To start with, Tsunami Channel is not a webcomic. No, unlike most other webcomic sites, Tsunami Channel actually hosts several webcomics, almost all of which is drawn by host Akira. These include Experimental Comic Kotone, Magical Mina, Love Situations. Just to make that clear.
So, firstly, Experimental Comic Kotone, the longest and oldest of the bunch. Essentially a gag-per-day comic centering on the antics of Robot Girl Kotone, her Onii-chan and various other characters. To be fair, a better description would be that it is a parody of various Harem Shows, with a small habit of Lampshading various tropes found in Harem Anime. And, before you ask, no, it has nothing to do with Excel Saga.
Secondly, Magical Mina. As the name would suggest, this is a Magical Girl comic starring a girl named Mina. It is also apparently set concurrent to Experimental Comic Kotone. Is apparently very much influenced by both Cardcaptor Sakura and various Shonen anime.
Love Situations is a series of short stories exploring romantic setups based in some popular stereotypes of the genre. The first one is about extremely forward Kuudere Saki, and her (shy and more discreet) romantic interest. The second story features a setup with a Osananajimi whose relationship with her best male friend verge in the Cannot Spit It Out. The third and current (and still unfinished) one is centered around a Tsundere girl and her tribulations. This is apparently his latest pet project, and probably the reason why Experimental Comic Kotone and Magical Mina both seem like Orphaned Series.
ExCoKo and MaMi also feature an Author Avatar of Akira himself, as well as an Anthropomorphic Personification of his computer, Tsunami.
Tropes in Experimental Comic Kotone:[]
- Anything That Moves: Konstantin. Just... Konstantin. The only kind of being he doesn't touch is cat girls. Guess which is the only being who is attracted to him.
- Arranged Marriage: Haruna's arrival reason is that Professor Hasegawa arranged her to marry with Onii-chan, despite the latter's lack of consent or even approval of the whole setup. Haruna doesn't care and stays there anyway. This is because she was there before: her backstory included a perfectly arranged one with which looked like an Onii-chan doppleganger, and the arrangement only ended because the boy died of illness before they could marry. See that trope article for the details.
- Bilingual Dialogue: Haruna with everybody.
- Bishounen: Explicitly mentioned in the author's comments for the comic in which Konstantin is introduced.
- Blade on a Stick: Haruna is quite proficient in handling a naginata.
- Catgirl: Anya.
- Chick Magnet: Like any dating sim protagonist, Onii-chan seems to unwittingly warp the reality around him in such a way that random girls fall for him upon first meeting. It's even lampshaded as a "Love Sim Syndrome."
- Covert Pervert: Most of the females.
- Crash Into Hello: Parodied.
- Cute Ghost Girl: Shion
- Cute Shotaro Boy: Alex.
- Dramatic Wind: parodied back and forth
- Deconstruction: of Harem Anime, Dating Sim games, and its related tropes.
- Elegant Gothic Lolita: Favored by Lisa, apparently, though her normal outfit is not nearly so elegant. Later strips do establish her love of EGL, however.
- Everything's Better with Plushies: Kotone has a big collection of plushies, some of those she treat as alive in pure Companion Cube fashion. She even bonds over Alex towards this fact.
- Eyes of Gold: When Laika gets these, watch out. Her Super-Powered Evil Side is about to come out.
- Fanon: Actually encouraged by the author. He even gave one of his old domains to archive some of the fanworks, including a fanwebcomic following the adventures of Ensemble Darkhorse Junichi.
- Fetish Fuel: Of course there is some on the show, but In-Universe, the Professor thinks Cardcaptor Sakura has loads of it.
- Gay Option: Konstatin, apparently.
- Genre Savvy: Professor Hasegawa, oh so much. Also most of the characters, in a way or another.
- The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry: Laika and her older sister Fuuka. It's revealed that part of this involved a man, Jung (who actually is Fuuka's fiance), but not in the way most people thought...
- Handsome Lech: Konstantin is very good looking, but his lecherous ways keeps him from scoring.
- Ho Yay: Invoked here. Also, Lisa's feelings for Laika.
- Hyperspace Mallet: and naginatas, and blades, and... Just say that if you are female you're granted your own hyperspace pocket for your weapon of choice.
- I Am Not Left-Handed: Konstantin reverses this by being left-handed, which is actually a much easier ruse to pull off because 90% of the population is right-handed and so someone using their right hand will not stand out.
- Innocent Innuendo
- Instant Fanclub: Shion, the apparent Cute Ghost Girl, gets one this fast.
- Language of Love: Haruna and Onii-chan seem to understand each other perfectly, even when she speaks exclusively in Japanese, a language Onii-chan doesn't knows. This became an important plot point: in the arc where Haruna's past is revealed, their mutual trust is broken, and with it, their supernatural understanding.
- Life Embellished: Konstantin is based in one of the author friends, who only shares personality and hairdo with his comic counterpart. Also, Professor Hasegawa is an obvious Author Avatar with shades of this.
- Love Dodecahedron
- Loving a Shadow Haruna, towards her dead fiance Mamoru and Onii-chan. It's implied that Junichi has this towards Mamoru, too.
- Magical Girlfriend: every girl in Onii-chan's harem is one of this, in a way of another.
- Meganekko: Laika in the flashback arc. They were fake, but she still looked damn good in them.
- Moment Killer: Kotone.
- Not Blood Siblings: Konstantin believes that this is going between Kotone and Onii-chan. This is not the case.
- Although the aforementioned Moment Killer tendencies suggest that Kotone really doesn't want anyone else getting too close to her onii-chan...
- No Name Given: Onii-chan, to the point of perpetual Hey, You. It's deconstructed in one of the strips who lampshades this: it seems that Onii-chan has a real name, but every time someone tries to say it the universe conspires to forbid it, even if it has to choke the speaker to do so.
- That's because he's the protagonist. Hasegawa even refers to him as "the player".
- Older Than They Look / Younger Than They Look: parodied. Kotone constantly insist she is 18 years old, despite her being about 12 (in both looks, implanted personality, and apparently real building age), and gradually acting more and more younger than that.
- Also, Laika's mother looks like a little kid. Everyone else initially thought it was her younger sister.
- Parental Abandonment: Haruna's was left to be raised by her extremely strict grandmother by her quite hippie parents, apparently as the price for their freedom. And in a surpring turn, Onii-chan's dad also left his family.
- Pettanko: Onii-san points this out about Tsunami, much to her dismay.
- Petting Zoo People: Anya is a catgirl, and her sister Lisa is inexplicably a fox girl. Both have the ears to prove it.
- Plot Tumor: The more serious comics tend to drag on, something the author has admitted to.
- Porn Stash: Tsunami's mission on life seems to eliminate Professor Hasegawa's stash, while Hasegawa and Konstantin's one is giving one to a very unwilling Onii-chan.
- Post Modernism: The comic recently[1] started up again, but rather than picking up the story arc that had been left hanging, the new story has the characters...writing their own endings to LoveSit because Professor Hasegawa is tired of drawing manga.
- Robot Girl: Kotone. Tsunami may be misinterpreted to be a robot, but in fact she's, in the author words, "closer to a computer fairy". It's explained here.
- She Is All Grown Up: An Alternate Continuity where Kotone gets a new body and actually becomes 18 for real. Not Blood Siblings ensues.
- She Is Not My Girlfriend
- Sleep Cute: there are a couple of arcs with this plot.
- Something They Would Never Do: How Onii-chan sees through Lisa's transformation.
- Super-Powered Evil Side: Laika's oni side.
- Thunder Shock
- Tsundere: Laika and Lisa. Tsunami shows some traits of this, too.
- Unwanted Harem: Onii-chan gets one. Lampshaded here.
- Webcomic Time: Lampshaded big time.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: Alex is a boy and usually dress accordingly, but his inherent over-cuteness unfortunately targets him to episodes of forced crosdressing, where he emerges as a convincing girl.
- Yamato Nadeshiko: Haruna. She is presented as the perfect Samurai wife, with naginata handling and all.
- Yandere: in one of the omake strips, three main female characters cosplay as three famous anime ones. The implications are brought up.
- Yaoi Fangirl: Shion.
- You Gotta Have Blue Hair: Laika has natural turquoise hair. But it seems that in this world that color of hair is not natural, and in fact it's a hint of her being the actual Person Shaped Can of a supernatural demonic force. This stands specially because everybody else has plausible, or at least more realistic hair colors, even the Robot Girl, even the half animal girls.
- But not the Cute Ghost Girl. She has blue hair.
- Zettai Ryouiki: Because no webcomic is complete without it, especially not one so heavily inspired by anime and video games. Lisa and Kotone are responsible for most of it, with Kotone alone getting about as many instances as the rest of the cast combined.
- None of which compares to Tsunami in this filler strip. Holy crap.
Tropes in Magical Mina:[]
- Dangerously Genre Savvy
- Defied Trope: Lots of Magical Girl tropes.
- I Am Not Left-Handed
- Magical Girl: Mina
- Mundane Utility: Mina is quite adept to find those for her abilities.
- Naughty Tentacles: Referenced with the vine sword.
- Perpetual Molt
- Punny Name: Mina's companion is an stuffed fox plushie. His name? Mulder.
- Roundhouse Kick: Mina actually deflects a punch with one.
- Voluntary Shapeshifting
- Weak Ass Badass
Tropes in Love Situations:[]
- Brutal Honesty: Saki is like this all the time.
- Emotionless Girl: what Saki looks to others.
- Indirect Kiss: Third story
- Kuudere: Saki from the first story.
- Non-Action Guy
- Not Good with People: the main girl of the Osananajimi story
- Road Cone: toyed in the Omake for the second story, where the Author Avatar explained some alternative endings, incluiding a bad one. The possibility of a Harem ending is played and them shot up.
- Shirtless Scene: Early in the third story, Takumi gets one.
- Tsundere: The main character of the third story
- Unlucky Osananajimi: the main cliché played in the second story... where all of the characters are childhood friends of the male protagonist in a way or another.
- Victorious Childhood Friend: the heroine of the second story
- ↑ late August 2010