Title: Megatokyo Volume(s): 3+ Author(s): Fred Gallagher/Rodney Caston Format: Unflipped; Left-to-Right Publisher: Dark Horse MSRP: $9.95 Genre(s): Comedy/Fantasy Rated: Teen (13+)

Ah, "Megatokyo." In the webcomic world, "Megatokyo" is the 800 hundred pound gorilla of webcomics for anime, manga, and shoujo fans alike. The brain child of Rodney Caston and Fred Gallagher, "Megatokyo" has been around since 2000, and from the very first day the comic was online, it was met with critical acclaim. The combination of Rodney's humor and Fred's limited but appealing artwork made "Megatokyo" a fan favorite almost immediately. "Megatokyo" even gives the oh-so famous "Penny Arcade" a run for its money, and anime and comic conventions report that the "Megatokyo" booth is almost always busy. Once you read the first volume of "Megatokyo," you'll understand why this series is so popular. The story (such as it is) is a simple one. It's really about nothing more then two friends, Largo and Piro, who fly to Japan on a spur of the moment, and find themselves trapped in Japan because they didn't bring enough money to fly themselves back to America.

Largo is a video game nut, who loves FPS's, hates zombies, and is, more or less, always drunk beyond all reason of a doubt. Piro is a shy straight guy who loves shoujo manga, dating sims, and likes to doodle in his sketch book. All this is nothing deep I grant you, but the real fun is the situations and humor these two find on their adventures. Since Largo and Piro are complete opposites of each other in terms of personality, these two approach the situation they have found themselves in in completely different ways. Piro hates Japan. He always thought it would more fun then it is, he's falling in love with every girl in Tokyo, and because Largo is useless, Piro has to find a way to make enough money to fly him and Largo back to America, all while making enough money that they can live somewhere. Largo, meanwhile, is having a blast in Japan, having such adventures as finding a Tomb of Darkness in downtown Tokyo, renting Godzilla for a day (guess work has been rough lately), and drinking beer to the extent where he's convinced that Alf has followed him to Japan. None of these storylines are very deep, nor do they always make sense, but they are extremely funny, and in many ways charming too. This series is as much of a spoof of Japanese culture as much as it is a celebration of it.

Those of you who aren't familiar with Japanese culture may not understand most of the jokes, but for those who do keep up to date with Japanese stuff then the jokes in "Megatokyo" are a hoot. Or should I say h00t? One of "Megatokyo's" biggest claims to fame is that it resurrected the "l33t language" (as many people call it). I'm not completely sure how anyone can read these (so-called) "words" either, but apparently it is a real life language used by online gamers. It should be noted that if you are not a fan of any of the above mentioned hobbies, then "Megatokyo" most likely won't do a thing for you. It swims in it's specialized jokes with glee and a big smile on it's face, and neither Largo or Piro make much of an attempt to clue anyone in on the background the joke they are making. Not even in Piro's commentaries that are scattered throughout the book will you get much information on the source of the jokes, so if you find yourself confused with "Megatokyo" on a regular basis, then it may be wise to look for something else to read. The artwork of the series isn't too attractive to look at, but it's not ugly either. Fred loves shoujo manga, and so he decided to make the look of "Megatokyo" very shoujo-ish. However he took it a step further by not inking the series, which made "Megatokyo" look more like a fan made "doujinshi," which is basically the term for a fan made mangas that are so popular in Japan. Despite the fact that Fred claims he did this because he "hated inking the strips," the decision actually was very inspired, seeing as "Megatokyo" itself was, more or less, a doujinshi itself at times.

Now since this IS a webcomic, you can read everything in this book (and then some) online for free at www.megatokyo.com. This of course begs the question of why buy the book when you can read everything for free online. This is a fair question, and one that definitely deserves to be asked. Well, it appears that Piro knew this book wouldn't sell that great on its own, so the book is crammed with extras. Piro includes a commentary for almost all the four panel comics, each commentary comes with a little Piro sketch, all of the "Dead Piro Days" and "Shirt Dom Guy" day comics are included in this book (for those who are unaware of what these are, they are basically stick figure cartoons that were posted when Fred couldn't get around to posting the comic), and a bunch of random sketches at the end of the book. These things may not sound like a big deal, but most of the commentaries are pretty funny, and the introduction written by Fred and his wife Sara is pretty interesting. The introduction is also kind of bittersweet when Fred admits that he didn't really have a lot of interest in doing "Megatokyo" but ended up drawing a few comics to make Rodney happy, and then eventually bought out "Megatokyo" from Rodney. While I won't use this information to judge Fred's personality (or use it to determine whether or not Fred is a bad guy or not), but I think this information says an awful lot about the "Megatokyo" breakup.

Now for all the praise "Megatokyo" has gotten over the years, it has also garnered quite a bit of controversy and criticism too. The thing about "Megatokyo" that causes quite a ripple is that the style, tone, and pacing of the whole thing dramatically changed when Rodney split from "Megatokyo," and Fred ended up doing both the artwork AND the story of "Megatokyo!" However if I were to bring later "Megatokyo" stories into the review now, I would be doing the current book an injustice. I have my own thoughts and opinions about later "Megatokyo" stories, but I won't talk about them here, mainly because the later "Megatokyo" comics are so drastically different from the comics that you see here, that there is no way one review could fairly grade all the comics at once. When the time comes, I'll write another review for the later books, but right now I'm reviewing this book, and this book is excellent. Ever since the internet boom, there have been tons of webcomics that have come and gone, and that trend continues to this day. However "Megatokyo" has stood the test of time as one of the all time classic webcomics. Regardless of how the comic is being produced today, if you are a huge fan of anime, manga, shoujo, computer games, FPS's, or anything remotely Japanese, then you are going to love "Megatokyo."

- -Review By Kevin T. Rodriguez- -