Megatokyo Vol.2
Violence: Mild
Sex/Nudity: None
Language: Little
Overall Rating: A
Artwork: A
Story: A
Comments: 3 volumes, 60 pages of extras!
Genre: Comedy, doujinshi, shounen
Date Reviewed: 6/20/05 Last Updated: 6/30/09
Basic Premise: None yet.
Summary: With this volume the story rolls along in ernest with "Chapter 1: Do you want to save before you quit?" In the last volume Piro wandered into a manga bookstore and was reading all of the shoujo comics as a way of getting advice on what he should do about his being trapped in Japan with a friend who is not that much help and no place to live after getting evicted in the last volume. While in there three high school girls start asking him what he is doing and why he is reading girls comics. Piro is flustered and embarrassed and makes a hasty retreat out of there. As he leaves he forgets his bookbag with his sketchbook inside, but he does not realize this till later. The lead girl, Yuki, picks up the bag and tries to find Piro after he ran out of there. The only problem is that she has no idea who he is or anything about him. Since she has little idea of how to find him she starts looking through his book bag and looks at his sketchbook and sees all of the sad girls that he draws and starts to identify with Piro and become infatuated with him even if she won't admit it to herself.
Meanwhile, Piro realizes that his book bag is nowhere to be found and it dawns on him that he must have left it at the bookstore that he was at. He searches frantically for it and the girls that might have it all afternoon, but with little luck. In the end he heads on home and runs into this girl who is in a hurry and looks like she is having a bad day, so Piro just gives his rail card to the girl whose name is later revealed to be Kimiko. Largo also believes that he may have accidentally discovered a cave of evil and unleashed a great evil upon downtown Tokyo; an evil so great that it may destroy Tokyo so utterly that it will never be able to rebuild again. That Evil goes by the name Tohoya.
In this volume Tsubasa has left to find his lost love at the behest of his Sony Playstation accessory that is a robot girl named Ping. Tsubasa takes everything and leaves only Ping behind.
Ping is a only a prototype and is designed to simulate a real girl and also to incorporate the personalities of various dating simulation games depending on what 'games' the end user plays with her. I don't really understand it eaither and it does not really matter at this point because Ping is somewhat at a loss of what to do since no one ever plays any of the 'games' with her. Poor Ping, but Ping manages to improvise and her role in this manga is of the perfect imitation of a girl. Due to the malleable nature of Ping she tries to relate to both of her owners Largo and Piro. With Piro she is very confused as to what role she should play and dotes on him all the time much to Piro's annoyance. With Largo Ping finds herself going completely against her programming and often behaves as his adversary. Again Ping is very malleable and when she walks into a school she immediately figures that she is a student there and late for class. What ever new things Ping incorporates into her personality it seems to stay set and her personality does not seem to have a reset button.
Largo ends up becoming a teacher in this volume and Piro finds a job as a Megagamers cashier. Piro tries to cope with his insecurities and Largo tries to face the forces of darkness. Kimiko and her roommate Erica are introduced in this volume as well. This book is a little longer than the last as the chapters seem to grow ever longer and the plot is more engaging. The artwork improves even more in this volume as Fred Gallagher, the main author, becomes more talented. The extras are a lot of fun and quite numerous. I must say that I fell in love with Fred Gallagher's artwork the moment I first saw his website. I buy very little in the way of manga, because I have been spoiled with the the best and this is one of the best, but, then again, this is only one readers opinion. I highly recommend either buying this series and/or reading it online at his website http://www.megatokyo.com
Conclusion: none yet.
Publisher: Dark Horse
Website: www.megatokyo.com
Where Found: try your local bookstore or megatokyo.com or thinkgeek.com
Copyright: January 2004
Author: Fred Gallagher, Rodney Carston, Dominic Nguyen
Try This: None yet.