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Megatokyo (メガトーキョー) is a popular webcomic originally created by Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, and is now solely written and illustrated by Gallagher. Its writing and art styles are heavily influenced by Japanese manga/dōjinshi. The comic was started on August 14 2000. Megatokyo's contents and comic strip on the website are available completely free, with the contents generally being updated every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. Unofficial translations into other languages are available elsewhere on the web, although the French and German translations are the only ones near to being in-sync with the official version's update schedule.
Megatokyo centers around Piro, a man in his twenties who is an anime and manga fanatic; his friend Largo, a gaming enthusiast; and their adventures in a fantastical imagining of the city of Tokyo, Japan. Originally, the comic was gag-a-day-styled, with continuity, while present, taking a back seat to the daily humor. As it progressed, however, it became increasingly based around a more complex, on-going plot with many continuously-developing characters.
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. As one of Caston's more visible and long-lived themes, Megatokyo frequently uses "L33t speak."
Plot and themes
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 (teaching his students about l337, games and hacking). Piro and Largo grow as individuals as the series progresses, becoming deeper and more serious characters than the stereotypes they represented at first, and begin shaky relationships with women in their lives.
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" filler-art 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. "Dead piro" days still occasionally appear as omake when Gallagher is unable to produce a strip, as do "Shirt Guy Dom" gag strips, in fewer cases.
The comic features aspects from a number of different anime and manga archetypes, usually making light of the genres' 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 robot girl who becomes friends with Piro; and a school girl, Sonoda Yuki, who possibly is in love with Piro and has started taking art lessons from him. Dom and Ed (based on Dominic Nguyen and Edmund Balan, real-life friends of Gallagher and Caston), hitman-like employees of Sega and Sony, respectively, 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 (currently employed alongside Piro at Megagamers), while her shy, soft-spoken roommate, Nanasawa Kimiko, is aspiring to the same career (although she is currently employed at an Anna Miller's restaurant). Seraphim and Boo, Piro's and Largo's "conscience enforcement agents," respectively, try to help their clients make the morally correct decisions, while Asmodeus, Piro's "anti-conscience," attempts to undo their help. One of the more mysterious characters is Tohya Miho; she befriends Ping and seems to enjoy psychologically toying with others.
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.
Megatokyo is divided into chapters which each consist of approximately 100 pages. Chapter 0, which subsumes all of the comic's early experimental phase, covers a time span in the comic of about six weeks. Each of the subsequent chapters chronicles the events of a single day. Chapter 0 was originally not given a title, although the book version retroactively dubbed it "Relax, we understand j00." Chapter 0 began during September 2000 (1 - 129), with chapters 1 through 7 beginning in June 2001 ("Do You Want to Save Before You Quit?" 134 - 192), November 2001 ("Things Change Little By Little..." 196 - 301), October 2002 ("Am I Your Number One Fan?" 307 - 397), April 2003 ("Low Ping Rate" 402 - 514), February 2004 ("Color Depth" 526 - 633), November 2004 ("Operational Insecurity" 639 - 729), September 2005 ("Know Bugs and Security Flaws" 743 - 872), respectively. The eighth and current chapter, titled Defect Mapping (#875), started during June 2006.
Main characters
Piro
Piro is the protagonist, and an author surrogate of Fred Gallagher. Gallagher has stated that Piro is an idealized version of himself when he was in college. He appears at first glance to be a fairly typical, dorky American, a manga and anime (especially shōjo) fan who can speak fluent Japanese (and some L33t) and is frequently depressed or morose. He is also a fairly skilled artist who refuses to believe in his own talent - an exaggerated parallel of Gallagher himself.
Piro seems to have extreme difficulty reading women, possibly due to his feelings of insecurity and his impression of girls garnered from playing dating simulations, and as such does not realize the feelings Kimiko has for him. Early in the comic, he usually read shōjo manga to try to work out the "correct" way to deal with women and life in general. However, this philosophy is starting to change, as he is spending more time with Kimiko and other women, and listening more to the advice of Seraphim, his "conscience enforcement agent" and general friend.
The name "Piro" comes from Sawatari Makoto's cat in the Japanese ren'ai game Kanon, a favorite of Gallagher's.
Largo
Largo is the comic's secondary protagonist, and the comic version of co-creator (and former co-writer) Rodney Caston. He is an American computer game fan who usually acts before (or instead of) thinking. He is technically gifted, though he uses beer as a CPU coolant; and cannot pass up the opportunity to tamper with anything even remotely technological in nature, usually working on computer hardware in the nude, as an extreme measure to avoid electrostatic discharge.
He speaks fluent L33t, but no Japanese, relying on Piro and other bilingual characters to translate. Early on in the comic, he somehow manages to get employed as an English teacher at Shiritsu Daitou High School, becoming "Great Teacher Largo" (a reference to the anime and manga GTO: Great Teacher Onizuka). In addition, he is obsessed with beer ("b33r," as he calls it), and, fortunately for him, seems to have a superhuman tolerance for alcohol. He also seems to have a remarkable healing ability (or be subject to a form of cartoon physics), as he has suffered two broken arms and a broken leg since arriving in Tokyo, with neither causing much lasting ill effect.
Largo's opinion on women is divided. At times, he sees women as fair game, while at other times as evil beings (which he thinks Piro has a weakness to). In spite of this, he has developed a relationship of sorts with Hayasaka Erika. Largo is energetic and lively; he's a fire to Erika's water. Most importantly, he cares about Erika as a person; despite noticing her physical attributes, he shows a surprisingly deep and friendly side. This may lead him to being one of the few people in Tokyo capable of connecting with Erika beneath her hard shell.
The name "Largo" comes from Caston's online nickname, just as Gallagher is Piro.
Hayasaka Erika
Hayasaka Erika (早坂 えりか) is Kimiko's roommate. She is a powerfully popular former Japanese idol (singer) and seiyū (voice actress). Though she has been out of the direct spotlight for three years, she still has a considerable fanbase; a mere sighting of her caused riots from fans.
Erika is very strong-willed, confident, cynical, and hates being protected by others. She was once engaged to a man named Hitoshi, who, at the height of her career, claimed to believe that he was holding her back, and broke off their engagement. Erika was deeply hurt, and that event, combined with exposure to swarms of fanboys and possibly her periodic work as a "booth-babe" at cons, has caused her to adopt a rather negative outlook on men, herself, and people in general.
She speaks Japanese and fluent English (and seems to understand L33t). Recently, she has developed a relationship of sorts with Largo.
Nanasawa Kimiko
Nanasawa Kimiko (七澤 希美子), Erika's roommate, is a Japanese girl who works as a waitress at an Anna Miller's restaurant. She is an aspiring seiyū who often finds herself too shy or insecure to take on roles.
Kimiko is a kind, soft-spoken person in general, though she has a slightly impulsive nature. Her personality is somewhat similar to Piro's in that she has very little self-confidence and becomes extremely upset and flustered when she injures others, be it physically or emotionally. At the same time, she is prone to mood-swings, quite often causing herself embarrassment by saying things she does not mean.
Kimiko lands the role of Kotone in the game Sight, and is earning herself an army of followers to rival even Erika's due to her rant on Mumu-chan's Voicevoice Paradise, a radio talk show, where she came to the defense of fanboys after being angered by Mumu's derisive comments about them. She has mixed feelings about being an idol. In addition, Kimiko has developed strong feelings for Piro, although she is too shy to admit them.
She speaks only Japanese, and does not seem to understand that Largo only speaks English.
Tohya Miho
Tohya Miho is an enigmatic and manipulative young goth girl. She is highly intelligent, adept at both arcade and role-playing games.
Miho speaks English and Japanese fluently, and has no problem understanding L33t. She is drawn to resemble a gosurori (a Japanese synthesis of Goth and subculture), and is often described as "darkly cute;" Gallagher has described her as a "perky goth" in the past, though most would hardly describe Miho as being in any way "perky."
Very little has been revealed regarding Miho's past. There have been hints that she has problems with her health and that she was once in severe danger, but no details have been revealed as of yet. It is also known she has had some kind of background story involving Erika's fans. She had some history with Piro and Largo before meeting them in Japan, in the form of a massively multi-player online role-playing game called Endgames. In the game, she was a handsome, male warrior with the same ribboned hairstyle she has in the real world. While she was abusing a secret "personality" statistic in order to manipulate large amounts of player characters, Piro defeated her, presumably by turning the system against her. This event seems to be Miho's motivation for becoming closer to Piro and Largo, but her ultimate intentions are unknown.
History
Megatokyo was started during August of 2000 as a joint project of Internet acquaintances (and later, business partners) Fred Gallagher and Rodney Caston, with Caston writing the scripts and Gallagher supplying the artwork. The comic's popularity quickly increased, and eventually rose to levels comparable to some of the most popular webcomics, such as Penny Arcade and PvP.Alexa traffic rankings regularly show Megatokyo.com in the top 9,000 most popular sitescompared to PvPOnline.com which ranks in the top 4,000* According to Gallagher, it was not intended for Megatokyo to become as popular as it did, and was originally an experiment to help him improve his writing and illustrating skills for his future project, Warmth. As a result of its experimental status, the comic has undergone major changes since its creation; for example, the comic was originally laid out in four square panels per strip, in a two-by-two square array - a formatting choice made as a compromise between the horizontal layout of American comic strips and the vertical layout of Japanese comic strips. The limitations of this format soon became apparent, and the comic switched to a manga-style, free-form panel 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.
In May 2002, Rodney Caston sold off his ownership of the company. 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. 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, Gallagher 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 shortly following the announcement of Caston becoming a father, 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, 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 * die on the vine."
Funding
Megatokyo has had a range of different methods of funding over its lifetime. In its early years, it was largely funded by Fred Gallagher's and Rodney Caston's full-time jobs, with the additional support of banner advertisements. A store connected to thinkgeek.com was launched during October of 2000, in order to sell Megatokyo merchandise, and in turn help fund the comic. This store was later replaced by "Megagear," an independent online store created by Fred Gallagher and his wife to be used solely by Megatokyo, although it now also offers Applegeeks and Underpower merchandise. Megagear officially launched on August 1 2004.Gallagher has made a point of stating that Megatokyo will continue to remain on the Internet free of charge, and that releasing it in book form is simply another way for Megatokyo to reach more readers, as opposed to replacing its webcomic counterpart entirely. He has said in the past that he is against micropayments, as he believes that word of mouth and public attention are powerful property builders, and a "pay-per-click" system would only dampen their effectiveness - indeed, going so far as to state that such systems are a superior option to direct monetary compensation, and that human nature goes against micropayments.
Books
| Covers of Megatokyo books 1 (1st edition), 2, 3 and 4. |
The comic once more changed publishers during February of 2006, moving from Dark Horse Comics to DC Comics under their CMX Manga imprint. Currently, volumes 1-3 are available through Dark Horse Comics, with volume 4 available through DC Comics. As of June 26 2006, four volumes are available for purchase. The Megatokyo books have also been translated into German, Italian, and Polish.
As of July 2004, Megatokyo is the tenth best-selling manga property in the U.S. Volume 3's highest ranking in bookscan is 3 ending February 20 2005. This makes it the best selling Original English Language manga.
- Megatokyo Volume 1: Chapter Zero (Megatokyo vol.1 1st ed.); ISBN 1929090307
- Megatokyo Volume 1, 2nd ed.; March 21 2004 ISBN 1-59307-163-9
- Megatokyo Volume 2; January 22 2004 ISBN 1-59307-118-3
- Megatokyo Volume 3; February 2 2005 ISBN 1-59307-305-4
- Megatokyo Volume 4; June 21 2006 ISBN 1401211267
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. 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 - including the infamous "Shirt Guy Dom" stick-figure strips. 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 ongoing 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, such as Wikitokyo, including plot guides and character pages, indicating a need for such resources.
In addition, much of Megatokyo's humor and appeal require several different types of knowledge to be understood, and thus the comic can be hard to approach by those unacquainted 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 could not 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."
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, there is criticism that updates should be more frequent than when Gallagher was only working on the comic part-time.
Megatokyo is often praised for its intricate pencil work (done entirely in grayscale, without either digital or physical "inking"), and inspired character design. 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.
The comic was originally 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, in turn leading 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.
Arguably, buffering some complaints is the sense of humility Gallagher typically gives off. As Jerry Holkins 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."
References
See also
External links
| Fan translations |
|---|
- The Megatokyo website
- The Megatokyo Forums
- Dark Horse Comics, previous book publisher of Megatokyo.
- DC Comics imprint, CMX Manga, current book publisher of Megatokyo.
- Fredart, other art by Fred Gallagher.
- Rcaston.com, blog of Rodney Caston.
- megatokyo article at Comixpedia, a webcomic wiki
- Megatokyo discussion on Webcomicsreview.com
Fan sites
- Wikitokyo, a wiki dedicated to information about Megatokyo
- Reader's Guide to MegaTokyo, lots of information on Megatokyo plot and characters
2000s webcomics | Anime and manga inspired webcomics | Comedy webcomics | Dark Horse titles | CMX titles | Drama webcomics | Internet forums | Megatokyo | Webcomics in print
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