A few weeks ago I was doodling on stickynotes during a club meeting and I asked my friend sitting next to me what I ought to draw. She told me “Something cool.” I started with Largo’s Cool Thing. When no one in my immediate vicinity recognized it, I added Largo and Boo. Still no recognition, which saddened me greatly. So allow me me to share my love of this comic.
The first page of Megatokyo I ever read was page three of chapter zero, when one of my friends broke down laughing at the local library and then shoved the book in front of my face so that I could appreciate her violent glee (because it’s a webcomic and I can make links, I will probably link a lot of pages here, just so you know). I was amused, but not enough to pick up the books myself. No, I waited until two or three other friends had purchased the books and my sister ended up reading them through the entirety of a Star Wars Role Playing Game session and then tried to explain the story to me, leaving me with little but confusion. Even then, it wasn’t until I was leaving for another Orchestra trip and needed reading material for the bus that I borrowed the first book and read it. The first time through I got lost switching back and forth between characters and generally mixed up bits and pieces, but I reread it, sorted myself out, and ended up reading the rest online whenever I had free time during school and the website wasn’t blocked. It was with Megatokyo that I realized that webcomic were my friends and there was a whole community of crazy geeky people like myself online. That knowledge helped me survive high school.
For years, this was my favorite page. It got beaten out by this page later on (which is probably highly confusing as it’s a single page from the end of a short side comic and has a flashback moment, but isn’t it lovely? I love it). If you have a large block of free time with internet access, reading Megatokyo is not a bad way to spend it.
One of the things I like about Megatokyo (it seems to be a trend with these comics I love) is the time spent on characters. There is an overarching plot (I think) but really it’s about people and their interactions. It’s about Erica dealing with her past and Kimiko struggling towards her future. It’s about Piro gaining confidence and Largo gaining some seriousness. It’s about Ping figuring out who she is and Miho deciding if who she is is really who she wants to be.
Though megatokyo has become much slower updating in recent years, it’s the first web comic I ever read and it’s been there for me through thick and thin and I remain a faithful reader. I don’t archive binge as often anymore, but one of these days Fred’ll complete the story and I’ll go get all of the rest of the books (I currently have books one and four, if I remember correctly) and devote an long afternoon to sitting in a comfy chair and reading straight through the entire series.