Megatokyo

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Drawing style example

Mega Tokyo is one of Fred Gallagher (aka Piro drawn) American webcomic in manga style ( Dōjinshi ), which since its launch on 14. August 2000 has developed into a cult status with ever-increasing traffic.

Megatokyo was originally co-founded by Rodney Caston (aka Largo ), who also helped write the story the first year. Fred Gallagher is now solely responsible for the story, drawings and page design. Megatokyo is now his main job.

All strips are available for free on megatokyo.com. Some of the stories have also been published in book form by the US publisher IC Entertainment (formerly " IronCat "), but due to disagreements between Megatokyo and IC Entertainment, the new edition of the first volume as well as volumes two and three will be published by Dark Horse Comics . Volumes four and five were published by DC Comics ' Imprint CMX . There are fan translations in several languages ​​on the Internet. Based on these, among other things, translations of the books into German (by eidalon Verlag ) and Italian were published. There are also separate translations in Polish. The manga publisher Kōdansha has announced a Japanese edition of the first volume, which was published in 2009.

In July 2004, Megatokyo was the tenth best-running manga in the United States. The third volume took the highest ranking at Nielsen Bookscan on February 20, 2005 with 3rd place. With that he had achieved the best placement for an Amerimanga .

content

Megatokyo tells the story of the two Americans Piro and Largo, who got stuck in Tokyo without money . Most of the humor in the comic is based on video games , inside jokes about manga and anime, and cultural differences between the US and Japan .

At the beginning, Piro and Largo try to get tickets for the US entertainment fair Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3) - without success. Largo is so frustrated about it that he gets drunk, drops his pants and verbally abuses E3. He later wakes up on a plane to Japan: Piro had decided to leave the USA for a while to be on the safe side and without further ado bought two one-way tickets to Tokyo. Once there, the two immediately storm the toy and computer stores. But since they overdrawn their credit cards, they can no longer afford return tickets and are stuck in Japan.

In the further course, several storylines emerge, from which the manga-character draws its dynamics from the emotional tension between Piro on the one hand and the individual female main characters on the other. Because although he always has the very best and amicable intentions, Piro's clumsy behavior towards the girls repeatedly causes displeasure. So it happens that he buries himself in mangas to find tips, or sits around somewhere and ponders how to manage not to offend a woman - and that is exactly why he misses an appointment again. In addition, he has little self-confidence and self-esteem, so he tries to evade precisely those who actually feel something for him (which he does not recognize or interprets as pity) and is not clear about his own feelings.

Another storyline, which has a strong computer game character, consists in Largo's "fight against evil", whereby he thinks he recognizes the latter in everything and everyone, but the threat can also be real, for example when Ed tries to destroy Ping or Dom Erika for Sega wants to hire as an advertising character.

Due to the enormous difference between the narrative time (since August 14, 2000) and the narrated time (50 days plus one per chapter), it is sometimes difficult to keep an eye on the context. The individual story threads are therefore summarized on the translation pages as an aid.

origin of the name

Megatokyo got its name because Rodney Caston made the Internet domain available for the Internet comic after a failed anime news project (" Slashdot for Anime").

The Tokyo of the future is often referred to as “Megatokyo” or “Neo-Tokyo” in manga and anime (for example in Akira ). In many of these stories, the city is devastated by disaster or a nuclear war, but it is rebuilt to be more beautiful and bigger afterwards.

Role of Rodney Castons

Gallagher and Caston had different ideas about how the comic should develop. Gallagher took over the work of the author more and more. Eventually the two separated in May 2002 and Gallagher bought the domain from Caston. The legal details of the split remained private.

In January 2005, a controversy broke out after Scott Kurtz of PvP wrote in a forum a post in which he congratulated Caston to his impending fatherhood and Fred Gallagher accused MegaTokyo stealing from Caston. Gallagher then stated that there had been creative disagreements and pointed out that the breakup was peaceful. Caston also commented accordingly shortly afterwards.

Characters

(Note: For Japanese names , the last name is mentioned first, then the first name.)

main characters

Piro
American anime and manga fan (especially Shōjo manga) who speaks Japanese well. He's an admirable artist, but he refuses to accept that. He is currently employed as a mascot / salesman at MegaGamers, a game store. Piro is the comic incarnation of Fred Gallagher.
largo
American computer game freak who usually acts before (or instead of) thinking and has a thing for beer. He speaks Leet , but not Japanese. When he gets a job teaching he becomes Great Teacher Largo (a parody of the manga and anime series Great Teacher Onizuka ). Largo embodies Rodney Caston in the comic.
Tsubasa
Japanese, Piro's friend. Since he follows "his heart" to America, he has left his robot girl Ping to Piro and Largo. Tsubasa is based on a real friend of Fred Gallagher. It was later copied from the comic at his request.
Dom
SEGA employee, Ed's best friend and rival. Gun fanatic. Also known as "Shirt Guy Dom" ( SGD ). Dom is the comic incarnation of Dominic Nguyen, who does stick figure strips with SGD when Gallagher is not around.
Ed
Sony employee, best friend and rival of Dom. Like Dom, Ed is based on a real person, Edmund Balan
Hayasaka Erika (早 坂 え り か)
Japanese woman and former idol . She works with Piro as a saleswoman / mascot in the MegaGamers shop.
Nanasawa Kimiko (七 澤希 美 子)
Japanese, Erika's roommate and waitress in the restaurant "Anna Miller's". Also a hopeful future Seiyuu (voice actress for anime roles). She is almost the prototype of the cute, shy manga girl.
Sonoda Yuki (園田 由 紀)
Japanese middle school student. She takes drawing lessons from Piro. Her father works for the TPCD (see below). According to Tohya, she is a magical girl .
Ping
A girl-shaped robot with PlayStation 2 accessories. It is a non- etchi test model (just platonic love) of the new Sony EDS ( Emotional Doll System ), which for some reason fell into the hands of Tsubasa. It was created to work with “ dating simulations ” (Japanese flirting and match-up games) and, once played, develop a character based on the answers in the game. Their most noticeable feature are two controls dangling from their ears that have a status indicator as well as USB and network ports. A programming mistake makes her angry when ignored or rejected, developing superhuman powers as a robot. Parallels to Persocon Chi from the anime series Chobits can be found in Ping , its name is an allusion to the network tool ping .
Tohya Miho
Not much is known about them. She is friends with Ping and is a dark character. Occasionally she suffers from fainting spells for no apparent reason. Largo believes she is the leader of an army of zombies led by the Necrowombicon (a nod to an annual anime convention and the Necronomicon ), an ancient book of evil that was used to defeat the game. To create flop Daikatana .
Seraphim
A small, feminine angel who has taken on the role of Piro's conscience. She is the comic incarnation of Sarah, Fred Gallagher's wife.
Boo
A small hamster with wings that hang around the neck. He was assigned to Largo as a conscience - an almost impossible task for which he is also quite incompetent. Boo is a swipe at the character "Boo", Minscs tiny giant hamster from the computer game Baldur's Gate .
Asmodeus
Demon and Piro's bad conscience. Among other things, he tries to pair Piro with Yuki. His partner is a winged cat named Belphegor.
Junpei
Ninja and student of Largo. He is defeated by Largo in the game Mortal Kombat , who thereby receives a visa.

Minor characters

Asako and Mami
Middle school students and friends of Yuki. They believe Yuki has a crush on Piro.
Junko
Miho's classmate in Largo's class. See through as one of the few that Largo is an impostor as an English teacher. Nevertheless, she encourages him as he goes through a depressive phase. She says she is good at “taking advantage of older men and getting money from them” ( Enjokōsai ).
L33T D00D
A strange raver who shows up whenever Largo has to face off against zombie hordes in arcade battles. He gives him advice in leet , with subtitles in normal language.
Yanagisawa
Owner of the MegaGamers store. Rented the storage room above the shop to Piro and Largo as an apartment.
John Romero
The creator of cult games like Doom or Quake . He co-founded the development studio Ion Storm , but got out after his game flop Daikatana . In contrast to his portrayal in Megatokyo as unemployed and broke, the real John Romero then became head of the new company Monkeystone Games .
Rent-a-Zilla
A giant lizard hired by Junpei. She is paid in ham.
Fanboys
Stereotypical adolescent otaku . In Megatokyo mostly fans of Erika or later Kimiko.
Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division (TPCD) (警 視 庁 特別 災害 機動隊, keishichō tokubetsu saigai kidōtai )
A department of the police of Tokyo, the Mecha controls and run amok monster stops. Yuki's father, Inspector Sonoda Masamichi, works for the TPCD. Largo became a TPCD agent after using Ping to defeat an intoxicated giant tortoise; however, he was fired again shortly afterwards.

Publications

Books

Currently (January 2011) the comics freely available on megatokyo.com have also been published in six printed volumes. Translations of the first volumes into German and several other languages ​​have also appeared.

PlayStation Portable

The German version of Megatokyo was the first comic that a German publisher offered for Sony 's PlayStation Portable (PSP) . The offer of the eidalon publishing house is free and can be downloaded from its website.

swell

  1. ↑ Kodansha to Publish Megatokyo in Japan. Publishers Weekly, July 10, 2007.
  2. ↑ ICV2 Looks at Manga Channel Shift. ICv2, July 7, 2004.
  3. ↑ 'Megatokyo' Reaches Number 3. ICv2, March 4, 2005
  4. ↑ Exactly how long have they been in Japan? Gallagher's forum post on September 24, 2003.
  5. ↑ more largos ?? Gallagher's comment on megatokyo.com, January 15, 2005.
  6. ↑ The truth about Megatokyo?  ( Page no longer available , search in web archives )  Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Caston's blog entry on RCaston.com, January 19, 2005.@1@ 2Template: Dead Link / www.rcaston.com  
  7. ↑ Megatokyo-Strip 944
  8. ↑ Megatokyo-Strip 574
  9. ↑ The Kanji spelling comes from a T-shirt that Gallagher sells, see product page at Megagear . Retrieved July 6, 2006.

Web links

Commons : Megatokyo  - collection of images, videos and audio files