Megatokyo

The Core RPGC Main Forum
1

I just got introduced to this and I finished reading all the archives today. It’s… definitely interesting. Mainly, because I think I have a unique viewpoint here - I’m NOT an anime fan, but I know enough about it to get most of the jokes and references. So I’m not sure how much of the comic draws from generic anime and how much of it is “original”, so I can judge it based on its overall merits.

I like the whole chemistry thing going on with the characters (Piro’s a complete loser and yet all these beautiful girls - or at least girls who are drawn beautiful - are this whole fan club for him, despite the fact that he keeps making a fool of himself). (I still wonder why he never meets MALES in Japan.) There are just enough characters to keep the plot complicated and interesting, but not too many so that you lose track or that they become shallow. So big kudos to Piro on those accounts.

I love the Seraphim/Asmodeus/Boo segments; I find them extremely creative. :sunglasses: And Ping was a stroke of genius, too, although there’s a hell of a lot of suspension of disbelief there. But I really started to get sick of the Largo fantasy stuff after a while. Lamer jokes only last so long before they become lame themselves. It picked up a bit towards the end, but for a while every time Largo showed up it took away from the real interesting parts of the story.

The main problem I had was that there wasn’t any real indication about whether Largo was hallucinating or what he was doing was actually real. I mean, sure, the Godzilla and zombies and whatnot were funky, and even if they were technically real in the story, they didn’t actually impact on anyone. The main problem I had was with Miho (I think that was it; one thing I could never keep track of was the girls’ names) - the sad one. I wasn’t sure if Piro actually meant her to be a zombie or something, but the fact that she was taking Largo at face value scared me. Right up until the very last strip, where we find out that she’s not a fantasy character after all. Thank God. -_- It was a load off my mind that Piro decided to ground that part of the story in reality after all. I like the Largo sequences as side bits, but not when they impact on the main story like that.

Anyway… the reason I found it interesting is that I’ve always been interested in Japanese culture, and here’s a good way to see it from a real stranger’s point of view - in other words, stuff we see from Japan doesn’t stress all the things us Westerners would actually find interesting, since it isn’t written by Westerners.

Another draw I have towards it is the fact that the characters are so polar opposites from me. ^^; Everything in my life has always been planned out for me (I’ve never had to make a really huge decision so far), so it’s weird to read about people who literally live life on the edge from one minute to the next.

The only problem is that I’m not used to the serialized format. Usually when I find a story I like, I want to read straight to the end as fast as possible. I don’t like being held up like that. But that’s just me. shrug

2

Yeah, but ya gotta love the one thing about Megatokyo that sets it apart. Most web comics that have a storyline finish it at a good rate…Megatokyo has taken a few years to get almost nowhere :stuck_out_tongue:

3

I’m pretty sure everything that happens is real, from the story’s point of view anyway. We could probably say the people are just ‘used’ to the constant giant monster attacks :stuck_out_tongue:

4

Yeah, story-wise, everything is real. That’s why the monster attacks and stuff are so funny.

5

Yes, but just because the stuff that we see is real doesn’t mean Largo isn’t living in a world of his own. O_o In particular, I could never tell if Piro (the artist) was serious about Miho (or whatever her name is) being 3v0L or if Largo was just hallucinating about that. And as I think we just found out, he was. After all, he’s said similar things about Ping, too. 8p

6

What I’ve gathered is that Largo, while not seeing things, has a very active imagination. He thinks she’s a zombie, why? Could be he’s played too many games, or maybe he’s slightly insane? I think both.

7

I LOVE the sketchiness of the art…it’s not like a crappy kinda sketchy, it’s a nice realistic-manga-ish sketchy. :slight_smile:

Oh yeah, and about the whole Miho-Largo thing…ohhh, I wouldn’t say that Largo is completely off…I mean, if there can be giant monsters, mechs, Ids vs. SuperEgos…why not there be 3v0l c|-|ix0rs as well?

8

There can be, but then it should be as obvious as the giant turtles and mechas. It shouldn’t be “maybe she’s 3v0L, maybe she’s just humoring him”. That’s just plain confusing. -_-

9

I used to read MT faithfully, but I quit over a month ago. I guess Tycho’s PA rant a while back about Piro’s angsty-ness in his posts sort of struck a chord with me, one of those “hey, now that you mention it…” chords.

The comic is so fun when it’s there. I got tired of SGD days and nothing days, true, but what it really was was that I didn’t want to read some huge rant on how busy and tough life is so that’s why the comic wasn’t updated. The problem was that huge rants on how busy and tough life was would be updated at least three times a week, and the whole complaining nature of it just bugged me too much.

The first MT comic I read was a guest comic back in 2001.

10

I actually skipped the rants completely. O_o I just read the comics. ^^;

11

http://ghastly.keenspace.com/d/20010819.html

12

Largo isn’t living in his own world, he just has a unique point of view. That is how I’ve viewed it since the last couple of strips, anyway.
MegaTokyo is good, but it’s not among my favourites. Plot has gotten old, although, it seems to be getting better as of late, and the art is too plain. Personal opinions.

And I’d be careful about linking to Ghastly: It’s on the virge on violating the no-porn rule. And it got close to five toilets in the lowpow.keenspace.com days.

13

If you want a comic that takes years for it to go anywhere, you should read 8 bit theater…

14

Yeah, well, at least 8bt has stuff that’s interesting BETWEEN the direct references to Final Fantasy.

15

For pure ranmonness try irritability at http://maze.icomix.com/comicpage/index1.html

This just frankly rules so much. It started off pretty lame artwork but it’s gotten setadily better and is now perfect for it’s style, which is mostly random violence and madness. See below for two examples.

16

I’m a big fan of Megatokyo. points at her avatar

To me, Largo’s reality is the same as Calvin’s from Calvin and Hobbes. What he percieves is neither necessarily true or false, but just different. However, he has his rare moments of perception (ie: once, being the first to realize that Miho was the one who had killed the Endgames servers waaaay before anyone else did) that actually have an effect on the story. My advice is to take everything Largo says with a grain of salt, then it all makes sense. Or something.

17

Megatokyo is a pretty good webcomic. It’s finally getting to the endgames explaination which people in the forum have been waiting for about a year or so.

The art is wonderfully done and he keep pretty contant with his M/W/F updates.

The DPD and the SGD days don’t bother me too much. The DPD are often times wonderfully done and the SGD gives me those stupid funny things that you don’t get in the normal comic storyline.

18

I love Megatokyo. It started a bit slow (but funny), but it seems to have blossemed into something unique and original.
As for Piro and Largo, the thing is they have drastically different points of view .Largo is l33t in shooters and wargames, while Piro perfers imported virtual novels and simulation games (which is why he seems to only meet girls in Tokyo :)).
Cid: The same holds true for the real Piro and Largo, just not as exaggerated as in the comic. In fact, each of them had totally different ideas for their webcomic. Largo wanted a webcomic like Penny Arcade and would involve lots of games. Piro, though, has more confidence in his storytelling than in his art, and wanted something more.
Edit: I’d suggest reading the rants as well, even if they take up a lot of time. You might find explanations for the comic.

19

Fred said it best himself in the first volume of the book: Piro exists to absorb emotional damage, whereas Largo exists to absorb physical damage. The two together keep it from swinging too far into either random senseless violence or angst too often.

20

Ack, I sooo wanna get the printed version…it’d go nicely with my Sandman, Hellsing, and all my other comic stuffs.:yipee:

ps. Cid: You’re my hero for putting a Dirk Gently quote in your sig. :slight_smile: