Web Comics

WEB COMICS:


MEGATOKYO:

The first comic I'm going to talk about in this is Megatokyo, the first webcomic I ever started reading, back in 2003-ish (Middle School). My sister initially brought home the first two collections in book form home from her high school, and I read them after she was done and got hooked rather quickly.

Megatokyo follows the characters Piro and Largo, who fly to Japan to escape an embarrassing situation involving Largo getting drunk and shouting while naked at E3(Electronic Entertainment Expo). Unfortunately, Piro didn't think this plan through all the way and when they max out their credit cards they no longer have the means to return home. They end up staying and working at a Video Game/Comic book store in Tokyo for an indefinite amount of time until they save up enough money to return home. However, each character then finds romance and other friendships that develop that seem to be keeping them in Japan forever.

The problems that arise in this comic are, after the writer Rodney Caston left the comic and Fred Gallagher took complete control, that while the comic started it began as a parody and comedic look at the world of Video Games, Manga, and Anime. Initially the comic parodied anime and manga's sometimes ridiculously convoluted stories and generally ridiculous nature, especially how the cities depicted in anime and manga are often destroyed yet almost immediately rebuilt. Recently, the Megatokyo story has become what it had been previously been a parody of, but recently it has very few comedic moments as of late and an extremely convoluted story that it takes months do fully develop due to the lack of regular updates from the creator.

Another erroneous concept portrayed in the comic is the fact that Largo has a hard time communicating with the general population of Japan due to not being able to understand Japanese, while Piro has an easier time due to the fact that he is somewhat fluent. From what I've heard of several accounts, it would probably be easier for Largo because signs in Japan are all written in both English and Japanese, and most people in Japan can speak English. On the contrary, Piro would have a harder time if he ever tried to speak Japanese because if you start speaking Japanese, people in Japan assume that you are 100 percent fluent, and due to the speed that native speakers talk, it can become confusing for a Japanese-Second-Language person. Something that also might hinder Piro's understanding of Japanese is also touched on in the graphic novel Yukiko's Spinach, where the narrator mistakes the word for Belly-Button, or Navel, for Spinach when describing the beauty of the titular character's body.

While I started reading this comic for its extremely geeky humor, I've since become somewhat uninterested in the comic due to the plot going off the rails of its initial sanity. That combined with the erratic update schedule despite the creator starting to work full time on the comic means that I usually don't remember to check this comic for updates.



GO GET A ROOMIE:

This is a comic that I recently got into at the beginning of this school year. I can't remember how I found it, but its a very good read.

The story involves a girl known only as "Roomie," who got her name due to her promiscuous sexual nature, often going home and sleeping with(after having sex with) people she barely knows, usually after heavy drinking at Jo's Bar. Therefore, she is everyone's roommate at some point or another.

After a night at Jo's she ends up in bed, naked, with Lillian, or "Lazy Tyke" as she is called by her brother due to her hypersomnia, who for all intents and purposes is asexual as well as completely sexually oblivious. Its clear that there was some misunderstanding the night before, and the two didn't have sex but rather literally just slept together. Lillian's hypersomnia stems from the fact that she finds her dreams more interesting than real life. She is able to continue this lifestyle due to her father having large real estate holdings that the surviving family members sold to make ends meet.

While the comic is named after Roomie, the main character is really Lillian in my opinoin, as its more about how Lillian is slowly growing to accept and understand the people that are Roomie's friends and is accepting the new world she's been dragged into. The initial acceptance takes time of course, which leads to many hilarious encounters.



This comic is extremely sexually explicit, but it also has expanded my horizons and my way of thinking about the world vicariously through Lillian, in that I've learned about how human sexuality isn't so well defined with the generally accepted labels. There are a lot of inbetweens and different areas of the spectrum that I never even knew about, such as pansexuality or omnisexuality(Which I confused at first with Bisexuality, though there is a distinct difference) as well as the completely opposite Asexuality, people who are Asexual only make up 1% of the population.



DUMBING OF AGE:

Dumbing of Age is an interesting comic I just recently got into and found through a link on the Go Get a Roomie comic page. The story is a little bit of the same, people being thrown headfirst into a new place and situation, but more of a romance between several characters who are all dealing with their pasts in a new environment: college.

The story mostly revolves around a girl named Joyce who, prior to college, was homeschooled and sheltered intensely by her Christian parents. So much so that she freaks out when she is assigned a black roommate, finds out one of her new college friends is an atheist, and when she finds out that she's started dating a gay man. She eventually, and very slowly, comes to terms with all of this and slowly gets over her prejudices about people who are different.

I liked this comic due to the fact that I can really relate to the subject matter. More recently, one of the storylines came very close to my own experience, where the character Dina(a girl who's absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs) becomes aware that others think poorly of her and that hurts her feelings. She then seeks out to change that, albeit slowly.

FLCL(Fooly Cooly): Manga And Anime

FLCL(FOOLY COOLY): THE MANGA AND ANIME

Fooly Cooly is an amazing Anime series and a great Manga. I find it hard to talk solely about one or the other independently as they are very connected, and its easier to understand the full concept when you understand the stories of each of them.

The basic story is that Naota, age 12, has a run in with an Alien girl named Haruhara Haruko, who hits him in the head with a bass guitar causing bumps on his forehead to appear. This bump then turns into a portal that allows fighting robots to shoot out of his head randomly. The bumps are the Medical Mechanica robots being pulled through Naota's N.O. channel in his head by Haruko.

Except the robots don't come randomly. Metaphorically, they represent the strange new feelings that a young person Naota's age might feel, A.K.A. one going through puberty. This is being likened to aliens and robots, as this major emotional and physiological change can indeed feel "alien." In the anime, they shoot from his head whenever he gets into an emotional situation, such as when Samejima Mamimi rejects his advances in the 5th episode since he is too young. It's no surprise that with the pubescent metaphors that the robots coming out of Naota's head are extremely phallic in nature, save for the cat ears which eventually come out of Ninamori's head anyway.

The whole concept of Fooly Cooly is a metaphor for becoming an adult and learning what that means. Naota trys to act like an adult, like his brother, as a reaction to everyone in his life acting immaturely. His father acts like a fool flirting with Haruko and generally being obsessed with gossip, like when he wrote the zine about Ninamori's father. He avoids anything that he deems "childish" such as the school play in the 3rd episode.

Naota try's hard to be like his brother, he even carries around a baseball bat(his brother is currently in America playing baseball) although he never uses it, a fact that Samejima makes note of in the first few minutes of the show. In the 4th episode, Naota learns how to "Swing The Bat" from Haruko, and  and uses his new found skills to save the city from being destroyed by a Medical Mechanica bomb. In addition, he also swings the bat to hit his Father/Robot in the head, which Commander Amarao describes as only being able to practice his swing on machines, and his tone denotes ridicule.

A major difference in the manga and anime is Naota hitting his father with the bat. In the anime, Naota's father has been replaced by a robot, but in the Manga Naota actually hits and most likely kills his father. This is, of course, a reference to the Oedipus Complex.

Another thing different about the anime versus the manga is that the Anime depicts Haruko as just being indifferent towards the destruction she causes. In the manga, she's much more blatant about not caring about the destruction of earth. The manga, since its only the two volumes, contains much less in the way of character development, we don't get to see the characters as well rounded off like they are in the anime.

The last thing I want to talk about is Samejima Mamimi's delusions. While re-watching the anime and reading other peoples reactions to the story, I learned something that I never realized. The only reason why I assumed that Samejima and Naota's brother were dating is because she says so, but it may just be that she fell in love with Tasuku(Naota's Brother) because he saved her from the fire when they were younger, and that because he hasn't contacted her since he moved to America means that the feelings weren't reciprocated. She then latches onto his younger brother, Naota, and even gives him the same nickname, Ta-kun, until he abandons her. When he does, she finds a stray cat that she also names Ta-kun. When that cat then finds another cat, she finds the data core from the robot and names it Ta-kun and feeds it other electronic things she finds around the city, especially things that belong to people who have wronged her. Another factor in her "finding a new Ta-kun" is when the old Ta-kun shows signs of being independent from Samejima and what she wants.

As for the name Fooly Cooly(in Japanese "Furi Kuri") WikiAnswers says:

A common mistake by English-speaking fans is to say that the meaning of "Furi Kuri" in Japanese is "Breast Fondling." This mistake arises from the fact that "kuri kuri" is occasionally used by manga artists as a sound effect for breast fondling. In the anime itself, they make references to "kuri kuri" during the first manga scene, when Shigekuni describes kneading bread by making hand gestures that unmistakably resemble groping motions. Due to incredibly fast pacing of the scene, many fans mistake his statement as referring to "furi kuri" instead of "kuri kuri." Much Japanese onomatopoeia follows a pattern of being four kana long and having a sound repeated. "Furi furi" is also used as a sound effect in a later episode when Haruko is petting Naota's cat ears. FLCL's direct Japanese to English translation is: A Pretend Chestnut. Kuri or chestnut can also mean to twist. It would seem the best translation might be pretend twisted (distort, pervert) or pretend disarrangement (disturb the operation or functions [as in twisting]; also to make insane).

...Fooly Cooly is a term to express what can't be manifested. Naota's father uses it to suggest sexual topics, as that's his disposition, and what he THINKS about. Naota's Grandpa just says it over and over, because he's old, and senile, and can't even try to comprehend it. Haruko says it in all sorts of ways, since she's a rather random woman, and can change gears without notice. Mamimi asks Naota, abotu why he is wearing a hat "Is it Fooly Cooly under there again?" Back to the normal crowd. In short, Fooly Cooly is uncertainty. The newness of sexuality for Naota, the uncertainty of his possible relationship with Haruko for Naota's dad. It's the entire world for the old Grandpa. And it's the unexplained weirdness from Naota's head for Mamimi.