Wednesday, December 12, 2001

Yesterday, Saalon posted a rant which dealt, in part, with Piro of MegaTokyo. Specifically, Saalon complained about Piro’s behavior when presented with negative feedback about one MegaTokyo strip.

Yesterday, my reaction to Saalon’s rant was agreement, though tempered with the feeling that Saalon was a bit harsh. While Piro definitely over-reacted, I felt that, despite frequent delays, he keeps up with MegaTokyo reasonably well.

Then I talked to Saalon one the phone last night, and I began to agree with him more strongly.

Then I loaded up MegaTokyo this morning, to find that Piro posted a filler strip for today. Again. His explanation:

“Yea, its definately not happening tonight. I’m sorry, but today was just so goofed up. Actually, i’m not going to appologize — i do the best i can, and when i can’t do it, it’s just literally not possible.”

I’m now officially tired of this occurrence.

But instead of ranting, I want to analyze this. Why am I so annoyed? What ticked me off this morning?

• It wasn’t the fact that Piro is often late.
• It wasn’t the fact that Piro’s wishy-washy about the direction of the strip.
• It wasn’t the fact that Piro’s taken so long to actually move forward with plot in MegaTokyo.

I’m annoyed because Piro’s been doing this for a year and a half. I can’t treat Piro as an amateur. He’s a pro, really.

And this is unprofessional behavior. It’s one thing to be late; it’s another to be late, chronically, for a year and a half. Piro’s had plenty of time to settle on a direction for MegaTokyo, and he still has made little progress (the move to a chapter-based format was a definite, conscious improvement, for which I applaud him, but it hasn’t helped much).

That’s why I’m annoyed. As Saalon put it, “I’m not going to play the idiot game where I say ‘I’m not reading it anymore!’ since reading it doesn’t cost me anything…But I’m finding less and less enthusiasm about reading it, and more and more reasons to forget to check the site. I hope Piro turns it around.”

Meeeanwhile…Men’s Academy yesterday went well. I skipped out before group discussion began; I wanted some time alone to digest the message about maturity. Good stuff.

I watched a bit of anime last night. I re-watched the second Hand Maid May DVD, and was re-impressed at the deep emotions presented there. This disc hurts at times. And that’s good; I want an emotional experience.

I also (finally!) watched the second DVD of El Hazard: The Alternative World (this is part of the third and final El Hazard OVA series). Now that I’ve seen the first two OVA’s, I could appreciate this series more, and I really enjoyed myself. The Alternative World manages to revive the old sense-of-wonder adventure style of the original series, though it doesn’t have quite the same magic (it can’t, really; the first series was all about new discovery). Still, it’s fun stuff.

I’ve decided to add another feature to this diary, in addition to the poll: an anime song download. If you cast your eyes to the sidebar, you’ll notice a box, containing a link to an MP3 file. It’ll change whenever I feel like it; probably daily for now. These songs will not be archived, so you’ll have to grab each one while you have the chance.