Webcomic Review #1: MegaTokyo

~Hi again. I'm sure you're familiar with the expression, "The best things in life are free", so it's time for me to introduce you to one of my very favorite free things: webcomics!

Webcomics are much like the regular comic strips that you see in the newspaper every day, except that these comics are on the internet. Almost all of them are completely free, and they have several advantages over traditional paper comics. First of all, webcomics are not constrained by a printed medium--they can be as large or as small as the creator desires. They can use color or be in black-and-white; some webcomics are actually edited collections of photographs. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, webcomics don't have to pander to a wide audience, which produces the many bland newspaper comics you see every day that have been recycling the same, carefully non-offensive jokes for decades on end.

As they say around here, taikutsu na! That's Japanese for boring (tai-ku-tsu na, 退 屈 な ).

There are thousands of webcomics out there, but the very best of them are not only well-written and well-drawn (or whatever format is used), but also update on a more-or-less regular schedule. I've been reading webcomics for years now and I have hundreds bookmarked, but there are only a few that I regularly follow and check on. Rather than simply provide you with a list of my favorites, I'm going to sporadically post a review and link to one of my favorite comics. So, without further ado, I present:

^ MEGATOKYO is not the oldest webcomic, but it is one of the best-established. It's been running for over six years now and is up to 875 pages. It is one of the few webcomics that has made a successful transition to print: a few months ago while volunteering at Eva Perry Library, I came across MegaTokyo Volumes 1 and 2.

NAME: MegaTokyo
FORMAT: Variable multipanel, black-and-white
GENRE: modern with scifi/fantastical elements
UPDATES: Usually Mon-Wed-Fri

^ MEGATOKYO follows the adventures of two clueless Americans who accidentally fly to Tokyo and find themselves with insufficient funds to return to the U.S. They settle into life in Japan in their own bizarre ways. Largo, the obsessive gamer of the duo, somehow gets a job as an English teacher despite the fact that he speaks no Japanese (does this sound familiar to you?). He proceeds to teach his students how to play video games and speak in l33t. Piro, an obsessive fan of Japanese animation, becomes involved with many women for all the wrong reasons. Supporting characters include Godzilla, a professional ninja, and a pair of video game company employees who are actually heavily-armed corporate operatives.

The art style of MegaTokyo varies widely: character art tends to be minimalist, with rounded heads and tiny eyes and mouths, while backgrounds and objects are very well detailed. The storyline is often quite slow (it IS 875 pages long, after all), and is sometimes supplemented with joke pages that consist of stick figures. The webcomic is extremely popular and has hundreds of thousands of regular readers. This has allowed the artist/writer, Fred Gallagher, become one of the few self-supporting webcomic creators; he works full-time on the webcomic (much like newspaper comic artists) and makes money from book sales, merchandising and advertising on the website.

I'll post reviews of new webcomics when I get around to it. I have about 30 links in my 'Best Webcomics' bookmark folder, so there's no lack of choices. ~Oyasumi!

Next in Niigata...

~Hello, fellow sentients. Another busy week has begun for me over here in Japan, and the kids are running around the school like spider monkeys on Pixie Stix:







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--That being said, today's post is about a trip that I took on Monday to Niigata. As you might remember, Niigata is the nearest large city to Nagaoka, and it's also the capital of Niigata Prefecture ("prefecture" is roughly equivalent to a U.S. state).

My reason for returning to the city was to accompany a friend, who needed to fill out some forms at the city immigration office. Hence, our first stop was Niigata International Airport, where the immigration office is located:

^ Niigata International Airport is not large, but it is an important transportation hub because it's one of the few airports on the west coast of Japan that has international flights. Because Niigata is the entry point for all Russian immigrants to Japan (The Russian Federation has a consulate in the city), many of the signs in the airport were in not only Japanese and English, but also Cyrillic.

I nicknamed this place the "Ninja Airport" because the immigration office was so blasted difficult to find. My friend and I found a map in the terminal, but soon discovered that to actually enter the office, we'd have to possess the ability to walk through walls (or smash them down). After wandering up and down stairwells and escalators for ~20 minutes, we gave up and asked for help, at which point we learned that you have to go outside of the terminal, into a nearly-hidden side entrance, and up a flight of stairs to get to the office. Yes, it took us twenty minutes to ask for help, but hey, we're guys...what did you expect?

By the way, your Word of the Post is kuko ( kū-kō, 空 港 ), which is Japanese for "airport".

^ Inside of the terminal were these two gigantic kites from the "Shirone Giant Kite Battle" held from June 2nd to June 6th. I would have gone to see the kite battles, but unfortunately that was the same weekend as my follow-up training in Okayama. Curses!

The process of filling out forms at the immigration office was blissfully short, and we headed to the upper deck of the terminal to relax a bit before our bus departed. I spotted some amusing pictures near the observation deck:

^ Do not throw baseballs, paper planes, or aluminum cans at the airplanes. It makes them sad.

^ Sure, Japanese money looks better than American money, but do they have to rub it in?


^ Before boarding your flight, check to make sure it's not one of those "bendy" planes.

--The airport was mostly dead while I was there, and all of the gates were empty. I did, however, see a "Japan Air Commuter" taxiing on the runway:

^ Seeing an airplane like this makes me excited, and reminds me of one of my medium-term goals in life: to get my pilot's license. A few months ago, I drove out to Sanford-Lee County Airport (about half an hour away from Cary, NC by car) to check out the Wings of Carolina Flying Club, a nonprofit organization that promotes aviation education. At the time, I was scheduled to fly to the other side of the planet in a few months, so I didn't sign up for the ground school or flight lessons that the club offers. However, I plan on doing something along those lines when I get back.

So are you still up for flying, Mike?

--After taking a bus back to Niigata, my friend and I wandered around the malls for a while, which are much larger than the shops in Nagaoka. At one store I picked up this great poster which now adorns my apartment wall:
^ Together now, "Arrrrrr!". Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl is one of my favorite films, and the sequel, Pirates of the Caribbean 2: Dead Man's Chest, is coming out on July 7th. By the way, these movies are even better if you read the novel "Iceberg" by Clive Cussler.

While walking through the malls, I found some amusing advertisements:

^ Sometimes, when I'm surrounded by screaming children, I feel just like this guy: "PLEASE KILL ME".

--And here's some extremely weird Japanglish for you:

^ This has got to be one of the most bizarre instances of Japanglish that I've seen in Japan so far. The text, for those of you having difficulty, reads:

We..
We monkey?
No, Ne never.
Cuz such a tight glasses
wearing, you know?

I investigated the advertised website and discovered that "Pokerface" is a store that sells "High Quality Eyewear". Apparently, the quality was good enough for the monkey...although to me he seems a bit displeased with his purchase.

That's all for today from Japan. I'd like to point out that I've added a link on the right to Stef's blog, Out and About in Raleigh, so go check it out (and the scary picture of me glaring at you from the current page). ~Oyasumi!