Webcomic / MegaTokyo

From left to right, foreground: Kimiko, Erika, Largo, and Piro. From left to right, background: Ed, Junpei, Ping, Miho, Seraphim, and Dom.

"You see, nothing in the real world will ever live up to what I feel inside. I came to terms with that a long time ago... Maybe it's because the feelings I have work only in fantasies, not the real world. That's why I want to be an actress. It's a way to live what I feel, even if it is just part of a story."

— Kimiko

The story of MegaTokyo starts off when two American video game otaku — Piro and Largo — hop on a one-way flight to Japan, then find themselves unable to get back after a credit-card-maxing shopping spree.

Piro meets an aspiring voice actress called Kimiko and awkwardness ensues. Largo becomes steadily more demented and awkwardness ensues. Kimiko's flatmate Erika has to deal with her past as a popular Idol Singer and awkwardness ensues. A schoolgirl called Yuki gets a crush on Piro and awkwardness ensues. Piro gets stuck with a Dating Sim Robot Girl called Ping and awkwardness ensues. And a mysterious goth called Miho stirs things up for her own amusement, leading to awkwardness for all concerned.

Debuting in 2000 and still ongoing, the comic has gained a great deal of infamy for its erratic schedule, along with the Filler Strips Dead Piro Days and stick-figure Shirt Guy Dom comics (a takeoff on the "Shirt Guy Tom" comics from Sluggy Freelance).

Has been called the Lost of webcomics for its complex plot line and character histories, most of all the enigmatic Tohya Miho. Quite intentionally, it includes a number of anime tropes.

In 2013, creator Fred Gallagher launched a Kickstarter for a Visual Novel game based on the comic. The funding request was wildly successful but for a variety of reasons the game never shipped and now appears abandoned. Gallagher continues to publish new Megatokyo comics as of 2023.

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MegaTokyo contains examples of:

• Abandoned Info Page: "I'll finish this section when I feel like it." Currently the quote for the trope page.
• Aborted Arc: The explanation of Seraphim and her sister. Fred has said he'll get back to it eventually, probably as a bonus story after the comic has ended.
• Above the Influence: Piro, when Ping comes onto him during Kimiko's radio show, whether or not he still saw her as a machine.
• Absurdly Youthful Mother: All over the place, but Junpei's grandmother takes the proverbial cake by looking like she could be his younger sister.
• Accent Adaptation: Komugiko (the Fox Girl) is a subtle version of this trope.
• Alternate Universe: Often, between the chapters there will be a short story with the MegaTokyo characters in different settings, such as in Circuity or unMod.
• Angry Eyebrows: Toward the end of chapter 7, Piro gets a whole lot more aggressive in his "defenses".
• Animal-Eared Headband: Komugiko-san.
  • Later on, Erika sports some Steampunk bunny ears.
• Animeland: One of the best examples is Page 760. Just look at all the things Largo walks by!
• Armor-Piercing Question:
  • Piro to Miho during their confrontation at the Cave of Evil:
    "Do you even care?"
  • Later on, Kimiko to Miho. It causes the latter to reassess her entire worldview.
    "What about what happens to you in his story?"
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking:
  • Largo's been busy:
    Masamichi: ...deploying an opposing force without a permit, deployment of defensive weaponry without a license, illegal use of duct tape...
  • The current page image for Nebulous Evil Organisation, which literally starts off with arson and murder:
    Assistant: We'll set some brush fires on the west coast, cause a major earthquake under an orphanage in New Delhi, and then announce a recall on the American PS2 machines.
• Art Evolution: Just compare the early strips to the current ones. Everyone looks much more detailed now.
• Artifact Title: Rodney Caston originally bought the megatokyo.com domain and used Largo as his handle because he was a fan of Bubblegum Crisis. The comic is essentially named after its domain name rather than being a Shout-Out.
• Ascended Fanboy: Piro, and everyone else to one degree or another. This is one of the main themes of the story.
• Ascended Meme: Largo took out several blocks of the Tokyo power grid with a weaponized Rickroll.
• Attack of the 50-Foot Whatever: The Rent-A-Zilla is a Godzilla-like monster that can be rented (by the hour, paid for in pork rinds), and Gameru is a Gamera parody who occasionally goes on drunken rampages.
• Attractive Bent-Gender: "Pirogoeth", or Piro's female online persona with a sword. Some people though require Brain Bleach upon seeing Pirogoeth in a barmaid's dress.
  • "Piroko" is the FPS persona. Fear the cute one, especially when undercover as a fetish mod.
• Author Appeal: Moe and Sad Girls In Snow.
• Awesomeness Is Volatile: When Largo blew up something in the class he taught.
• Axe-Crazy: Ed (and Dom to a lesser extent) definitely count, especially considering Ed's reaction to meeting Miho: "What is this...this is...ph34r! This is ph34r! I feel ph34r! HAHAHAHAHA!"
• Back Story: "Behind the Masque" for the Kindle is a short story based on a fantasy MMORPG played by characters before the comic started.
  • Has since been expanded into a series of light novels written by the co-author of the short story.
• Badass Adorable: Ping
• Badass Cape: Largo, dressed to go clubbing.
• Badass Teacher: Great Teacher Largo.
• Barbie Doll Anatomy: When Erika talks to Moeko in the hospital, Moeko has no detail to her naked body. This might tie into Largo's reaction of consciously filtering his perception so as not to see anything.
• Battle Couple: Largo and Erika seem to become one in Chapter 10.
• Beach Episode: An 18-page side-story in the omnibus.
• Beat Panel: Used with more drama than most uses of this trope.
• "Begone" Bribe: At one point, Largo is being surprisingly nice to Erika after her past has caught up with her. However, she assumes he wants something from her, so just bluntly asks him "If I sleep with you, will you go away?"
• Belligerent Sexual Tension: Erika and Largo.
  • Once they start to resolve some of the bad blood between them, pretty much every interaction Piro and Miho have with each other is drenched with this trope. In a flip of the typical gender dynamics for this trope, it's usually Miho acting as the Jerk with a Heart of Gold and Piro as the Tsundere.
• Berserk Button: Rejecting Ping, in any form, is a very bad idea. Mind you, this is a design flaw, but still.
  • The enforcement of end user dress codes is entirely as intended.
  • Also, never try to play head games with Largo when Piro is nearby.
• Beta Couple: Erika and Largo, to Piro and Kimiko.
• Betty and Veronica: Kimiko and Miho respectively, for Piro's Archie. Though Piro is solely focused romantically on Kimiko for a long time, it eventually becomes clear that his past romantic feelings for Miho are still present (and strong, and mutual), leaving him feeling conflicted on which girl is the one he really wants.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Piro does have a spine, usually manifesting itself in his friends' defense, or...erm...his own.
• Big Brother Attraction: Piro and Ping, arguably. Since she's a Ridiculously Human Robot Girl, she starts out unsure if she wants to play the role of his girlfriend or little sister.
• Bilingual Bonus: Some parts are written in (romanized) japanese or Leet Lingo.
• Bland-Name Product: The game Kimiko is doing a voice for is made by Cubesoft and LockArt.
  • And one of Largo's students plays him in Punished Pinion.
• Blank White Eyes
• Boyfriend-Blocking Dad: Yuki's father runs a background check on his daughter's boyfriend.
• Break the Cutie: Miho did it to herself though.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: A seriously frightening example (in retrospect) where the character is reflecting the symptoms of her real-life namesake's autoimmune disorder which later turned into cancer. Note the knee brace on Seraphim then read Rant 1042 for details.
• Bring My Brown Pants: Ex Magical Girls sometimes make crude jokes that a Panty Shot of someone fighting for their life is probably not as nice as some anime suggests.
• Broken Bird: Erika named this trope, and embodies it perfectly.
• Bystander Syndrome: At least one magical girl (probably Miho, but she may have had help) can produce this effect, hiding a house and causing other people to just walk right by it. This isn't Invisible to Normals, either; it worked fine on a Magical Girl.
• Call-Back: Metal Gear Solid - From this to this (there are no more heroes).
• Calling Your Attacks: Junpei and sometimes Largo: "PREP4R3 FOR PANTLESS NINJ4 FURY!!!!"
  • Parodied when Junpei uses Keyless Enter to break open a door.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Started out as a gag strip with a plotline before a falling out between the original author, Rodney Caston, and Gallagher led to the latter taking full control of the strip and quickly removing almost all of the gag elements in favor of one long continuous serious plot. Funnily enough, a strip right before this happened depicted what would happen if only one of the two authors controlled the output. Gallagher's version is identical to what the comic turned into. Although the comic has taken a turn for the dramatic and emotional, it still packs enough hilarity and madcap moments to remain amusing.
  • Real Life example: This happened between Caston and Gallagher, depending on who you ask. As can be surmised by the fact that they started the comic, the two were pretty good friends. The point at which Caston left is where the story differs-Gallagher maintains that it was a fairly amicable exchange because Caston wanted to move on to other projects, while Caston's side of the story holds that Gallagher handed him an ultimatum: if Caston didn't sell him his share of the rights to the comic, he'd drop the whole thing; Caston says he complied because he felt it was more important for the comic to get published than for him to be a part of it.
    • Gallagher's commentary in the graphic novel collection regarding the aforementioned strip (that they "tested the heavy objects theory") seems to indicate it probably wasn't as amicable as either side would've liked.
• Characterization Marches On: Hard to believe an early strip had Largo ponder giving up gaming and leading a more productive life, only to have Piro argue that the "real world" sucks.
• Chekhov's Gun: Sniping with it from 8 years, 4 months, 17 days away! (of course, in-comic it was only two weeks or so)
  • Gunmen, too. Most new characters appear as apparent one-shot bystanders or adversaries before receiving names and becoming important to the plot.
• Cherry Blossoms: Some scenes with Yuki. Since the comic is black-and-white, and mostly set in September, one has what looks like Cherry Blossoms, but is probably leaves.
• Chew Toy: Kobayashi seems to be turning into this. His encounters with Yuki tend to land him in the hospital, and even Mugi is getting in on the action.
• Childhood Marriage Promise: In a page aptly titled "osana najimi," Tsubasa explains that he's flown off to America to search for his.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Tsubasa being the main example, being ostensibly their excuse for being in Japan and promptly written out of the comic. However, with the combination of Schedule Slip and Cast Herd, you would be forgiven if you honestly don't recall most of the major players outside of the main 4 - 5.
• Cloud Cuckoo Lander: Largo, especially now that he's in a relationship. Him and Erika are talking about clubbing — she's talking about going to a nightclub, he's talking about beating people with blunt objects. (Oddly, their conversation is mostly coherent with either meaning.)
  • Meimi. She's the most out-there conglomeration of magical girl characteristics that exists. And her magical girl power? Magical theft. She takes magical girl tropes Serial Escalation. There is some evidence that she actually is insane, but most of the time she gives the impression that she's playing it up for whatever reason. At the very least, it's pretty clear that she does accidentally steal things all the time.
• Contrived Clumsiness: Kimiko performs the drink spill variant on four people at the same time. Although her motive is more justifiable than most, there is a small measure of revenge in her actions.
• Cool Shades: During the zombie revolt.
• Crazy Enough to Work: This is pretty much Largo's modus operandi. Case in point.
• Crossover: with Applegeeks, although it's much more common for Megatokyo characters to appear in Applegeeks than the other way around.
  • Also, Piro tended to show up in the early-to-middle years of the now complete Mac Hall. See Snow Means Love below for the result of one such incident.
• Cryptic Conversation: Miho and Kenji seem fond of this.
• Cunning Linguist: Erika speaks, or at least understands, fluent Japanese, English, Hamster, and L33T, the only character in the series that can do so.
  • Dom and Piro are runners up, understanding Japanese, English, and L33T, but Piro tends to tune Largo out during his L33T M45T3R rants.
• Cut Himself Shaving: Piro winds up in jail, and his cellmate "fell off his bunk. Several times." Without a bunk actually in the cell.
• Cute Clumsy Girl:
  • Kimiko, usually when she's carrying a coffee pot at the Anna Miller's.
  • Yuki's halfway there, though she manages to be one while pulling off ridiculous acrobatics at the same time.
• Cuteness Proximity: Boo requests extra tactical equipment, which the supervisor wants to deny... but it's out their hands at that point.
  • And when Yuki's friends are telling Piro off for making her upset, Asako simply can't stay mad at the boy dressed as a pink teddy-bear.
• Deconstructed Trope: Yuki Sonada is revealed to be a Magical Girl, with many of the associated superpowers. While using some of these newfound powers, various injuries in the newfound non-magical sidekick are caused. Just go ask Kobayashi who was injured from the increased acceleration.
• Department of Redundancy Department: Yuki would often refer to Piro as "Mr. Piro-san," and also gave Largo both "Mr." and "san." Ping at least once addressed the school nurse similarly. Though it's become common in eastern pop culture to (incorrectly) use -san as a term of endearment. Adding the 'Mr.' both translates it and makes sure that the right translation gets through. So it may be justified.
• Distracted by the Sexy: When Kimiko is rushing to get dressed and out of the house before Piro arrives
• Dramatic Drop: Meimi, end of chapter 9.
• Dramatic High Perching: Miho does this a lot. It's a long time before it's explained what she's doing on top of light poles and such.
• Drowning My Sorrows: Largo; see Wham Episode, below.
  • Piro and Kimiko once did this together — over the problems with their own relationship.
• Duct Tape And Cardboard For Everything: Largo's "deadly" duo of all-purpose construction materials.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Colloquially known as "Chapter 0", this covers the start of the comic when Rodney was still on the team. The Chapter 0 comics are very different from the current ones, which include the "4-koma/Western" blend "cube" presentation, a heightened focus on comedy rather than any sense of drama, somewhat unpolished art, pre-Flanderization Largo who was simply an FPS gamer with a few screws loose, and in-story time progression; Chapter 0 covers two months of in-universe time. Every Chapter after that covers a day.
• The Electric Slide: Many characters use this trope. It's handwaved by them all being magical girls — yes, even the one who doesn't know she is one.
• Emotion Eater: Possibly Tohya Miho and (other) Magical Girls. Based on some conversations, it seems that they need to "feed" off of emotions, which they seem to do by inciting these feelings in others. This doesn't seem to cause any damage to the victim (other than the discomfort of having their emotions toyed with, that is). It also Mind Screws the hell out of them as later comics make it seem like Miho is unable to think that she's loved due to her repeated reference to relationships as "Games" and lovers as "players"
• Enforced Method Acting: The "conveniently similar reaction to real-life event" variety is used in-universe.
• Enjo Kosai: Junko is seen practicing this. She may actually be attracted to older men if her reaction to "Old Snake" from MGS4 is any indication.
• Everyone Can See It:
  • Yutaka Kobayashi is madly in love with Yuki, and everyone (except Yuki) knows it.
    Miho: When has anyone ever been in love with you?
    Yuki: (Luminescent Blush) Eh?
    Miho: Oh, wait, there's that Kobayashi kid—
    Yuki: OH, COME ON!! EVEN YOU KNEW??
  • And later, when Miho runs into Kobayashi.
    Miho: Wait...aren't you that boy who's madly in love with Sonoda Yuki?
• Expy:
  • Waltah, the bartender from Cave of Evil is an obvious reference to to a certain butler from Hellsing, right down to his dress and hairstyle.
  • In-universe, Kotone from Sight is an expy of Miho, just like every other in-universe ill girl.
• Expressive Hair: Yuki.
• Extended Disarming: In the unMod omake, which starts here, in the 3rd page, the alternate Yuki character takes the ammo clip from alternate-Largo's sniper rifle, he pulls out a pistol which she takes out of his hand, then a more exotic pistol, a shotgun, a submachine gun, an assault rifle, a bazooka, a chainsaw and at this point - her arms wrapped around a massive hoard of weapons - she gets annoyed and tells him to stop.
• Face Palm: Kobayashi-kun at his own stupidity. When a girl you've had a crush on for years suggests you hold on to her "really, really tight...."
  • Ryoya at Kimiko's PR disaster of a response to a question.
• Fanservice:
  • When Kimiko and Erika strip down to their underwear. Bonus points may be hit for some people in that Erika personally saw to undressing Kimiko.
  • Also, when Miho gets ready for a bath. Seraphim being part of those strips doesn't hurt, either.
  • Mermaid Yuki, though given her human version's age it can also be considered Squick.
• Fan Disservice ...Piro in boxers? The boy could stand to lose a few pounds. Though the boxers aren't his so it may be a bad case of muffon top.
• Fan Verse: MegaTokyo has spawned at least three Fan Verses to date. The oldest is the MegaTokyo: the Clans game that started in 2001 on the MegaTokyo Forum, and which is STILL going (look for threads labeled [Mt:tC] in the RP subforum). There's also the Story Discussion Fanworks game that is hosted off site in its own dedicated forum. Also the energetic Megatokyo Campfire Story that can be found in the sites RP forum.
• Filler Strip: Dead Piro Day. Also, there are short "omake" stories using MegaTokyo characters in popular anime or original stories Fred wrote himself. The Full Metal Panic! one strongly insinuates that the "omakes" are Ping's dreams.
• Fingore: Given a nod and a wink.
  Largo: Okay, digit validation check...
• The First Cut Is the Deepest: Hitoshi to Erika, possibly Miho to Piro
• First Girl Wins: Depends on if you want to go by first appearance (Kimiko) or first meeting in-story (Miho). For a long time, it appeared that Kimiko had won by way of a coffee pot to the head, after Miho lost by way of a dagger to the throat. Later strips imply Miho's not quite out of the running yet.
• First-Name Basis: Piro and (Nanasawa) Kimiko make this switch here...for Kimiko's name, that is; Piro and Largo have no stated last names.
• Flanderization: Largo has gone from a deadpan snarker with an affinity for First-Person Shooter games, to a cardboard-mech-building, zombie-slaughtering, 1337-speaking, badass. This is generally accepted by Megatokyo's current fans. Most readers who actually disliked this change (along with others) have already stopped reading, and those who've stayed and dared to speak up about the flanderized Largo are usually castrated and chased out of the forums.
• Fluffy the Terrible: Zom-Zom, Yuki's Fun Sized pet zombie 'zilla.
• Follow the Chaos: Most of the cast falls under this. However with all the random property destruction going around by monsters of the day it could count as a subversion too.
• A Friend in Need
• Friendly Enemy: Perhaps only somewhat exemplary, but look at the last panel of this strip and try to say that the dialogue, at least, isn't the best example of this trope on the planet.
• The Friends Who Never Hang: Piro and Largo. While initially they were together most of the time, as the comic went on , their storylines started do diverge greatly. Largo's focused more on being "Great Teacher Largo", random shenanigans, fighting zombies and building f34rb0ts. Piro's went on to the exploration of relationships, comparing the reality of it with fiction, dealing with his emotional baggage and previous relationship with Miho, and just dealing with everyday life. It got to the point that they rarely talked to each other, and when they did they were basically having two different conversations on two different worlds. In later comics it seems like this trend is getting reversed. Ping's arc with Miho basically forces him to deal (and interact) with Largo's side of the plot.
• From Bad to Worse: Played for Laughs when Piro and Largo are under attack by a horde of fanboys upset over Piro's treatment of Nanasawa.
  Piro: Great. What else can go wrong today.
  [beat panel]
  Piro: You're kidding. You actually thought of something.
  Largo: Dude, what time is it?
• Full-Frontal Assault: Seraphim uses it to defeat Asmodeus.
• Funbag Airbag: Ping bumps her head into Erika's chest at the Cave of Evil.
  • Also happens in this strip. BOMPH! It serves as the trope image.
• Fun with Acronyms: The Nanasawa Protection Coalition, made up of 95% nameless and faceless otaku losers.
• Funny Background Event: Fred loves to load up his backgrounds with these. This page is an excellent example, and also includes a subtle example of Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs^note  Chasing fans with a delivery scooter, while wearing a bunny-suit, then with a delivery scooter while wearing a bunny-suit.
  • As is this, albeit it's a dialog-only example.
  • Combined with a cameo in this strip. In the midst of Piro's angsting, Ayu appears in the background and gets tackled by Makoto.
  • And the background chatter shows up again here, after Yuki's dad goes extremely Papa Wolf after hearing his daughter has a boyfriend.
  • Not to mention Erika and Yuki's conversation.
• Fur and Loathing: In a fashion show about eco-friendly clothes, seraphim and Boo both look angrily at someone off-screen as she declares that "No, fur is not eco-friendly."
• Gag Sub: Whenever Leet Guy is talking.
• Gag Translation: Miho. Poor Largo...
• Genki Girl: Ping.
  • And Yuki's friend Asako is a Genki Girl of Mass Destruction, and her friend Mami knows the arming codes.
    Mami: Hey, I always reserve the right to use the "Asako option". You should know that by now.
  • Mumu is a professional genki girl. "No sad girls on MY show!"
• Genius Ditz: Largo. He seems completely insane at first glance, seeing everything through the lens of various action games (primarily shooters), but in the few times we've directly seen his thought processes, he's figuring out some of the comic's more complicated elements. Unfortunately, everyone else is a little bit to used to tuning him out when he talks.
• Genre Shift: Very early strips were wholly comedic, mostly focusing on Piro and Largo's antics as they try to scrounge up the cash to get home. Once Gallagher had the freedom to expand the series in his own personal direction, much of the comic's bulk became a drama, with some comedy sprinkled in here and there.
• G.I.R.L.: Played straight, inverted then inverted again. Miho struck up a relationship with Piro's female alter ego online, using a male avatar. She revealed her true identity, letting him see photos of her when she was ill, then broke up with Piro by claiming she was a man after all and the photos were of someone else. Bad form, Miho, bad form.
  Piro: Who was that guy anyway? Please tell me that was photoshopped.
  Miho: Phil's the janitor at the Cave. He's a sweet guy, don't be mean.
• Girlish Pigtails: Yuki previously. She's since traded up to a ponytail.
• The Glomp:
  • Yuki, when finally finding Miho.
  • Earlier Miho glomps Ping. The page is actually titled "a defusing glomp".
• Good Angel, Bad Angel: Seraphim and Asmodeus. And also apparently Seraphim and her sister, though this is never mentioned again.
• Heroic BSoD:
  • Played for Laughs with Kimiko, when told she's been a busy girl.
    Agent: Whoops! Wrong file!
  • Not to mention Piro, when he finds out Erika is one of his favorite idols, or when he discovered Miho on his sofa.
    Miho: Ping, I have to go. I think I broke something.
  • As well as Masamichi's reaction to finding out that Erika and Largo are an item.
    Masamichi: Can you imagine? The mind boggles at what a cataclysmic disaster... [Beat] Erika... my budget...
  • Also Played for Laughs when Junko and Largo find a promotional poster for Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots and Junko calls Old Snake "cute".
    Largo: *walks away with a look of complete shock on his face*
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Piro and Largo; Kimiko and Erika.
• High-Class Glass: Largo wears a monocle with his clubbing outfit.
• High-Pressure Emotion: Parodied, with Boo helping Largo out via a hat..
• Highly-Visible Ninja: Junpei, who has an armband reading NINJA at one point.
  • This is most likely a reference to the Weirdness Censor anomaly present in the comic as a whole, combined with Refuge in Audacity. The idea that a ninja would go around, obviously dressed as a ninja, in the middle of public, with an armband that says "Ninja," would seem so ridiculous to most people that he literally would be written off as a nut and ignored completely. They literally wouldn't see him because he doesn't "Fit" reality.
• Hulk Speak: Junpei speaks both English and Japanese somewhat shoddily as a joke playing on old, poorly-dubbed ninja movies.
• Humongous Mecha: The Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division has a few conservatively-sized ones, at twenty or thirty feet.
• Hurricane of Excuses: Piro trying to explain away Ping seems oddly reminiscent of the "medicinal carrots" speech (in retrospect, of course, as it predates the show by seven years.)
• Idol Singer: Erika used to be one, Kimiko is becoming one. Though Kimiko has problems with the singing part.
• Important Haircut: Various references have been made to Miho's hair being "hacked mercilessly short" sometime prior to the start of the comic. It is unclear what this actually means, but no less than three characters (Piro, Yuki and Miho herself) seem to consider it significant. It apparently happened during her hospitalization, as she told Piro at the time the nurses were upset about her cutting her hair.
  • There are many instances throughout the comic where the state of a Magical Girl's hair is implied to be connected to the state of her power.
• Impossible Thief: Yuki after she awakens as a Magical Girl. She stole a zilla. This page could probably manage to double in size with the list of things Yuki has stolen. Eventually people started going over strips in great detail looking for differences between frames when Yuki is known to be around. Watch the laptop...
  • Exaggerated in this strip. She not only steals everything from Dom's hands and pockets, she steals his van.
  • She gets it from her Mother.
• Improbable Hairstyle: The author once remarked about how people who tried to emulate Miho's hair style complained about how very hard it was to get the ribbons to stay like that. The comic itself has implied, the presence, absence or state of that ribbon is an indicator about how in-control Miho is. The fact that it stays in at all is a statement.
• Incendiary Exponent: Largo lives for this trope. Not everybody is impressed.
• In the Name of the Moon: Used by fans of a fictional Magical Girl.
• Instant Fan Club: Kimiko, to her surprise and terror.
• Invisible to Normals: The comic has a...complicated relationship with this trope. See Weirdness Censor.
• Invoked Trope: Largo, in particular, loves to invoke tropes.
• Iron Butt Monkey: Largo. It's even stated that it's his job to get physically injured, while Piro gets the emotional flak.
• It's Fake Fur, It's Fine: Spoofed. When Seraphim shows different outfits from around the world the Russian outfit is a fur coat, hat, and muff (the fur even wraps around her wings), and she is really worried it might not be fake fur.
• Kaleidoscope Hair: Ping can change her appearance in response to user feedback, and the most obvious changes are to her hair. So far, she's had pale grey, hot pink, and turquoise.
• Littlest Cancer Patient: Miho may be deliberately invoking this trope for her own amusement.
• Logic Bomb: Averted in at least one instance. Ping is momentarily frozen since two equally important people need her help, but she works through it logically and quickly reaches a conclusion. It was the wrong conclusion, but that's because she started with a flawed basis (Piro didn't need help anywhere near as much as Miho did).
  • She wasn't going to Piro to help him, she was going to try to make him care about what's wrong with Miho (Not that that would have gone very well, but still...)
• Lost in Translation: Largo doesn't speak Japanese, so he has trouble communicating with a lot of the characters. Also, Leet Guy only speaks in leet...most of the time. Which leads to a bit of Fridge Logic, since in a very early strip Leet Guy literally couldn't speak regular English to save his life. Of course, since spoken Leetspeak is no different from English, this probably isn't meant to be taken seriously.
• Lousy Lovers Are Losers: When Largo has his first time with Erika he's not very good at it (it's heavily implied it was a case of Speed Sex) and he felt so bad and awkward he ran away from her before she could even speak. The next morning he's in a foul mood and thinks his relationship with her is "game over" but this gets Subverted when she finds him and she assures him it's not a big deal and they reconcile.
• Made of Iron: Ed gets smashed through a concrete pillar, then crashes into a natural gas plant, causing the whole thing to explode around him. Not only is he not dead, he doesn't even bother seeing a doctor until after a house-sized turtle is hurled into him, knocking him off the top of a skyscraper. Even being almost completely vaporized only puts him out of commission for a day or so. He probably couldn't be killed off even if he wanted to be.
• Magical Girl: One metafictional, one retired, one budding, and one dark.
• Magic Skirt: Fairly obvious in frame 3 of this strip. Compare Yuki's hair and bangs to her skirt. Although she is, at least, magical.
• Meet Cute: Piro and Kimiko. Three times. Yuki and Yutaka. Two times.
• Memetic Mutation: invoked In-Universe, Ping caused this when she uploaded several thousand pictures and videos of a missing Miho. Piro even mentioned that it "turned into a huge viral thing." Of course, in comic it's been less than a day, so it might die down.
• Mind Screw: The comic has been descending into this of late, particularly whenever Miho or the other Cave-Of-Evilers get involved.
  • This seems to suggest that Miho's something like a cross between an idol, a Servant, and Shonen Bat, to which the terms "dead" and "alive" may not be applicable at all. And whatever she is, she's "the real thing" that the EDS units like Ping were supposed to be able to replace.
    • Another way of thinking of it seems to be this: You've heard of projecting the surface of a 3D object onto a 2D plane, like a world map? And you've heard of a 2D complex? She's what the 2D girls are projections of. But only those of a particular "type," meaning she's unlikely to be the only "Analogue."
    • Perhaps the best way of summarizing it is that Miho seems to be a sort of living Trope.
  • Fred has suggested on the forums that the majority of the comic (including Kimiko in her entirety) may be nothing more than a fantasy of Piro's.
    • More generally, the whole comic is, in a sense, the combined fantasy of every character. See "Weirdness Censor" below.
• Mondegreen Gag: Largo manages to misconstrue the name of the Witch "Walpurgisnacht" with "wall purging knight", and, Largo being Largo, makes no attempt to realize that he had the name completely wrong and accepts "wall purging knight" as an entirely new concept.
• Mundane Utility: All the Magical Girls seen so far have super speed, which they use to fight...or to text their boyfriends in the middle of a fight. Also, cleaning.
• My God, What Have I Done?: After a long night of Piro smashing cameras trying to catch up-skirt pictures of Kimiko she, already under a ton of emotional distress after the night she'd had, verbally tears into him as she gets on the train home, accusing him of playing hero in hopes of getting laid. His response leaves her a crying mess on the train ride home having realized she'd gone way too far and might have just ruined anything they had going.
  Kimiko: Couldn't wait to come down and "save" me! Save me from myself and my pathetic delusions, score some points by beating up a bunch of weak, pathetic fanboys...You probably even thought it'd help you get laid tonight! *Turns around to to face Piro and pauses*
  Piro: I didn't deserve that. *The train door closes between them*
• Nerd Glasses: Piro until #687, as well as Ping and Yuki for a time.
• Ninja: Junpei. In fact, there's a whole organization of ninjas, and this is not their headquarters.
• Non Sequitur: Kimiko uses one to rouse Erika from her funk by mentioning entirely off-hand that it'd been years since she'd been to a love-hotel and she really should have stretched first.
• Noodle Implements: Done a few times.
• Noodle Incident: Many examples:
  • One that springs to mind immediately is this.
  • The comic is full of these. "Hey come on... we got handcuffed by real Mounties! That was cool."
  • In fact, there's an entire plot arc based around exactly this.
  • And one actually involved noodles.
• No One Could Survive That!: Ed (repeatedly) and Miho.
• Not a Game: Used repeatedly — not entirely unsurprisingly in the context.
• Not Distracted by the Sexy: An ongoing theme with Largo - gets zigzagged quite a bit. Referenced here.
• Not Quite Dead: Ed, who can simply be regrown in a tank has survived being thrown out a window (and clipping a concrete column with his head), being hit by a giant turtle, and a direct hit from an orbital laser strike. Miho too.
• Not the Fall That Kills You…: It appears that, while Magical Girls can perform some quite devastating feats of acrobatics, people they carry with them are still subject to the laws of physics.
  • While that's no doubt true, this causes a large part of that damage, as discussed and shown here.
• Of Corsets Sexy: Erika's Cave Of Evil outfit.
• Offhand Backhand: Erika gives one to Ed with her elbow.
• Older Than They Look: Or at least, so Miho claims here. Foreshadowed earlier in this comic, where she describes an old and unopened bottle of alcohol as "almost older than I am." Depending on what type of alcohol it is, that could be very old indeed.
• Only Sane Man: At first, that role belonged to Piro. But as he's slowly been pulled into the web of general insanity that is the main plot, he's been replaced by Junko.
• Only Six Faces: An extreme example that only got worse over the years. For example, there is almost no way to recognize Miho with her new hairstyle compared to Yuki or her mother.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: The fact that Largo has a hangover and wanted to go for a walk rather than play with tech was reason enough for Tsubasa to offer to call an ambulance... from Iowa.
• Papa Wolf: Deconstructed, as Yuki's father's efforts to protect his daughter fly clear over the line and land squarely in the realm of grievous invasion of privacy.
  • However, this overlaps with Drill Sergeant Nasty and Only the Worthy May Pass, as he comes into Yuki's room to hand her the phone and comment that "He didn't hang up."
• Pistol-Whipping: Dual Shotgun Whipping is done by Ed when he's fighting Largo.
• Present-Day Past: Yuuji appears to be playing a DS about three years before its release
• Pretty Boy: A few characters, but especially Ed after his first facial reconstruction. The reaction by random passerby later is hilarious.
• Purely Aesthetic Glasses: Ping does this at one point.
• Remix Comic: Fans from the forums write "rescripts."
  • And there's also Negatokyo.
• Rent-a-Zilla: Trope Namer, after the service.
  • And the black sheep of the Gamera family.
• Running Gag:
  • Largo loses his pants a lot. Normally he takes them off for whatever reason, but if his clothing is getting damaged, the pants are definitely getting hit.
  • Piro's head is removed rather often in stick-figure comics. Apparently all you need is a bit of duct tape and he's as good as new.
  • Ed's jacket changes to reflect an unreleased Playstation model whenever a new one launches in real life. When the comic first started, "PS3" was printed on the back. When that came out, the text changed to "PS4". After that one came out, it then changed to "PS5".
• Scenery Porn: A lot, to put in mildly. As detailed as it is, a common complaint is that much of the backgrounds are very messy, and covered in scribbles and scratches.
• Secret Test of Character: Once Yuki's dad finds out about her "boyfriend," he spends ten minutes (and three strips) yelling at him, threatening him with grievous legal and physical harm, and concrete, as well as insulting the very fiber of his being...then hands the phone to his daughter.
  Sonoda: He didn't hang up.
• Shirtless Scene: The debut of "Great Teacher Largo".
• Shout-Out: So many they have their own page.
• Shutting Up Now: Kimiko trying to explain about how she got mad because people were sneering at pathetic fanboys like Piro.
• Snow Means Love: this guest comic "Piro, go to your happy place! Sad girls in snow!" The phrase "sad girl in snow" in webcomics was popularized by the strip, deriving simply from the fact that this is something the creator/character Piro draws a lot of. Specifically the link strip is a guest comic by Mac Hall, lampooning Piro's angst, self-deprecation and fascination with Moe, even early in the strip.
  • Notable since Gallagher isn't responsible for it; Ian McConville and Matt Boyd of MacHall and Three Panel Soul are.
    • This strip and this sketch both predate the Mac Hall Crossover, if only by a few months. Moreover, it had to be a noticeable trait of Piro's beforehand for McConville to joke about it.
• Something Else Also Rises: While it required a hamster/guardian-angel, Largo's reaction to Erika's outfit definitely fits.
• Speed Sex: Heavily implied to have been what put the brakes on the first serious encounter between Largo and Erika. (Not The Loins Sleep Tonight according to Word of God.)
• Spit Take: Junko's father, when she spots him in the Cave of Evil.
  • Also here, with Yuki's dad.
• Squee: Asako pretty much embodies this trope.
• Stalking is Love:
  • Tsubasa left Japan for America to find his first love. He's been tracking her across the country, going to each house she lived in for a few years, ever since.
    Tsubasa: Being an obsessive otaku comes in handy.
    Piro: [to himself] He sounds like some creepy stalker...
  • Yutaka Kobayashi, to Yuki Sonoda. It hasn't really been portrayed either positively or negatively yet, though. In fact, the only word someone used to describe it was "pathetic."
• Standard Female Grab Area: Repeatedly lampshaded starting here.
• Stealth Pun: "Git yer terms right! It's vixen!! Do I look like a dog to you??"
• Still Got It: Erika flaunting her celebrity creds.
• Sugar-and-Ice Personality: Miho. Although she toys with it frequently, so it's hard to tell if she really is one. She currently seems to be in "tsun-vulnerable" mode. Possibly due to the fallout from Ping's 'uploads'.
• Supernatural Gold Eyes: in the rare color pictures, Kimiko and Miho have them. Kimiko doesn't really fit the usual golden-eyed archetype, but Miho does.
  • See this last panel as well. Effective use of color.
• Super-Powered Robot Meter Maids: Sony programmed the "tsundere" trait a bit too well. Junko has a moment of Fridge Brilliance, when realizes why Ping never has to worry about her end users getting a little bit too hands-on, especially considering that she isn't programmed to give sex.
• Take a Level in Badass: Piro, if slowly. He shows unexpected agility and strength (not to mention backbone) during his short stint as a busboy at Anna Miller's, and easily navigates Largo's PH34R game in Mega Gamers the next day.
• Take Off Your Clothes: Erika can be a bit hands on when it comes to this.
• Take That!: Almost parodied here, with many of the complaints leveled at the comic.
• Telephone Polearm: Ping, when she freaks out. Then she puts it back and thanks it.
• Thanks for the Mammary: Largo: "Wow. Those are a lot softer than I thought they'd be."
  • And again here. Despite saving her life with the accidental groping, he still gets pummeled for it.
• Thing-O-Meter: TPCD officers carry the PMGD-540 Personal Magical Girl Detector. Made by Fluke as any tradesman would expect.
  Masamichi: Why the hell is the alarm turned off on this thing???
  underling: Because yours is always going off, sir?
• Tightrope Walking: Magical Girls have an innate skill for this.
• The Tokyo Fireball: Nicely parodied thanks to the "Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division", a branch of the local police department that schedules and keeps an eye on massive destruction events.
• Tone Shift: Happens many times as the story goes.
• Transformation Sequence: Lampshaded.
• Translation Convention/Translation Punctuation: Most (but not all) spoken Japanese is portrayed as English in <angle brackets>, along with translations for the more hardcore 1337.
• Translation Train Wreck: In-Universe. Ping's English "transl33tor" approaches this after Largo installs and tweaks it, causing it to translate everything into nonsense blended with porn advertisements. He tries to fix it, and temporarily causes her to achieve a flawless communications link with Cuckooland before he succeeds and makes it work perfectly.
  "Bleed me dry with your nettles! I am a coconut!"
• Tsundere:
  • Erika, using the original tsundere definition. Ping also enters a Tsundere mode that leads to unstoppable robot rampages.
  • Even Piro exhibits typical tsundere characteristics whenever Miho is involved. Note his mood swings when he is actually speaking to her.
  • Peek and Poke, Ping's sisters, are the extremes of this trope, Peek being the unapproachable tsun, while Poke, as an extreme dere, contemplates bedding everyone in a room, even the other girls...
• Twerp Sweating: By an actual cop, no less. See Papa Wolf and Secret Test of Character.
• Unreliable Narrator: The world takes on a very different appearance depending on whether we're viewing it from Piro's perspective or from Largo's, as they each perceive the world around them through their own filters of reality. Piro sees the world from his perspective as if it was from some kind of Dating Sim, whereas Largo sees it coloured with the tropes of video games, mostly First-Person Shooter and Survival Horror games. According to the author, neither character's view of the unfolding events can be taken as entirely accurate because of this.
• Unexpected Virgin: Played with. Piro's only experience with women is in dating sims (and Miho), while Largo generally thinks all women are insane and not worth the trouble. Erika certainly thinks Piro is a virgin, at least. Word of God states, however, that all main characters have enough sexual experience to know what they're talking about. Even if they're too awkward to talk about it.
• Unusual Euphemism:
  • "Fsck!", a unix command that finds and fixes any hard drive errors. ^note fsck is being used as a generic swearword by unix sysadmins since epoch 0. Since Largo is skilled enough to use a beowulf cluster as a workstation, he qualifies.
  • Miho also refers to sex as "completionism" and long-term relationships as "replay value." This fits in with her treating people as games.
  • On a similar note to the above bullet, Mugi refers to Their First Time as "the big level up." It's unclear if she was speaking literally.
• Unwanted Assistance: Erika gives Largo this treatment in this strip. Played for drama.
• Unwanted Harem: Piro's reaches a size of four—Kimiko, Miho, Yuki, and Ping. Naturally, the First Girl Wins.
• Useless Spleen: Though limited to the filler Shirt Guy Dom episodes, it starts here, continues through here and here, and eventually reaches a spear named Spleen Slayer.
• Verbal Tic: Piro.
• The 'Verse: Part of a pseudo-canonical "Macverse" with Applegeeks and Mac Hall.
• Virginity Makes You Stupid: Kimiko gives the impression of this at first glance. Turns out Erika could tell a few stories...
• Webcomics Long-Runners: In five of the twelve languages it can be read in.
• Webcomic Time: Probably one of the primary examples. Chapter 0 takes up about two months of in-comic time. Every chapter since then contains the events of exactly one day, with the only time skip occurring between chapters nine and ten. So almost every relationship in the comic (be it romantic or platonic) has had just about two and a half weeks of development.
  • When you think about it though it makes some things awkward. Though time passes nowhere near as fast as us for them, the technology around them seems to advance at the same rate as reality. Its often very jarring. Especially when you remember that Ping was introduced as a prototype accessory for the brand new... PS2.
  • The same is true for anime references and products sold in the store where Piro works.
• Weirdness Censor:
  • There are multiple forms of censorship running simultaneously, explained here. It'd be easier to say that there are multiple mutually exclusive Extra Strength Masquerades in effect — look in the right direction at the right time with the right eyes and you can see anything from Kaiju to entire Magical Lands. There's an Anime population, full of Magical Girls and Sentai groups battling various threats. There's the Morality population, where Shoulder Angels attempt to guide the human race to their own ends. On top of both is the Government Conspiracy, which attempts to regulate the destruction created by the Anime heroes without getting the world blown up in the process — they drive Humongous Mecha on the street in broad daylight. And some censored populations are subject to censorship themselves! Heroes only see their own threats, and can get pushy when they are interfered with by cops or other heroes. No one sees Shoulder Angels save their clients. The mecha-riding regulators tear their hair out on a regular basis trying to deal with the madness. And the Muggles can't even agree on what to ignore.
    Miho: Don't worry--they're as afraid to look up as we are to look down.
  • While Yuki is still coping with being a Magical Girl, she apparently finds being told to stay in the mech to be mundane enough to be infuriating. And while Junko freaks out over Ping's light pole save, the owner of the car that would have hit Junko freaks out not over it being crushed by said light pole, but for Junko's carelessness which brought it about.
  • In the fifth collection of Megatokyo, Gallagher FINALLY detailed his explanation for this phenomenon: "...the main theme of ''MegaTokyo'' is how everyone has different perceptions of the world around them..." Everyone sees the world slightly differently. Piro and Largo are on the extreme ends of the scale—Piro only sees "mundane" things (and dismisses the fantastic things as mundane things) and Largo only sees "fantastic" things, and comes up with fantastic explanations for the mundane things he sees. Everyone else is somewhere else on this scale, nearly always between those two extremes. In this world, there are no Muggles: Piro can't see Largo's world and Largo can't see Piro's world, and they both think the other is crazy. It's only through gradual immersion that Piro finally ends up dealing with the horde after Miho.
• Wham Episode:
  • "If I sleep with you, will you go away?" Undoubtedly a very dick move on Erika's part, and the reason Largo tries to drown his sorrows.
  • "You probably even thought it'd help you get laid tonight!" "I didn't deserve that." And at this point... things change between Piro and Kimiko.
  • And on a funnier note, "I find balancing on power lines a little disquieting." Suddenly gave us some real answers to what Miho and Yuki are.
  • "You did just fine. Until you quit, you stupid twonk." And immediately in the strip afterwards "Why are you uncovering her and why are you doing her voice?" And suddenly Moeko and Erika become a lot more interesting.
  • Early July 2022, Page 1603 is released, with just two girls talking about what is happening, both of which being unfamiliar. Then you notice they have the same ear accessories as Ping, and the light haired one calls the other Peek, and tells her, flat out 'It's how I'm programmed' revealing that Ping's sister prototypes^note Alluded to in a 2019 art piece as part of Fred's Save Point universe, the hentai model Poke and the... unknown model Peek, just appeared in Megatokyo.
• What Does She See in Him?: Largo is NUTS, but he's a good man for Erika. The previous one was... not.
• What Kind of Lame Power Is Heart, Anyway?: Maybe not so lame after all: Largo initially assumes that the Magical Girls gain their power from love similar to how ninjas gain their power from honor, but Junpei quickly corrects him, explaining that honor is far "safer" than love, and that the latter should never be underestimated. Considering the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division's reaction to an unregistered Magical Girl (pure panic), as well as some of the powers they've demonstrated, this seems justified. The reaction actually says a lot about Japanese culture, and what it values, if you think about it: Magical Girls believe in a completely separate law/code of behavior than the culture they are born into, and the strongest among them might well be completely uncontrollable except by their fellow members.
• What Measure Is a Non-Cute?: Largo theorizes that this is why the Tokyo Police Cataclysm Division is so terrified of Magical Girls. They solve their problems with guns, and if that fails more guns. They're not allowed to kill magical girls, which would already be one of the most dangerous types of enemy they could face.
• Wishful Projection:
  • Yuki finds Piro's sketchbook, creates a fantasy about what he must be like, and then gets hostile when he fails to live up to it.
  • After Piro gives Kimiko a rail card (before they officially meet), she builds up an ideal of what kind of person would do that, and tries to find a way to repay him. Erika warns her not to overthink it, but she does anyway. When they all go drinking later, Kimiko accuses him of handing out rail cards to girls until he found one who would go home with him.
    Piro: So... meeting the 'real' me upset her so much she drank herself into oblivion.
    Erika: More or less. Don't take it personally. Fantasies are always better than real people.
• Wounded Gazelle Gambit: Miho tries this with Piro, which works until Yuki sees through it.
• Write Who You Know: Not only Piro and Largo, but also Fred's girlfriend (now wife), "Seraphim," plus friends Dom, Ed, Asmodeus, and Tsubasa.
• Wrong Bathroom Incident: When Miho collapses on the floor, Largo is called to attend to her... and then takes a moment to look around and reflect on how he's never been in a girls' bathroom before. One of the students quickly calls him out for this.
• Wrong Genre Savvy: Piro and Largo see everything in Video Game Tropes (Dating Sims and First Person Shooters, respectively) no matter how hard they try. Kimiko is dismayed when she discovers life isn't a Soap Opera with her in the lead role. As Characterization Marches On, Piro's "hat" has been more his Genre Blindness to the fact that he's in a dating sim, despite Miho's insistent lack of a Fourth Wall about it.
• Yaoi Fangirl: "Sorry, just teasing." Yuki's "Sorry!" on that page also says quite a bit about her.
• You Didn't Ask: Sonoda says this exact line when Largo demands to know why he wasn't told about the existence of a high intensity satellite-based laser.

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