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Megatokyo

From left to right: Kimiko, Erika, Largo, and Piro. Back row: Ping (pink hair) and Seraphim (wings).

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"You see, nothing in the real world will ever live up to what I feel inside. I came to terms with that a long time ago... Maybe it's because the feelings I have work only in fantasies, not the real world. That's why I want to be an actress. It's a way to live what I feel, even if it is just part of a story."
Kimiko
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One of the most successful Web Comics around, and one of the easiest to find in brick-and-mortar bookstores. Also one of the most confusing. Starts off when two American video game otaku — Piro and Largo — hop on a one-way flight to Japan, then find themselves unable to get back after a credit-card-maxing shopping spree.

Piro meets an aspiring voice actress called Kimiko and awkwardness ensues. Largo becomes steadily more demented and awkwardness ensues. Kimiko's flatmate Erika has to deal with her past as a popular Idol Singer and awkwardness ensues. A schoolgirl called Yuki gets a crush on Piro and awkwardness ensues. Piro gets stuck with a Dating Sim Robot Girl called Ping and awkwardness ensues. And Dark Magical Girl Miho stirs things up for her own amusement, leading to awkwardness for all concerned.

Has gained a great deal of infamy for its erratic schedule, along with the Dead Piro Days (DPDs) and stick-figure Shirt Guy Dom (SGD) comics (a takeoff on the "Shirt Guy Tom" comics from Sluggy Freelance). Recently the illness of the author's wife has made a realistic schedule even harder to produce.

Has been called the Lost of webcomics for its complex plotline and character histories, most of all the enigmatic Tohya Miho. Has also been called The X-Files of webcomics, for the same reasons, but not as positively. Quite intentionally, it includes a number of anime tropes. Interesting to note, however, is that it is one of few works who take flak for being Trope Overdosed.

Can be found through this link here. In 12 different languages, although each language is at a different point in the story.

And it also has a wiki.


This comic contains examples of:[]

  • Abandoned Info Page: "I'll finish this section when I feel like it."
    • The page was later updated to acknowledge this, and suggest that a new page was coming soon, but wasn't ready for the site redesign. This was in Fall of 2007.
  • Above the Influence: Piro, when Ping comes onto him during Kimiko's radio show. That may not count though, since there's more than a little evidence that at this point he still thinks she's Just a Machine.
  • Accent Adaptation: Komugiko (the Fox Girl) is a subtle version of this trope.
  • Alternate Universe: Often, between the chapters there will be a short story with the Megatokyo characters in different settings, such as in Circuity or unMod.
  • Angry Eyebrows: Toward the end of chapter 7, Piro gets a whole lot more aggressive in his "defenses".
  • Animal-Eared Headband: Komugiko-san.
    • Later on, Erika sports some Steampunk bunny ears.
  • Animeland: One of the best examples is Page 760. Just look at all the things Largo walks by!
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
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 Masamichi: ...deploying an opposing force without a permit, deployment of defensive weaponry without a license, illegal use of duct tape...

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 "We'll set some brush fires on the west coast, cause a major earthquake under an orphanage in New Delhi, and then announce a recall on the American Play Station 2 machines."

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 Miho: When has anyone ever been in love with you?

Yuki: (Luminescent Blush) Eh?

Miho: Oh, wait, there's that Kobayashi kid--

Yuki: OH, COME ON!! EVEN YOU KNEW??

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 Largo: Okay, digit validation check...

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  • The First Cut Is the Deepest: Hitoshi to Erika, possibly Miho to Piro
  • First Girl Wins: By way of a coffee pot to the head.
    • Actually, second girl wins. First girl lost by way of dagger to the throat in Endgames.
      • Depends on if you want to go by first appearance (Kimiko) or first meeting in-story (Miho).
      • Judging from recent parts of the story, Miss Dagger to the Throat might not be out of the running yet, either.
  • First-Name Basis: Piro and (Nanasawa) Kimiko make this switch here...for Kimiko's name, that is; Piro and Largo have no stated last names.
  • Flanderization: Largo has gone from a Deadpan Snarker with an affinity for first person shooter games, to a cardboard-mech-building, zombie-slaughtering, 1337-speaking, Badass. This is generally accepted by Megatokyo's current fans. Most readers who actually disliked this change (along with others) have already stopped reading, and those who've stayed and dared to speak up about the flanderized Largo are usually castrated and chased out of the forums.
  • Fluffy the Terrible: Zom-Zom, Yuki's Fun Sized pet zombie 'zilla.
  • Foe Yay: Miho has a lot of this with Piro and Largo. Though she and Piro were a romantic couple of sorts prior to the start of the comic
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 Miho: So, tell me Piro ... do you still love me?

Piro: Wh... what?

Miho: That's not a very nice way to respond to that question. You could hurt a girl's feelings. In fact, I think I might start to cry.

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  • Follow the Chaos: Most of the cast falls under this. However with all the random property destruction going around by monsters of the day it could count as a subversion too.
  • A Friend in Need
  • Friendly Enemy: Perhaps only somewhat exemplary, but look at the last panel of this strip and try to say that the dialogue, at least, isn't the best example of this trope on the planet.
  • Full-Frontal Assault: Seraphim uses it to defeat Asmodeus.
  • Funbag Airbag: Ping bumps her head into Erika's chest at the Cave of Evil.
  • Fun with Acronyms: The Nanasawa Protection Coalition, made up of 95% nameless and faceless otaku losers.
  • Funny Background Event: Fred loves to load up his backgrounds with these. This page is an excellent example .
  • Fur and Loathing: In a fashion show about eco-friendly clothes, seraphim and Boo both look angrily at someone off-screen as she declares that "No, fur is not eco-friendly."
  • Gag Sub: Whenever Leet Guy is talking.
  • Gag Translation: Miho. Poor Largo...
  • Genki Girl: Ping.
    • And Yuki's friend Asako is a Genki Girl of Mass Destruction, and her friend Mami knows the arming codes. In her own words, "Hey, I always reserve the right to use the "Asako option". You should know that by now."
    • Mumu is a professional genki girl. "No sad girls on MY show!"
  • Genius Ditz: Largo. He seems completely insane at first glance, seeing everything through the lens of various action games (primarily shooters), but in the few times we've directly seen his thought processes, he's figuring out some of the comic's more complicated elements. Unfortunately, everyone else is a little bit to used to tuning him out when he talks.
  • GIRL: used straight, inverted then inverted again. Miho struck up a relationship with Piro's female alter ego online, using a male avatar. She revealed her true identity, letting him see photos of her when she was ill, then broke up with Piro by claiming she was a man after all and the photos were of someone else. Bad form, Miho, bad form.
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 Piro: Who was that guy anyway? Please tell me that was photoshopped.

Miho: Phil's the janitor at the Cave. He's a sweet guy, don't be mean.

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 Sonoda: He didn't hang up.

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 "Bleed me dry with your nettles! I am a coconut!"

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  • Tsundere: Erika, using the original tsundere definition. Ping also enters a Tsundere mode that leads to unstoppable robot rampages.
  • Unusual Euphemism: "Fsck!", a unix command that finds and fixes any hard drive errors.
    • fsck is being used as a generic swearword by unix sysadmins since epoch 0. Since Largo is skilled enough to use a beowulf cluster as workstation, he qualifies. So, no: it's not unusual at all.
    • Miho also refers to sex as "completionism" and long-term relationships as "replay value." This fits in with her treating people as games.
  • Unwanted Harem: Piro's reaches a size of four--Kimiko, Miho, Yuki, and Ping. Naturally, the First Girl Wins.
    • It should be noted that Kimiko is the only one whom a relationship would have a reasonable chance of working out. Yuki is underage (which his concience has made clear that that is a big No, No), he's oblivious to her crush (whether selective or not), and her father is a cop (and Overprotective Dad) not to mention the weirdness and problems caused by her being a Magical Girl. Ping's a Robot Girl who's programming tends be at odds with her own developing individuality (she literally was not designed with long-term-relationships in mind), and in, many ways, could be considered underage as well; Piro tends to be just as oblivious (again, purposely or not) about this issue as he is with Yuki, and instead tries to act as her Big Brother/caretaker/guardian. As for Miho, well, besides the fact that she's a walking enigma and her penchant for manipulation, she and Piro have a... complicated history with each other. He cares about her (on some level), but also doesn't trust her, and it's implied that he needs to settle his past with her before he can move forward with any relationship.
  • Useless Spleen: Though limited to the filler Shirt Guy Dom episodes, it starts here, continues through here and here, and eventually reaches a spear named Spleen Slayer.
  • Verbal Tic: Piro.
  • The Verse: Part of a pseudo-canonical "Macverse" with Apple Geeks and Mac Hall
  • Virginity Makes You Stupid: Kimiko gives the impression of this at first glance. Turns out Erika could tell a few stories...
  • Webcomics Long Runners: In five of the twelve languages it can be read in.
  • Webcomic Time: Probably one of the primary examples. Chapter 0 takes up about two months of in-comic time. Every chapter since then contains the events of exactly one day, with the only time skip occurring between chapters nine and ten. So almost every relationship in the comic (be it romantic or platonic) has had just about two and a half weeks of development.
    • When you think about it though it makes some things awkward. Though time passes nowhere near as fast as us for them, the technology around them seems to advance at the same rate as reality. Its often very jarring.
    • The same is true for anime references and products sold in the store where Piro works.
  • Weirdness Censor: There are multiple forms of censorship running simultaneously, explained here. It'd be easier to say that there are multiple mutually exclusive Extra Strength Masquerades in effect — look in the right direction at the right time with the right eyes and you can see anything from Kaiju to entire Magical Lands. There's an Anime population, full of Magical Girls and Sentai groups battling various threats. There's the Morality population, where Shoulder Angels attempt to guide the human race to their own ends. On top of both is the Government Conspiracy, which attempts to regulate the destruction created by the Anime heroes without getting the world blown up in the process — they drive Humongous Mecha on the street in broad daylight. And some censored populations are subject to censorship themselves! Heroes only see their own threats, and can get pushy when they are interfered with by cops or other heroes. No one sees Shoulder Angels save their clients. The mecha-riding regulators tear their hair out on a regular basis trying to deal with the madness. And the Muggles can't even agree on what to ignore. While Yuki is still coping with being a Magical Girl, she apparently finds being told to stay in the mech to be mundane enough to be infuriating. And while Junko freaks out over Ping's light pole save, the owner of the car that would have hit Junko freaks out not over it being crushed by said light pole, but for Junko's carelessness which brought it about.
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 Junko: ...blue-green hair. How do you get away with this? Is your mom like, color blind?

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  • Your Makeup Is Running
  • Zettai Ryouiki: just about every female character has had an A-grade at one time or another. And if you've clicked all the links on this page thus far, you've probably seen it for about half of them already (heck, Kimiko's got it in the page image here). Here's one more for you.
    • Also, Piro's online avatar, Pirogoeth. Always.
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