobs with the police and as an English teacher.

The comic took a while to get into its current mode and pace of storytelling, a fact that indirectly corresponds 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, most of the important plot points and the main characters were introduced, but the story moved along at a haphazard pace and was often interrupted by pure gag episodes. This changed over time with the greatest changes coming after Gallagher completely took over Megatokyo.

The comic now 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 roaming the streets that can be hired for specific purposes; the "Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division", which fights the monsters with giant robots and oversees the orderly and periodic destruction and reconstruction of pre-designated areas of the city; Ping, a cute robot girl who becomes friends with Piro; A school girl Yuki, who possibly is in love with Piro and is taking art lessons from him despite the fact that she is yet to have an art lesson. Largo somehow manages to become an english teacher at a high school and teaches them about l337, games and hacking. The characters Dom and Ed play off the Japanese stereotype that all Americans are armed to the teeth. Erika is a former idol, singer, and voice actress. Her roommate Kimiko is an aspiring voice actress.

Megatokyo has many elements in its plot of a romantic comedy. Between Piro and Kimiko there is definitely a potential romance. Ping also has feelings for Piro but is not allowed to interfer with "real player interactions". Yuki may have a crush on Piro, although she denies it. Largo seems to be in some sort of love with Erika despite the fact that Erika pushes him away.

Megatokyo is divided into chapters, each consisting of circa 100 pages. Chapter 0, which subsumes all of the comic's early, experimenting phase, covers a comic time-span of about six weeks. Each of the subsequent chapters chronicles the events of a single day. As of July 2005, Chapter 6 is complete and 7 will begin soon.

Availability

All strips are available free of charge from Megatokyo.com or can be purchased in book form, which is published by Dark Horse Comics. As of April 3rd 2005, three volumes are available for purchase. (At one point I.C. Entertainment (formerly IronCat) published a book compilation of strips that are now included in Volume One. Gallagher and I.C. were unable to come to an agreement on further volumes. Hence, Dark Horse Comics is now the publisher of choice for Megatokyo.) Megatokyo is an ongoing webcomic updates every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Some fans of the comic have translated Megatokyo into other languages which are available elsewhere on the net (see translations section).

Criticism and praise

Megatokyo has been subject to substantial—some claim unwarranted—criticism and praise. 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 layout design, which has changed over the years from a traditional American four panel comic strip to a manga-influenced multi-paneled page. Critics also dislike its storytelling style, slow pace, large supporting cast (with no on-site aids for the uninitiated or confused, leading fans to resort to creating their own resource sites) and no clear direction or resolution for the multiple plot threads. This perception is exacerbated 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. The complaints about the speed of updates even prompted Gallagher to install an update progress bar for readers waiting for the next installment.

Megatokyo's supporters feel the new focus on storytelling and slow pace constitute an artistic vision on Fred Gallagher's part, citing source material that include anime, manga, and the various Japanese dating sims that Gallagher emulates and occasionally satirizes. Furthermore, while Megatokyo's layout has changed from the four-panel form to a manga-influenced layout, 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. However, just as there are fans of Gallagher's art, there are detractors who also complain that his art style has not evolved nearly as much as other webcomics. This also leads to accusations of laziness on Gallagher's part based on the perceived lack of artistic evolution and exposition on the multiple storylines.

Professionally, Gallagher is now working full-time on Megatokyo. He was one of the first webcomic artists to make a business out of it, but with this change more criticism has arisen. One, being the customary accusation of selling out as well as two, the customary complaint about the speed of updates. With Gallagher's full-time status, the criticism is that updates should be more frequent than when Gallagher was only part-time. Another related criticism is that the Megatokyo website has had links to story and cast pages which have been "under construction" for years.

Artistically, Megatokyo is often lauded for its intricate pencilwork (done entirely in grayscale, without either digital or physical 'inking,' although occasionally, colored art is displayed) and inspired, almost ethereal character design. Gallagher has been criticized for an uniformity of appearance in his characters, particularly with his female characters' faces, which some say are identical with hairstyle and attire as the only distinguishing features. Conversely, it is noted that Gallagher takes great care in costuming choices, hair and other design elements.

Many critics argue that Megatokyo was better when Rodney Caston wrote it. 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 since Caston has left, Megatokyo has evolved into a far more manga-influenced webcomic, focusing less on the humor that defined it in the beginning. Critics of Megatokyo often attack the post-Caston work as not being funny anymore. The post-Caston storylines focuses heavily on Piro, Gallagher's alter ego in the comic, which leads some to believe the story is an extended projection of Gallagher's own fantasies—or a form of Mary Sueism. Additionally, without Caston's input, it has been said that Caston's alter ego Largo's antics are not the same as before with some former fans feeling that Largo's violent gamer antics seem forced and seem to be just an afterthought on Gallagher's part.

Complicating the issue are suggestions that Piro is or could be in questionable relationships with underage Japanese school girls. This latter criticism is interrelated with the common complaint that under Gallagher's direction, Megatokyo is morphing into the manga and dating sim games that Gallagher himself is so interested in. His fans defend the contention of potential pedophilia by asking for it to be considered in the context of the same manga and dating sims that the storyline emulates.

The departure of Rodney Caston

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.

Four days later, Rodney posted his version of the event on his website Rcaston.com:

Fred continued with his story lines and wanted to do most of the writing, Fred began to control more of MegaTokyo's direction, stories, and characters. Obviously some decisions were made that I was not happy about, this is natural given our different styles of writing and creation.
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.

Rodney Caston goes on in his post to give credit to Tycho of Penny Arcade and Scott Kurtz of PvP for linking to and promoting Megatokyo early on and claims that without their efforts, Megatokyo would not exist today. He also states that he feels a sense of pride when he sees a copy of Megatokyo in a bookstore with his name credited on it.

Characters

For more details, see main article: Characters of Megatokyo

In Megatokyo, Japanese names are usually written in Japanese order (family name before given name), although a few strips have used the Western (given name first) form. Japanese order is used here.

Usually, characters in Megatokyo speak Japanese (indicated with < >), although some speak English or L33t (subtitled). Not every character speaks every language, so occasionally characters are unable to understand one another.

  • Piro: Megatokyo's main protagonist, based upon the artist himself, Fred Gallagher. Piro is a shy, geeky twenty-something convinced of his own inferiority despite his artistic talent. Piro speaks Japanese fluently enough to follow a normal conversation without problems.
  • Largo: Megatokyo's second protagonist, based upon the former author Rodney Caston. Largo is a heavy drinker who can't seem to tell the difference between the games he plays and the real world. Unlike most of the cast, he can't speak Japanese. Later developes feelings for Erika (even though he has a "trust no woman" policy), and drinks a LOT when he gets shot down.
  • Hayasaka Erika (早坂 えりか): Japanese girl, Kimiko's roommate. Tall, beautiful, and occasionally dangerous to impertinent fanboys, Erika is a former idol who has attempted to fade into quiet obscurity. Seems to like Largo... kinda. Her English seems to be of enough quality to be able to follow conversations.
  • Nanasawa Kimiko (七澤 美子): Japanese girl, Erika's roommate. Kimiko is a budding seiyuu (voice actress) who recently got her first big part. Kimiko does not seem to speak any English.
  • Ping: Prototype PS2 accessory android. Ping is designed to be the perfect girlfriend, although she can rampage through downtown Tokyo with a telephone pole when she's mad. She states that she does not have her 'English Module' installed, which results in her being unable to comprehend English.
  • Sonoda Yuki: Typical Japanese high school girl. Yuki is infatuated with Piro, but denies it to her friends and family. Yuki seems to have a 'high school' level of English which allows her to understand basic English phrases.
  • Tohya Miho: Japanese high school girl. Miho is Ping's friendly goth schoolmate by day and the infamous gamer/hacker who hacked "Endgames" by night, until she was stopped by Piro and Largo. She seems to enjoy manipulating people, both in and out of games. She seems to have have a very advanced command of the English language.
  • Seraphim: A miniature angel, the personification of Piro's good conscience; based upon Gallagher's wife, Sarah.
  • Boo: A hamster, the personification of Largo's conscience; originally from the game Baldur's Gate.
  • Ed: Ed is a Sony operative sent to destroy Ping before rival game companies capture her; unfortunately, he tends to hurt himself more than her.
  • Dom: Dom is a Sega operative sent to capture Ping—though events in later strips suggest that may not be his only goal.
  • Junpei: Resident ninja who was defeated by Largo in Mortal Kombat; calls Largo his "L33t Master" and is trying to learn the way of the l33t.

Forums

A message board system called the Megatokyo Forums accompanies the Megatokyo website to facilitate discussions among the site's fan community. Launched on September 29, 2000 in their present incarnation, the Megatokyo Forums have covered a wide range of topics from the beginning, such as art, romance, computer gaming, and technology, and have become a well-known, remarkably active internet forum with a sizeable user base (the serial number for accounts has exceeded 40,000). Consequently, a great deal of the activity on the Megatokyo Forums isn't directly related to the comic anymore, and it is likely that the majority of posters doesn't even read the comic.

Still, the forums are also home to an active community of fans of the comic. They have spawned numerous fan-operated websites, several wikis, and several IRC channels.

The Megatokyo Forums can be accessed at forums.megatokyo.com.

Megagear

An online store called 'Megagear' sells art supplies and Megatokyo merchandise. Megagear was created as a independent online store to be used only by Megatokyo. A Megatokyo store had formerly been part of thinkgeek.com. This online store in addition to banner advertisements provides a source of income for Megatokyo's author.

References

See also

Fansites

Community

Translations

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