What Happened To Kimiko And Largo?, No,no, I'm NOT pairing them here.

I have two totally different questions here:

1. Largo seems... somewhat detached from what we might call 'Piro's Reality' to make a major understatement. (Anyone remember the strip where we see totally different interpretations of a typical Tokyo street?)

The thing is, at the moment he's easily interpreted as psychopathic and totally atuned to the l33t and whatnot.

But look at this strip.

He actually thought about something that PIRO didn't think was worth much at the beginning.

While you guys might tell me that this was AGES ago, you have to admit there hasn't been colossal amounts of character development so far, due to the slow and cautious nature of MegaTokyo.

So my question on Largo is, was the normal side to him:
a) warped since he entered Tokyo
always on and off
c) there, but he hides it, or
d) forgotten by Fred?

I kind of think the latest strip (Commodities) brings a little bit of this part back out of him, but still... what happened to Largo?

Now to Kimiko.

I've always thought Kimiko was a rather bland character compared to the others portrayed in MegaTokyo, but the more I think about it, it's probably because the others are just that pronouncedly distinguishable.

Kimiko is a deep character, actually, if we consider the ways she can portray Kotone and the reasons she is able to do so. She's got some mega philosophy for the concept of 'feelings' and 'emotions'.

But when I try to come up with her character visually in my mind, it doesn't work out very well.

I have a feeling it's because her actual visage isn't exactly incredibly striking. Or so one may think, because actually, as I was reading through the old strips, I saw this.

It's her first appearance, I think. Am I the only one who thinks the fourth panel in that strip is somewhat... striking? At least more striking than she looks now?

I don't know if that's the Kimiko Fred's been looking for at all, but I can't help but think that... somehow, that's the kind of look I'd expect for the depth she really has. I don't know.

Anyone else have thoughts on the search for Kimiko?

*drinks*

Fred had an interesting rant on the subject of Kimiko's character recently. Go back a few strips, or check Fredart.

Both strips are Rodneys writing so that may be the answer to your cunundrem.

This post has been edited by Ashton on Jan 29 2005, 07:33 AM

Yeah, I read more after I posted and I realised I'd done a bit of a daft thing because I'd forgotten about Rodney and Fred working together at the start. Sorry about that, we can ignore my question on Largo, then.

That drinking game, by the way... I'm sure it wasn't your intention breathstealer (at least I hope not ;; ) but it made me feel like an idiot. And... well it's a bit of shoving me into a category and saying what I'm saying is meaningless, you know?

I'm not a forum junkie, so should I apologise for that?

Aa well. No hard feelings, really.

I s'pose that just leaves Kimiko.

I read Fred's rant already, by the way-- I just wondered if anyone else thought he had more her at the start...

Not intending to make you feel bad, just having some fun, that's all. No apology needed.

One of the main things about Megatokyo is that it is an attempt to use stark contrasts to bring out and illuminate things about characters, life, the universe, etc. There are lots of time when this works really well, and then there are the times where the contrasting really doesn't really work so well.

There's no question the stuff between largo and erika is more interesting right now, and i blame that mostly on the characters themselves. No matter how you look at it, Largo is more flamboyant, and he appears to be playing a very dangerous game with a very strong willed girl. Piro and Kimiko, on the other hand are like (as someone aptly put it) a battle of the zero egos. Which makes more interesting TV? you tell me

To make matters worse, Piro is kind of a do-nothing. He's the one who is used to picking up the pieces left behind by his friend's careening path thru life. Once they arrived in tokyo, the soon found themselves distracted by manifestations (real or imagined, i'll leave you to guess) that have them living out the little worlds they each occupy in only a small, internal way, back home. Largo has actually been doing what seems to be a pretty reasonable job with his world. Challenge after challenge, defeats and battles gone south... yet he picks himself up, dusts himself off, and keeps moving. Piro is surrounded by girls that either like him or respect him, he's doing all the responsible things like finding shelter, a job, working hard, etc... but how well is he really doing with his game?

I suppose in many ways i'm mocking the whole idea of dating sims in general. What you say in the games is scripted, and the actions the protagonist takes are often things that a player might wish he'd do, but often never would in real life. Hell, just the act of talking to a girl, something that seems to happen in these games without thought, is something most players are almost incapable of doing. Add to that the fact that you are often dealing with several girls, all of whom you are chasing to one degree or another. Maybe the problem isn't that the situations in the games (lots of girls who may be interested in you) isn't phony, maybe it's the actions of the protagonist (guided by the player) that are the biggest fantasy of all.

The largo side of Megatokyo will always probably be more entertaining just because it makes more noise. I try to contrast the largo side with the piro side to add spark to the story flow for the piro side and some grounding to the story for the largo side. Not an easy balance, and sometimes the contrast just makes the piro side look kinda... lame. I tried to hard to contrast things in some previous chapters and it didn't work very well. Contrast, when overused, isn't contrast anymore.

As for kimiko, by design she doesn't have a strong 'stereotype' to her like most of the other MT girls have. In fact, that is kind of her purpose. This has, from the beginning, been a problem. Personally, i feel like Kimiko will be the most complex, and hopefully one of the more interesting, characters in MT by the time i reach the end of the story, but she may not. MT is an experiment, as i've said many times before, and while some bits of it may do great, others may not work out as well. I'm certainly trying, of course. Time will tell. Fact is, we haven't really seen much of kimiko in the past six chapters, so maybe that's part of the prob

anyways, i try not to comment like this because i feel every damn word will be analyzed for some clue as to where the story is going or what hidden meanings there are here and there... feh. don't do that I'm just as curious as you are (if you are, of course) as to where things will really end up.

fredrin

PS: and before anyone freaks out about the fact that there is a conclusion at some point to the MT story, we have a ways to go yet. In recent months i've been working to more firmly establish the groundwork for the story from start to finish because i think it will eliminate the problems i had in the last chapter where things really seemed to slow to a crawl. You have to have some place to go if you're actually gonna be able to take a trip to get there.

[meta]

Your usage of the drinking game is very condescending. This link has managed to utterly destroy any hope of a thread developing into a thoughtful discussion. I do not, and do not think the original writers would, approve.

"Post something nice or don't post anything at all" - Mom

Please, for the sake of front page viewership, link to the comic pages, not the individual images. Additionally, please do so with a link tag that denotes where you're linking to.

For example, take a look at Strip [191],
where Largo actually thought about something ...
[/meta]

Largo, while being out on the edge of someone else's reality, can certainly be considered one of the most stable and sane characters in this story. If were are to assume for a second that the world of Megatokyo actually does involve Zillas [126], Dolls [127], TPCD scheduled rampages [294], ninja [10], gunslinging hitmen [244], and corporate control of the population through Idol Power [616], then there is little basis for defining Largo as psychopathic, or as suffering from an undiagnosed (or undisclosed) mental disorder.

Largo has made great strides as a character and person since coming to Tokyo. I am under the impression that both he and Piro, prior to entering this world, were more or less lazy gaming bums [37], with a slightly different internal perspective [132]for judging the world. He has actually fought forward, possibly not according to someone's idealistic “becoming a better more responsible person” directive, but he has taken charge of his life despite (or because of) the situation he finds himself in. Contrast (as Fred pointed out) the passiveness with which Piro lets life happen to him.

According to Fred Largo is supposed to absorb the physical damage, and Piro the emotional. The difference being that Largo keeps going after being hit by a bus [16].

Didn't touch on Kimiko though. Must get back to coding.

This post has been edited by codepoetica on Jan 29 2005, 12:35 PM

Continuing on with the analogy, if Largo gets hit with a bus, he dusts himself off and keeps on going (physical damage is taken, but he's willing to get back up again).

If Piro gets hit with the emotional equivalent of a bus, he'll be lying flat on the street staring up and wondering "Why me?" for a while (emotional damage absorbed).

However, it seems that being around Largo and his interactions with the girls has helped Piro express some of what he really thinks. Largo is the more flamboyant one, of course - but in his own way he is being "responsible". The same with Piro - only more overtly so, as he's the one trying to find and keep a job, keep their place, and get money to go back home.

But which one is more successful?

That depends, I suppose, on how you define "success".

Well, it's obvious that your use of the word "you" in the last sentence of the second paragraph is telling us that Dom is tracking down Erika to distract people away from Miho, who he paid to go after Ping in order to frustrate Ed and keep him in the hospital as long as possible. I have no idea what the rest of that post is about, though. ^.~

ON TOPIC!

Fred said it better than I'm about to, but Kimiko feels like she's reached the point of being the character with the most untapped potential. Despite how long and how present she's been in the story, we know remarkably little about her. Granted, she isn't the most unknown character in the story, we have someone else to fill that most bothersome of roles, but who she is and why she is that way are not exactly clear either. But those were also the days when Kimiko was just Kimiko, a state which she really doesn't have anymore.

Thanks to a stroke of good fortune, Kimiko picked up the role of Kotone, which gives her a special tool in the story. Kotone is a characher she identifies strongly with, and probably represents a side of Kimiko that she doesn't often get the opportunity to express in her daily life. Indeed, she may even think it inappropriate to let some of the personality trates Kotone shares with her to be brought out. I expect that if the plot moves around and lets us take a close look at Kotone, we will learn quite a bit about Kimiko in the process. Kinda like Endgames...

One thing that Kimiko does have to her advantage is that she isn't trying to be a secret. She's not dishonest or deceptive, and what you see from her are things that you can honestly believe she feels. Unlike Miho, who I think builds layers of depth to cover up her own shallowness, Kimiko needs no such device. She is, if anything, too deep for her own good, and she has absolutely no idea how to deal with that. So the end result is that she simply doesn't, and only by accident do we ever see how far she really goes.

I suspect that's a large part of why it's tough for people to get a real good handle on her character. She can't even figure it out, which makes it an impossible task for any of us to really understand her. So it becomes a waiting game as she goes through her own self discovery and we have little to do but sit back and wait for her to come up with something new.

For a writer, I imagine discovering a character can be as difficult a task as discovering oneself. On the road, there are patches of smooth sailing, but there are also road blocks that screw up traffic for miles. And while you're stuck in traffic, it can be tough even to get a grasp on the stuff you've already learned. If I may be so bold as to speculate on the working of Fred's mind, his current problem could just be that he's hit a particularly nasty roadblock in her discovery; unfortunate, considering that she seems to be on the verge of a breakthrough. The good thing is, almost everyone finds themself in time.

On a marginally related note, I wonder if Fred's slump is why he never draws her eyes with any emotion at all anymore....

She has already done something uncharacteristic for a "zero ego" personality. She asserted herself against authority figures: [559].

Go Nanasawa!

LittleThunder

This post has been edited by littlethunder on Jan 29 2005, 02:49 PM

Indeed, and permit me to throw my own two cents on top of that. I think another facet of the reason her plotline isn't too "grabbing" right now is that, at this particular moment in the story, she doesn't really seem to have much conflict going on relative to the other characters. Despite her initial fears, everyone at her job likes her, even to the point of letting her get away with making objections to the plot ([559]). The guy she has a crush on likes her back, even if neither of them have worked themselves up to admitting anything. There just seems to be very little in the way of interpersonal tension involving her at this juncture.

There's just no one she's butting heads with, as is the case with virtually everybody else in the strip, and I think it's that element of tension that gives a lot of the other relationships their zest--think Piro and Largo, Largo and Erika, Junpei and his divided loyalties between Largo and NinjaCorp... The list goes on and on. If/when Kimiko develops a relationship like that with some of the characters, I think it will help make her a much more vivid character.

I for one hope that Kimiko comes into conflict with Ping for Piro's attention.

I emphaticly and categorically disagree! Please, for the sake of those with modems, link to the individual images, not the comic pages!
However, I agree that the long-standing notation for referencing strips, [123], should be used, perferably with a useful caption, e.g:

We can see Yuki holding a bear in [123].

This post has been edited by Bryce on Jan 29 2005, 03:55 PM

She comes into conflict with several people for Piro's attention already. I think what's getting in the way of us seeing any sign of the conflict is that she doesn't see much of a conflict. Let's face it, she barely recognizes her own feelings towards him [528], let alone those of others. When she finally begins to perceive that her emotions are in conflict with those of other people, it will be interesting to see how she reacts.

In Ping's specific case, she's going to have to deal with a first class bitch. I hope Kimiko slaps Ping.

It's a standard courtesy to link to the page when the author has ads up -- otherwise you're just leeching off his bandwidth and not helping him get revenue in return. I'm not sure if Fred's expressed a preference one way or the other, but until we hear from him I'd say we should stick with linking to the page instead of the image.

Besides, if/when Fred finishes the CSS conversion the size of the comic page should get cut pretty drastically.

That's not the same issue - you're thinking of an external link, perhaps? (Example: If I wanted to have a MT strip on my Tohyology site, then yes, I should link to the comic page, not use img tags to include /strips/xxxx.gif directly in the page.) We're already on Fred's web-page. His ads are on this forum anyway. There is no need to waste our time and bandwidth downloading 30k of useless formatting, ads, spacer gifs, rants, and graphical menus to see one little detail in the third frame or similar.

[edit] And almost no one clicks ads anyway. I would guess that future generations will be so used to ignoring images about the size of a banner ad from an early age that spies will be able to smuggle out state secrets in them Seriously, though, you can support MT by donations or buying MT stuff.

This post has been edited by Bryce on Jan 29 2005, 05:30 PM

That's cold, man.

I "Feel" that, unlike others in MT, Kimiko is more of a Dynamic (Or) Multi-Facted character. A person who has both Bright & Gloom moods. With varying feelings and expressions.

She first got her job on Kitone character because she was sad, down & confused.(That wasn't even acting) But later she had a bright mood that even got in her way. Even then she could play the "Dead Kitty" scene.

She showed how she could care for others, even Ping. Yet, she was an Introvert just like Piro.(Still, she could speak her feelings to her friend, unlike Piro)

The more I see of her the more I feel like looking at a diamond with all it's facets.

P.S. Did anyone noticed that Fred had characterized his arts radically from the earliest Prototype Clones that looked like any other manga? (Where most characters having same set of eyes?)
Way to Go, Fred-Sama!

This post has been edited by Louis_LP(Kunei) on Jan 29 2005, 06:45 PM

Not meaningless, it's just informing you that you're walking in on the middle of a very old and ongoing discussion on the subject of Largo. Usually when people start threads like this they come across like they think they're the first ones to ever ponder such issues and it's a bit of fun to wink at outselves about it.

Buy hey, points to the thread for getting that long and wonderful post out of Fred.

I see no difference between how I used the drinking game compared to anyone else. Clarify? Anyhow, this thread has already become a thoughtful discussion, so no need to worry.

Perhaps she's not ready to conflict with anyone yet? Maybe if it happens, something in her will snap. I can't imagine Kimiko arguing without breaking down afterwards.

Humans are inherently complex and intricate, we all have our hidden depths. I think how 'interesting' we find certain characters depends largely on how much we relate to them, how much we see in them we also see in ourselves. I would say we tend to call, or think, of characters we relate to as more complex because we understand them to a degree, and can comprehend and percieve the depths of their character, while it can be considerably more diffcult for us to understand characters we don't really relate to (we don't act/think/ect [relate] to them for a reason), which lends it to thinking of them as a little more shallow. I think, in truth, that all the characters have around the same amount of 'complexity' (humans being human all over), even if I can't relate to some all that well.


This post has been edited by Blacksilver on Jan 30 2005, 04:31 AM

Perhaps, although we have seen her having terse words with Piro back when she considered him a pedophile. But that's been all resolved now, and not much has come up to take its place.

There's the potential conflict between the radio interview and Piro's promise to go with Ping to meet Miho at the Cave of Evils tonight.

But that's for Piro-San & Piro-Kun to conflict with since Piro is Sooo undecisive. I wonder where Seraphim will push him towards. But someone else might jump in. He's such a push over.

Say what? Last I checked, there was still only one Piro...