Megatokyo - Themes and Structure

Themes and Structure

Much of Megatokyo's early humor consists of jokes related to the video game subculture, as well as culture-clash issues. In these early strips, the comic progressed at a pace which Gallagher has called "haphazard", often interrupted by purely punchline-driven installments. As Gallagher gradually gained more control over Megatokyo's production, the comic began to gain more similarities to the Japanese shōjo manga that Gallagher enjoys. Following Gallagher's complete takeover of Megatokyo, the comic's thematic relation to Japanese manga continued to grow.

The comic features characteristics borrowed from anime and manga archetypes, often parodying the medium's clichés. Examples include Junpei, a ninja who becomes Largo's apprentice; Rent-a-zillas, giant monsters based on Godzilla; the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division, which fights the monsters with giant robots and supervises the systematic destruction and reconstruction of predesignated areas of the city; fan service; a Japanese school girl, Yuki, who has also started being a magical girl in recent comics; and Ping, a robot girl. In addition, Dom and Ed, hitmen employed by Sega and Sony, respectively, are associated with a Japanese stereotype that all Americans are heavily armed.

Characters in Megatokyo usually speak Japanese, although some speak English, or English-based l33t. Typically, when a character is speaking Japanese, it is signified by enclosing English text between angle brackets (<>). Not every character speaks every language, so occasionally characters are unable to understand one another. In several scenes (such as this one), a character's speech is written entirely in rōmaji Japanese to emphasize this.

Megatokyo is divided into chapters. Chapter 0, which contains all of the comic's early phase, covers a time span in the comic of about six weeks. Each of the subsequent chapters chronicles the events of a single day. Chapter 0 was originally not given a title, although the book version retroactively dubbed it "Relax, we understand j00". Chapter 0 began during August 2000, with chapters 1 through 11 beginning in June 2001, November 2001, October 2002, April 2003, February 2004, November 2004, September 2005, June 2006, April 2007, July 2008, and June 2010 respectively.

Between the chapters, and occasionally referenced in the main comic are a number of omake.