[1080] - Barging In, "someone might see you!"

Baka's Defense Weekly isn't convinced those are helicopters, but admits the image is too small to tell for sure. I blew it up to 800%. When I look at frame 7 and frame 9, I can't decide if I see a pair of fixed wing aircraft approaching in 7 and the radial lines in 9 are part of the explosion, or if they're blurred rotor blades. Looking at the second craft below the first in frame 9, I'm leaning to fixed wing. The wing taper is wrong for the stubby weapons pylons on helicopters. Looks like it could be a Stuka-like ground attack model, but I don't see a fixed undercarriage. Then again, I'm reading an awful lot into a very few interpolated pixels ...

Okay, so at no time is Piro going to see the damn zombies, RAZ, or people do magic. Fine. He is the Terry Thirteen of the megatokyo universe. Fine. I can deal with that. He seems to understand what's happening in the Kimiko arena.

Now would be a good time to have Largo's team expand his world.

Well, as we see here the Zombies do have aircraft. Although the one in strip 938 looks to me like a cross between 2 WWII aircraft. The Nakajima Type 97 "Nate" and the Vought Chance F4F "Corsair". They may have aircraft that would be easily recognized from many countries inventories or they may have aircraft that they've cobbled together from various aircraft "bone yards".

In the last frame zombie paratroopers and additional aircraft are visible. The scale suggests to me that they might be non-descript generic bomber/transport hybrids.

I don't think it's possible to safely paradrop infantry from such low altitude, especially in an urban area, but these infantry are already dead so it's probably a safe bet. Additionally, if Fred drew them at a higher altitude we might not have been able to see them. Plus then we would have missed the gratuitous "Beach Head 2008: Devazillastation" hints for the next strip.

This post has been edited by Sky_Paladin on Jan 18 2008, 08:16 PM

Heh. Yuki's showing off. I have no idea what the zombies think they're doing, but trying attack this point while it's guarded by Yuki, Largo, Zilla, Piro, Miho, and Kimiko is just going to get their entire assault force vaporized. Silly zombies. Attacking the protagonists just guarantees failure.

And Piro's actually thinking this through. So long as Kimiko has this under control, the last thing she needs is him bursting in and making a scene.

Well, at least he's not treating Kimiko as helpless.. and neither is he going to make a show of charging in. And with the squad behind him, he can probably figure out if she needs some extra help (and maybe an extraction, although with Miho around that shouldn't be a problem). So, for the time being, given he's blind without his glasses, he'll just sit back, enjoy the show from outside (what he can make out of it), and listen for trouble while ignoring the Rent-a-Zilla attacks in the background as the zombie horde moves in.

Cue the cut back to the zombies moving forward to feast on fanboys.

Once again Piro has a narrow escape from a direct collision with Largo's World. Funny how Piro is able to see one thing with greater clarity than ever before -- i.e. Kimiko's need to handle some things on her own -- as he continues to utterly miss the 'zillas, magical grrrls, and invading zombies. Oh well, at least he's got one thing sorted out.

Out of curiosity, where is Kumakuma? Haven't seen him/her/it for two comics now. Almost makes me suspicious...

This is one of the best comics I have seen in a long time. It's perfect!
You bring the piro side of the arc to head with intelligence,
and you have the best segue in the background.
The balance between, humor, chaos, and plot is astounding.

-Phil

Yay! He gets it! This is wonderful! I was afraid he wouldn't, and I'd have to really start hating Piro.

Now all he needs is new glasses, and he can sit back and enjoy the event. And the mayhem.
So, his eyesight is that bad? he can't even make out the crowd in front of him? No wonder he doesn't notice zombies, etc. Casts a whole new (blurry) light on his failure to see what's been going on around him.
The NPCs though, have no such excuse.


Love the backround development of the battle, starting with a dash of Zilla in panel 2.
Panel 5 - can it be 'OK, Yuki flies' admission time now, or are we going to have the 'no, she's just leaping' argument all over again? Isn't this the first time in the entire comic that a magical girl is seen in midair in relation to actual scenery? There was the 'Miho and Kimiko in space' shot (and landing), and there was one of Meimi and Junpei 'heading upwards', but that was ambiguous. As were the 'Miho leading Yuki up onto the wires' and 'Miho's foot disappearing off-frame as Ed shot the lightning gun' scenes.

Re fly vs leap argument; I'll start-
Note the Zilla leash arc - implies Yuki's trajectory is slanting downwards from upper left, rather than an upwards leap.

Wait... Zilla can breathe fire? That's new too. Pork rinds - serious weaponry.

If that last panel is a view of Piro from the POV of the NPCs, they just got handed two major revelations, either of which would probably block awareness of the other. One is Piro's epiphany regarding Kimiko's not needing him (or the NPCs) right now, and the other is... a helicopter or something (plane?) getting blasted from the sky by a fire-breathing Godzilla lookalike, with a magical girl flitting about in the air.

Which one will they concentrate on? Or maybe neither?

If they take on both at once, their brains will explode.

Otoh, it could be said that the approaching zombie-zilla fight makes a very good reason why barging into the event right now could be more about literally saving Kimiko from death, than about Piro's pride. Since Piro doesn't know about Miho.

Edit: spelling.

This post has been edited by BinaryTears on Jan 18 2008, 08:55 PM

Piro is Awesome!

I was really hoping he would say this, rather then going into a major anti-miho rampage.

Yeah. He slips away, then the zombie army shows up. Too obvious...

Not... quite what I was thinking...

Piro? Thinking smartly and smiling? Scary. But in a good way

Not much I can do here but echo the praise of Piro's good sense, and his honest satisfaction in Kimiko's success.

It'll be interesting to see if the NPCs share his satisfaction.

The zombie horde approaches the extended cataclysm zone.
It will be Largo, Yuki, and the Rent-a-zilla's job to keep them away from the event.

Tune in next week for the thrilling continuation of Megatokyo: Rumble at Animate!

I like how Piro's kind of breaking away from the Nanasawa Protection Coalition.

In the last few strips, and in the previous one especially, they've been treating the situation like the live version of one of their fantasy dating games. Piro is their character, and they manipulate and guide him to a happy ending with his lady love.

They seem kind of freaked out when he stops following their instructions and goes with his own agenda, i.e. siting back and letting Kimiko handle things.

Heh...I called it right for once. Piro knew that there was no sense in trying to barge in....he made the right choice

Bwahaha....'Zilla in the background means the fun is about to begin....

I was just about to say this myself. I've been waiting for when Piro would hit the big red STOP button on the chase. Good to see him make the right choice.

I don't know quite why (it might just be how late it is) but I found this page very refreshing. It's either the change in the story, or seeing Yuki riding the 'Zilla in the background. Refreshing...

Argh! Why did you mention that? I wouldn't have noticed until you mentioned that!

So okay. Other than that weird nose in panels five and...nine (yes, had to go count), which is just...weird, the art's pretty damn good. I was actually going to post and say "Good art here, Fred". It's nice and...I dunno what to call it, crisp? I've been drawing that way myself lately (by accident), where there's not a line out of place and everything looks like you did it on purpose. It's pretty damn awesome when ya pull that off.

I think the oddest thing about panel nine, though, is that the shape of Piro's face and mouth make him look rather like Largo...which is just downright unsettling, doubly so when you point out to yourself in your head that "Largo would never smile wistfully!", triply when you subsequently imagine Largo doing so. And quadruply because somehow this train of thought has led me to lose The Game.

Anyway, where's Kuma^ni gone to? Or has that been addressed and I need to pay more attention?

Nanasaw... *slaps forehead* I don't know whether to yell "duh!" or "brilliant!".

This post has been edited by SunflowerSpike on Jan 18 2008, 11:01 PM

sweetness, thanks for this piro-san.

"No one wants her debut canceled. It's too important to her!"

Pretty serious bit of growing up on the side of the fanboys here. Before they would have said "too important for us".

Piro's willingness to stand back and just watch as opposed to barging in says that he has learned the lesson from the Anna Miller's incident. Let her fight her own battles, and only step in when she really needs it.

This is turning out to be very anticlimactic. Everything is going too well - something else has to happen or the MT fans will feel cheated that there is no visceral payoff. Perhaps dinner at the Sonodas is supposed to be the climax of the chapter.

As for the background battle, I have a feeling that's all it's going to remain. Even if the Zilla came tromping through, since Piro is sans glasses he is effectively enveloped in a SEP field out to about 5 meters.

And didn't Largo get busted for facing off against the Zombies the last time? I guess Inspector Sonoda is going to have to post bail for Largo and take him home for dinner (or make him an operative again). I'd love to see the look on Masamichi's face if he also has to book his daughter as well, but I think Yuki will make a clean getaway. I believe magical girls are hard to catch...

Hmmm i wonder if Piro will go charging in if something goes horribly wrong maybe involving zombies perhaps.