Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Megatokyo, Volume 3 by Fred Gallagher

Piro and Largo spend the night with Kimiko and her roommate Erica Hayabusa at a bar, where Piro and Kimiko get very drunk and have to be escorted home by their respective friends/roommates.

Largo continues to teach students at his school, including Miho, who he calls the Vampire Girl and Queen of the Undead. After being beaten by her at a video game, Largo is arrested by the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division, but an attack by Gameru, Gamera's alcoholic son on a bender, he manages to use Ping to defeat the beast and is offered a place on the force, including a neat identity card/credit card, which he uses to build a Cybercore Node that functions using cereal and cold beer, Cereal for insulation and beer for cooling. Amazingly enough it works, and Largo uses it to take on several men who are holding some kind of covert operation around the Megagamers store.

Meanwhile, Mimiko has auditioned for a part as the voice of the main character from a new game called "Sight", and she gets the part because of the melancholy in her voice. So much so that the writer actually rewrites the part for her. Of course, she doesn't realize how much getting the part will change her life. But her roommate Hayabusa does, because she, too, used to be a voice actress, but apparently walked away from that life five years ago. Her most devoted (ahem, obsessive) fans have been looking for her ever since, and now, they may just have found her. It is this "operation" that Largo foils using his new computer node.

And Piro may have agreed to give Yuki drawing lessons, but that doesn't mean he'll remember them, and even if he apologizes, he'll still feel like an idiot. Can Seraphim, his conscience, help? And what happens when she is kidnapped by her opposite number, Asmodeus, who wants to really get Piro to lose his innocence and hesitation towards women. But considering Asmodeus's plans involve Piro and Largo, will any plan of his involving them go smoothly? Or will his desire to gloat to Seraphim be his downfall?

Another mangs full of the wacky goodness that is Megatokyo. Piro's wishy-washyness and inability to believe girls could actually like him, and Largo's l33t haxx0r skills and computer-building ability combine to bring the pair more concentrated craziness than most people could stand. The story continues, and perhaps, just perhaps, Piro and Mimiko will one day get together. But both have a long, long way to go yet.

Despite the definitely out of this world things that happen to Piro and Largo, readers will get to see a glimpse of the real Tokyo, and what it must be like. Not the Tokyo of many manga, but the strange and weird Tokyo where fanboys obsessively track down the stars they like, a world where Cafés hire girls to wear costumes and falsies to attract boys to come in and spend their money. A Tokyo and Japan far stranger than many otaku could contemplate...

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