So you take two American gamers and drop them in Japan. Throw in a few zombies, Rent-A-Zillas, Magical Girls, elite assassins from Sony and Sega, a member of the Tokyo Cataclysm Police, a l337 ninja, a prototype of the new Emotional Doll System... and Tohya, who nobody can really figure out yet.

Throw amazing pencil art and a meandering storyline that takes you from the annual E3 expo to the recording studio for a bishoujo game, from an Anna Miller's diner to The Cave of Evil. Add a huge dose of excellent characterization, ranging from a 'loser fanboy' that's also an artist, to a retired Japanese Idol, a struggling voice actress (who's a dead-shot with a coffeepot), a few schoolgirls, and a space hamster named 'Boo.'

Put in the occasional sight gag and a huge dose of humor.

Mix well.

The result? The long-running webcomic named Megatokyo.

I'm hardly going to claim to be an expert on the series, which has run (as of Saturday, Feb 11th, 2006) for 819 strips, seeing that I've only really gotten into the thing over the past few months. I have read the whole series, and am quite willing to proclaim it worth the time and effort to do... with a dialup modem, no less.

At its heart, Megatokyo is the usual "stranger in a strange land" story, in a Japanese manga style. Woven around that core, there's also a romantic storyline, a technothriller/cyberpunk adventure, and quite a few others.

In fact, the large number of stories and characters are one of the main complaints often levied against Megatokyo. A n00b reader really can't just 'pick up the storyline', because it refers back to itself so often. It'd be like picking up book seven of a ten part series and expecting to understand the whole thing.

Which is why I started from the first entry and kept going, figuring I'd either love it and catch up to the current point (which I did, sometime in December), or I'd hate it and give up after a week or so (maybe 200 entries).

It's quite the read, with a very complex plot... or a very simple one, depending on how you look at it. The art ranges to passable at the beginning to awesome (currently). Indeed, the past few desktops I've had on my computer here at the Pond have been from Megatokyo.

It'll make you laugh, it'll make you think, it'll make you care about these characters... and what more can you really ask for from a storyteller?

Posted by: Wonderduck at 07:45 PM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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