Meimi, Map, And Timeline, and a few other things since [594]

I'm back, after being away for a couple of months!
(99% of SD says 'Welcome back! ... who are you?')

I skimmed through all MDTs from [594] till now, to see if I missed any architecture discussions (what revelations!! 'ZOMG Staircase!!!11eleven', as NightStrife so eloquently put it.) While doing so, I jotted down a few comments on the topics covered. I've thrown out most, but in case people still find it too boring, I've placed a handful of my favourite quotes from these MDTs at the end to distract you

• Architecture
  
• Sonoda Meimi & Kaitou Saint Tail
  
• Map of MegaTokyo locations
  
• Timeline stuff
  
• Some Quotes

Architecture

I'll leave in-depth architecture discussion to a future post. Just a few reactions here.

Artemi referred to us as 'the Staircase crew' -- thanks for making our Venerable Order sound like a bad 80s pop-rap group

[Refugee quote link]

I think you're right...

[Refugee quote link, Initial B quote link]

I was under the impression that Architecture is an Engineering discipline (hopes to get degree in June, hence shouldn't be wasting time on MT forums )

[Master Chibi quote link]

the fact that [334] is referred to extensively in almost every MegaGamers architecture discussion is entirely coincidental and has nothing to do with Erika's appearance at all. In fact, she's blocking the view... honest...


Sonoda Meimi & Kaitou Saint Tail

[Raykremer quote link]

bit of an understatement there, RK?

for those who haven't seen Kaitou Saint Tail, the story is about yet another 'magical girl', Haneoka Meimi (though she technically uses magic tricks rather than magic). Meimi's alter ego is the mysterious thief Saint Tail. Meimi's hotly-denied love interest is her classmate Asuka Jr., who is an amateur detective bent on capturing Saint Tail. Her parents are Haneoka Gennichirou and Eimi (who she resembles greatly).

Sonoda Masamichi looks rather a lot like Haneoka Gennichirou. Sonoda 'Yuki's Red-Hot Mum' Meimi looks rather a lot like Haneoka Eimi. (I'm pretty sure the breakfast table scene with father behind the newspaper and mother making insightful comments about daughter ([150], [197]) occurs a couple of times in KST as well.)

some KST cells i found via Google (not that illustrative perhaps, but the best I found without too much digging): Meimi, Gennichirou, Eimi; Eimi, Gennichirou; Meimi, Eimi; Gennichirou.

Clearly, something happened to Asuka Jr. after the end of the television series. Perhaps killed during some investigation? Or did Meimi not live up to the expectations he built up of Saint Tail? Whatever the unhappy tale, after Asuka Jr.'s disappearance Meimi must have found consolation in the arms of Asuka's friend, the young police officer Sonoda Masamichi, who, comfortingly, reminded Meimi of her father. (She did at one point publicly express that her 'ideal man' would be like her father.)


While on the topic of the Sonoda family, could the fact that Yuki is not in the same class as Miho et al, indeed is not even in the same school (merely one attached to the same campus), be added to the drinking game?


Map of MegaTokyo locations

Previously, I had assumed that the Hayasaka & Nanasawa residence was in Meguro, where Kimiko works at Anna Miller's. This because she did not re-use Piro's railcard between receiving it on Friday in [62] and using it again on Tuesday in [204], but she did travel to Anna Miller's. It seemed to me unlikely that she would buy another railcard to use instead of Piro's, especially as she is so short of cash. Her travels to MegaGamers were perhaps on another network, and hence a different railcard.

As both the Hayasaka & Nanasawa residence and the Anna Miller's were in Meguro, it made sense to assume that the Chapter 0 and Chapter 3 shoujo manga bookstores were the same one.

Then Piro revealed that Erika and Kimiko live in Takaido, and that Takaido station is where the Railcard Incident occurred.

Takaido station is on the Keio Inokashira line, which runs from Shibuya to Kichijouji, and with a transfer halfway, to Shinjuku. Shibuya and Shinjuku are on the JR Yamanote line, along which most other MT locations lie. (Looking back at [67], Piro actually says 'This must be the Inokashira line, which ends at Kichijouji station' in the comic. If I'd bothered looking up where the Inokashira line went earlier... )

Naturally, this means quite a reshuffle in the map. I'll list the whole lot again:

• Megagamers has been explicitly located in Yoyogi.
  
• The Cave of Evil has been explicitly located in Harajuku.
  
• The Anna Miller's where Kimiko works has been explicitly located in Meguro.
  
• Tsubasa's apartment has been explicitly located in Kichijouji.
  
• The Hayasaka & Nanesawa residence has been explicitly located in Takaido.
  
• The Gateway store, Martian invasion, and Gameru rampage have been explicitly located in Shinjuku, Shimbashi, and Shinegawa respectively.
  

• Junpei's apartment is next to Tsubasa's. Inokashira Park is near Kichijouji station.
  
• The 1 Yen arcade, NIA, Shiritsu Daitou High School, Shiritsu Daitou Gakuen Fuzoku Chuugaku, Beer garden 'Hikari no Umi', and 'Magical Cake' teashop are all in within walking distance of MegaGamers.
  
• The Chapter 0 Shoujo manga bookstore is in Takaido, as Piro heads from the bookstore's area to the Railcard Incident in Takaido station.
  
• The Chapter 3 Shoujo manga bookstore is in Meguro, as Piro heads there after seeing Kimiko at Anna Miller's, and we see Largo and Inspector Sonoda walking around outside as well. (In other words, contrary to what most I think believed (I certainly did), the two bookstores cannot be the same one.)
  
• I believe the Tohya residence is in Meguro as well. Coming home from school (in or near Yoyogi), Miho and Ping are walking in Meguro (they visit Kimiko's Anna Miller's). The only reason I can think of why they got off the train is because Miho's house is around there.
  
• Regarding the TPCD location: Largo is arrested outside the 1 Yen arcade, and Inspector Sonoda's route back to the TPCD takes him past Anna Miller's Meguro. Presumably they were travelling along a reasonably straight line, the extension of which I have tried to indicate in my map.
  

The resulting map (large image, but only 31kB, so I think safe to post in thread directly): (gif, pdf)




[glitterboy2098 quote link]

As I said above, I find it strange that Kimiko would buy a new railcard. She definitely travelled to MegaGamers (Sunday, Monday) and Anna Miller's (Monday) in the interval though. So unless the hamster audition studio and the Kotone audition studio (could be the same building of course) were on a completely different line, Kimiko must have used a different railcard valid on the same route as Piro's.


Unless she still had one? Checking [62] more closely, she says 'I left my rail card and my change purse at home?' So, it seems that after Kimiko returned home from the hamster audition on Friday, she could continue to use her previous railcard. Presumably that one was used up by Tuesday when she left for the Kotone audition, or she simply picked Piro's from her purse by coincidence.

I think I need to read the text in the comics more closely when doing these things


One might speculate what would have happened had Piro woken up in time in [381], and suggested to Kimiko that they travel together until she transferred at Shibuya. (Does Piro know that Kimiko and Erika live in Takaido? He could, from the Railcard Incident, but might not have made that connection yet.)


Timeline stuff

Father Vasquez (no longer around?) presented the first MT timeline back in 2001. A lot of work later we had a consistent timeline which fit events, though there was one strange unknown bit. In 2003, Fred happened to notice it: 'wow, that mt timeline thing is way off' is not the best response to get from the author . In response, he presented his own timeline. A reformatted and up-to-date version:

One should note Fred's caveat from that post:

if Fred's given timeline is correct, then Seraphim's and Erika's statements from [129] and [135] are simply wrong, or at the very least grossly exaggerated. If their statements are correct, then there must be a long gap somewhere between [62] and [129]. Previous efforts determined that the least bad place for this gap would be at comic [80], between Saturday (day 49) and Sunday (day 50 -- or day 49+unknown interval+1?).

richvh recently gave Yuki as additional evidence for a gap between the railcard incident and [80]:

The timeline is a lot simpler and more elegant if one assumes Seraphim's, Erika's, and Yuki's statements to be inaccurate, and the timeline as Fred posted it. On the other hand, we now have three different characters clearly indicating Fred had a much longer interval in mind in 2001 than he had in 2003. I wonder what his opinion is now?

And for the record, our timeline wasn't 'way off' -- there was only one day (and a couple of weeks) in it


As far as I know, Fred has never addressed the time of year MT takes place.

In the MegaTokyo universe, E3 and TGS take place in the same weekend. (E3 actually occurs twice in the comic: at the start, and when Boo asks for his job back in [121].) This tells us that the real-world timing of at least one of these must be disregarded. Father Vasquez initially took the TGS date to be valid, as that appears explicitly in the comic (if only on a poster). This worked very well, until Psieye (also no longer around?) pointed out that we haven't seen anyone wearing winter clothes, and only the summer versions of the two school uniforms (assuming the blazer is optional in the Shiritsu Daitou Gakuen Fuzoku Chuugaku summer uniform). The events so far must therefore take place somewhere in the Spring-Summer-Autumn period.

Many of these arguments were covered again in recent MDTs. Sabyr observed that Yuki walked to school through sakura petals in [413], suggesting the season is Spring. flybank pointed to Miho's recent wearing of a cardigan over her uniform as indication that it might be becoming chillier. One could point to Yuki & co's alternating between blazers or not as indication that the weather is variable.


Basically, whe have a fully consistent timeline with just one problem: an unknown interval at [80] which could be 0 or a couple of weeks. We don't know what season it is, but I think the current evidence suggests Spring most strongly.


Some Quotes

A couple of extracts which I felt were perhaps worth repeating for those who might have missed them in the murky depths of the MDTs:

[quote post link]

[quote post link, quote post link]

[quote post link]

[quote post link]

This is an excellent resource, JeroenB - convenient, immediate references for myself and all the other brigade of drudges who insist on analysing this comic to its component atoms! You deserve a commendation for taking the trouble to compile it for us all.

It's also immensely refreshing to be able to elucidiate some information from the Main Discussion Threads without having to trawl through Sabyr's Whinge of the Week and the fifty Lunatic-Manic-Obsessive-Depressive-Compulsive counter-complaints (myself included... ) it's guaranteed to generate. Whee!

This post has been edited by Robert Frazer on Jan 9 2005, 05:03 PM

feh. you all missed the month reference in the panel i posted that had piro with his head on the desk (it was that temporary filler thing)

There's a reference in there that will tell you what month it is.

oh, and for the record, it is indeed saturday right now in Chapter 6, and by my calculations (inexact tho they may be - i have to go back and read Jeroen's post, i just skimmed it ) Most recent comics also should give a hint as to the time of year, if you look.

(goes off to draw)

piro

BTW, excellent map. I'll have to post my map sometime, it has a few more locations on it.

edit: oh ya, i have it as day 56, which is close enough for me

Do you mean the number six on the magazine/book/whatever next to his head in [648]? Becuase that is so not a hint.

intriguing...
[648] placeholder

@UserGoogol:
isn't that a 9? Oh, I see it could be a 6 in the comic -- it's clearer in the placeholder.

If that's the hint, it's presumably September now.

@ Robert Frazer:
I'll let you in on a secret: back in the distant, distant past, we didn't have these massive, topic-swamp Main Discussion Thread things at all. Instead, people just created threads on a single, specific topic. The obvious advantage was that you could follow an argument without having to skim over lots of unrelated posts, and you didn't have to juggle considering multiple topics at the same time. Another great advantage was that discussion wasn't disjointed around every new comic. Instead, evidence from new comics was simply included in existing threads.

Of course the big problem, and the reason why the MDTs started, was that there used to be multiple threads on any remotely obvious topic. Most would die off within a few posts, but there usually remained two competing threads. Not entirely a bad thing, as discussion could flow in different directions in the two threads. As the number of forumites grew, it all became rather messy however.

As always, Everything Was Better In The Past

This post has been edited by JeroenB on Jan 9 2005, 05:57 PM

Until the official Fred map and timeline is released... I'm quite happy with JeroenB's work... wow...

In [0433], Yuki has something falling around her. All us romantics just assumed it was the sakura petals falling, which would make it spring. However a closer look at the trees show them to be covered in leaves, which is not consistent. The blossoms fall when the leaves are just buds, if I'm not mistaken.

Therefore, the falling "things" are leaves, which marks this as early autumn. That would be consistent with it being September or thereabouts. Of course, if it's November, we may only have to wait a few weeks (Megatokyo time) to see some real "sad girls in snow". I bet Fred is just itching to draw all those.

Sabyr
... under a blue sky ...

sure that's a hint. and yes it's a 9. It's september.

as mt rolls along it has to get colder, of course.



(goes back to the pathetic lameness that is production of MT crud)

piro

So.... September, eh?
That means in a few MT-time months we'll get to see the fear and loathing of Christmas and omigods Valentine's Day? Oh, the potential for disaster....

Hmmmm, errrrrrr, one day per chapter? (eek...aieeeee). I wonder if this chapter pacing will change once the basic relationship lines are clarified and set?
Lameness... hahahaha... just quality control on impurities...

Cold girls in snow should be bundled to the nearest hot spring....
Can we expect attention to any of the local Shinto or village festivals?

So if Chapter 6 is occurring sometime in September, the start of Chapter 0 was in July or possibly early August, not June (E3) or September (TGS) (assuming Piro decides his posted timeline is canon, or at least has no major revisions to it).

Chapter Zero is a land which defies all comprehension.

Wow.

And indeed, I've only seen two or three episodes at one of Purdue's biannual anime marathons several years ago. What can I say, sometimes the references are hard to pin solid proof on, so I add qualifiers when I talk about them.

Not a bad idea.

Yeah, I left my timeline thing up even after Fred made his because of those. But really, the only timeline important to the story is which chapter is which day of the week. The specfics of the pre-Sunday stuff in chapter 0 and the specifics of what month or year it is do not matter. (The year as given by [129] even changes from the web version to the print version.)
...
Then again, since Fred says it's September, it's September. That settles that.

When introducing Megatokyo, I sometimes even just skip over Chapter Zero with a few select comics and a summary. Its wonderful from a historical perspective and for establishing how Piro and Largo interact, but it just doesn't fit the flavor of Chapter One forward... lots of one-gags, sketchy characters altered to fit the moment....

If MT achieves lasting goodness, perhaps a revisit/rewrite of Chapter Zero would be nice... but unlikely.... so I just take Ch. Zero for what it is.... "prehistoric MT" -- somewhat apocryphal...

We can blame it on Chapter 0 being (mostly) written in Largovision.

but this wouldn't be SD if we let ourselves be hindered by such minor issues as what matters

Or as I put it as the time,

Even so, minutiae of the MegaGamers floor plan is probably more significant than why the Tokyo Game Show managed to occur mere days after E3. Or as Vexx pointed out, The first half of Chapter 0 is necessary prologue for the story but not so much part of the story itself. If a miracle occurs and MT is ever compiled into an animated project, those strips would almost certainly be streamlined in order to make the pacing match better with the subsequent material. (At the very least, add filler dialogue to make things flow from strip to strip more.)

Jimminy!
All that information, all so neatly set out. And then some hard facts from the man himself.
It's like a SD speculator's dream or something. Gosh.

Though I'm not sure if it helps actually, but allow me to humbly submit this map. Not too long ago there was another yoyogi thread, I became curious about the place and went googling. The best general map I could find of the area was this.



Here a bigger version of it, if you prefer.

To help orient yourself - up the top middle is Shinjuku station with Yoyogi station just underneath. Bottom middle is Shibuya station. The big green in the middle is half Yoyogi park, and half the Meiji Shrine. Just right of these parks is Harajuku Station. The yellow blob in the lower left is one of the Tokyo Uni campus' - is this one the fabled goal the Love Hina tomes?

The Yoyogi area I found a little odd. Yoyogi station is not in it's center but more on it top right edge. Then it runs west away from the Yamanote line, almost all the way around the parks to Shibuya. Hence I suspect that the 1 Yen arcade, NIA, Shiritsu Daitou High School, Shiritsu Daitou Gakuen Fuzoku Chuugaku, Beer garden 'Hikari no Umi', and 'Magical Cake' teashop all sit west of Yoyogi station, somewhere above or to the left of the Meiji Shrine.

Again, I'm not sure if this helps any, but you can print the sucker out, and stick it full of pins like some police investigation ("If our suspect follows his usual pattern, then the next Shoujo manga store he'll strike at would be just... about... HERE") as the search for MegaGamers narrows.

It's all about the stairways...



I'll be in Ebisu from the 30th to the 1st of February and heading Shibuya way to track down a 'certain' 6 story toy store that used to be a textile warehouse for our pal Refugee.

- Sparky

nice scale. Your Google skills are better than mine.

where did you find it? were there more maps at that scale?

I'm more quotable than Sabyr, what do you know.

Please, though visiting grand death on people who keep using this in their arguments is fun, it's getting old…

Thank you.
Oops. I had meant to link to the original.

It's from a pdf from these people;

Weller Cartographic Series

The map in question is here;

Tokyo Map, Japan

It's a vector-based pdf so it scales up very nicely. Very clean work.
Unfortunately that's as far west this map goes, and not much farther south. But it has terrific detail otherwise.

(The more I look into Yoyogi, the weirder it's getting for me... I've been to Tokyo a couple of times, around Shinjuku, Harajuku and Shibuya, and I've realize I've walked exactly along the north, south and east boundries of Yoyogi but never once crossed into the area itself.)

Indeed. Which reminds I need to get back to Virtual MegaGamers version 2.

And could you grab some building textures along the way, if you can, please. I'm flumoxed about what material is used on the MG store front? Taa muchly.

Never mistake quantity for quality, my friend.

JeroenB, excellent work with the location diagram. I like it.

Sabyr
... under a blue sky ...

I will. Roofs are Japanese tile - normally dark blue. I'm guessing plaster and drywall over existing masonry in front and wood and plaster in the back... maybe steel reinforcements for bringing the building up to code after the great Kanto earthquake?

Bwahaha, too late. Meh. The drinking game has very much waned in use around here, it's mostly for my personal amusement now.

So true, it sometimes gets scary.
Thanks JeroenB. This topic is definitively joining my list of reference for MT.