Based on some items of reader feedback regarding the Secret Director Commentary alt-text not working properly on some browsers and mobile devices, I’ve decided to discontinue it for the time being. Any behind-the-scenes info I have on the comic will now be placed in the blog posts.
With that being said: Today’s strip is a piece of pure self-indulgence for me. 😀 Had a funny idea to run off the joke I made way back here, and what better time than between arcs? Whether I use them as recurring characters or not depends on how much I feel like skirting fair-use parody laws. XD
Starting Thursday we will venture back to the orphanage for a little bit. Should be fun. 😀
I also had another piece of Fan Art mailed to me over the weekend, courtesy of Drayna:
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Thank you!
Discussion (78) ¬
Wow, I wonder how they both will react to finding out about Selkie…I can just imagine the guy saying “Its a water based demon!!” or something close to that….sorry I don’t play any of those kind of games…my knowledge of game creatures is -18.
Wow, this was the last place I’d expect an Evangelion reference
I am a bigger nerd than I may let on. >_>
Also, parody laws are pretty solid. As long as you’re not posting pages of the original manga and claiming yourself as the original author/artist, you’re pretty safe. Hideaki Anno is not going to send you a C&D order (even presuming he ever heard of your webcomic… or can read English). They’re fairly toothless most of the time anyway.
Even if you were out-and-out ripping off his company, the Japanese don’t even try to sue American media anymore. Remember The Lion King?
Disney “borrowed” like 98% of “Kimba the White Lion” in order to make what they advertised as their “First original feature film”. Then when the studio that produced the original series made a sequel feature film in honor of beloved creator Osamu Tezuka’s passing (set a couple years later when Kimba/Simba now has a little cub of his own) and it aired at a Toronto film festival, in an act of massive hypocrisy, Disney sued Tezuka productions for copyright infringement… and somehow won, despite being entirely in the wrong.
So yeah… I think you don’t even need to feel afraid of getting even a few mildly disproving words coming your way from the Land of the Rising Sun, never mind a lawsuit. Just… for the love of god, don’t try and parody FROZEN! Disney’s lawyers will own your house and firstborn child by the end of the week!
You and me both brother.
Yet another anime nerd over here has laughed his ass off at this cameo.
Brilliant! ^_^
Meh, always preferred Rei more myself, but seeing Asuka have to deal with gamer nerd Shinji was a laugh.
Dude, Rei’s a clone of his MOTHER. With alien genes spliced in.
She’d range somewhere between Sister and First Cousin on the incest scale, so massive Do Not Want there.
But what do I know, the Only True Pairing for me in that show is Mitsuo and Beer, every other relationship is too screwed up.
That said… EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE! Evangelion in my Selkie, YAY!!!!
Well, to be fair, people often look for couples that have several similar traits to their parents, so i would argue that a cute clone of his mother, who is willing to be with him, might be a good thing
but i would rather pair her with someone else
also, ASUKA ROXS, and this is AMAZINGLY good…
Its always a choice between Rei the incest doormat and Asuka the annoying useless sociopath. If I was Shinji, I’d choose the Class Rep, as she was the only one his age that seemed sane. But at least he seems to have finally gotten over his PTSD. Seriously, what kind of sollution is it to have teens pilot sins against nature to fight off Lovecraftion horrors?
. . . The kind that leads to situations like End of Eva? . . . Seriously there is a reason that my friends have a bumper sticker that says: If Only Life Was As Simple As Evangelion. Also,the entire point of Evangelion was the playing of Super Robot tropes that were popular at the time horribly, horribly straight. Well . . . that and weird references to Abrahamic Religious mythology.
Introducing Asuka. She sounds quite interesting.
^^ pantsless for the win!!
That can’t be Shinji, he isn’t whining! XD
This was hilarious.
Or screaming his head off for twenty minutes…in one breath XD. Seriously though I <3 Evangelion.
He also isn’t being forced to pilot giant cyborg angel hybrids to save the world. I can perfectly imagine that this is what Shinji’s like without all that stress :p
So wait…they’re german or japanese? I spot japanese and german X_X
they’re a multi cultural Couple.
she’s German, he’s Japanese.
That must lead to some interesting cursing when they fight…
German is a better language for cursing, in my opinion. 😛
Asuka’s half german and half japanese, if I remember my canon properly.
Yes, yes you do. Also: found your comic recently and I”ve been prowling the archives since. This comic rocks, interesting characters, a both organic and apparently well thought out plot, highly detailed and fascinating biology notes that clearly do their best to be different from humans as a humanoid species while still making some design choices for the straight appearance of the species, and not only are you referencing Eva, but you went ShinjixAsuka. Your comic is awesome, as are you.
And I”m not just saying all of that because of the Eva reference.
lol, I can imagine when they meet Selkie.
Selkie saying hi and then Shinji calling her an angel and Todd saying thanks, closely followed by him trying to grab her only to have Selkie bite his hand or arm. Then Asuka apologizing while beating the crap out of him.
I used to be paid to raid, so I got to giggle and be proud at this.
Also, my gf is the breadwinner, I sell crafts on the side and take care of the house, but there’s never been strife over it. I guess I’m lucky~
I have totally been in this situation, i know exactly how it feels to be that girl. Curse you mmorpgs…(although you are quite fun, some people have no sense of responsibility.)
Same here. My ex is in the $30 pay-to-play for 60 days catagory. For a while there I had to play too, just to have something to talk to him about and to understand him when he talked… *shudder*
MMORPGs steal your future and leave you a shivvering wreck of your former human self. Please, if you plan to have a future that involves people at all, stay away!!
I’ve been playing MMORPGS for a few years now, and I have to say stories like yours make me scared. They’re why I’ve always tried to adopt a policy of ditching the game if someone wants to do something or talk to me in real life. I love ’em, but it’s too easy to lose an entire evening to the things.
So long as one always has the “Real Life > MMORPG” attitude, it’s probably fairly safe. If you can add a kitchen timer or something, even better! (I know — and group with — someone who plays 2 hours a week, no more. Barring prior appointments in Real Life. Very disciplined!) Of course, if one gets involved with group activities, one also has to balance that there are Real People behind those pixels, and make sure not to make appointments with them (to kill a Boss) that you’d be likely to break.
As a huge Evangelion nerd, I feel that Shinji has always been portrayed poorly by western fans. The whole series is a documentary of Shinji’s growth(among other things), so of course he seems a little pathetic in the process.
Out of curiosity, is this supposed to fit anywhere in the normal or alternate universe canons?
I don’t honestly know anything about all the alternate universe manga canons. I just view this as a stand-alone parody in a non-giant-robot universe.
And regarding Shinji, I’ve always seen a lot of myself in him, so it’s easy for me to poke fun. 🙂
Well, whatever this universe is I would like to see more of those two. They’re hilarious.
Yeah it’s all in good fun. As the great Mel Brooks said, the best spoofs are made by people who love what they’re spoofing. (paraphrasing like hell here haha)
I play WoW.. and a text-based game called wotmud (based on Robert Jordan’s wheel of time series), so I guess you could call me a gamer. I haven’t heard of Evangelion though. What is it about?
There was an anime(/manga?) called Neon Genesis Evangelion, that everybody shortens into Evangelion. There were big robots, piloted by kids.
Shinji was the main character, one of these robot pilots. Asuka was another. There was hints of romance.
And, of course, in a universe without giant robots, they would be unemployed, but very much happier.
For more information, ask Google or Wikipedia.
There’s a N64 game (based on a tv show) called Robotech: Battlecry that sounds a lot like that.
The original Robotech is 80s.. I think it’s one of a handful of shows that helped popularize anime to the US. It’s crude and low quality by modern standards, but they’ve made newer generations since then. All that said, I’ve never cared for the series myself.
Robotech has always kinda freaked me out. They apparently mixed and matched animation scenes from three or four completely separate anime series and added their own(English) voices. They tried to animate it by themselves for the second season but had to give up after three episodes, at which point they turned it into a movie instead.
It shouldn’t be surprising if Macross(the series Robotech is more or less based off of) sounds like Evangelion. Macross, Gundam, and a couple others formed the basis for the real robot genre, of which Evangelion was a part.
It’s an anime from the early 1990s originally, about 14 year old kids recruited to pilot giant robots to combat alien invaders called Angels. That makes it sound like kid show fodder, but it also has a cast of characters with deeply ingrained psychological issues (conflict avoidance and eroded self-esteem among them) that get pulled apart and dissected as the series progresses, making it a very detailed and psychologically intense characterization study as much as an action show with spiffy robots and weird looking monsters.
Evangelion is a well written show that gave me a case of frigid logic several times. What they put those kids thriough is just plain wrong. I really enjoyed the series because it was such a good story line.
Now I am waiting to see Selkie in a plug suit. It is just a matter of time now that the meme is out there…
Thank you for getting rid of the pop up text!
I’m actually in Germany right now visiting relatives, so my very first thought was maybe the comic was just automatically translated into German!
Are you going to bring Jessie back? Jessie is cool.
also i dont think the frog joke is anatomically possible
Ugh the frog joke………. I forgot that I chose for some silly reason to link that. >_<
I do have to thank you for satisfying my curiosity.
I might could be convinced to do a Jessie vignette while it’s still Short Story season…
Jessie is awesome. :3
This is one of those things that’s as funny to me as it is mentally painful. I’m holding my head and laughing at the same time. I think my sister is growing concerned.
Yeah… you win.
a Evangelion and (what i think) Warhammer reference in Selkie, Good Lord! :S
*Sigh* No escaping it, now… I have to watch/read this “Evangelion”… (Gawds, hope they don’t revoke my Nerd License for admitting I never have…)
My own Nerd License compels me to encourage the sharing of shows I enjoy, so go for it! 😀 It’s from the early 1990s, so it’s probably on Youtube or Netflix or Hulu by now.
It is interesting… I’m about to start episode 9, Asuka was just introduced.
http://www.animefreak.tv/watch/neon-genesis-evangelion-episode-1-english-dubbed-online-free
Nerd licenses are only revoked for the desire to NOT become a bigger nerd/learn about other awesome nerdy stuff. Your license is not in danger. 😀
This page is EPIC!!
I have enough time to read this webcomic, and continues to amaze the unrelenting ability of its creator to reflect the feelings and thoughts of the characters in a few scenes
Long time reader, this page made me finaly post for the first time: as a fellow asuka x shinji fan, have you ever read Studio Kimigabuchi’s Re-take series? It’s technically a doujinshi, but is enormous, 5 or 6 volumes long, a concludes the series better than any official ending has. I strongly recommend checking it out, you won’t be disappointed!!
I have not read it, thanks for the tip!
Wow. That was awesome. I laughed as soon as I saw her, so congrats on making Asuka so recognizable. If it’s been Shinji I wouldn’t have known who it was, but yeah. As soon as I saw her I knew exactly who it was, before I read a single letter of text.
This was actually hilarious. I just hope they do end up okay. I’d hate for Selkie to have to hear the fights that lead up to a divorce through the walls. …and I just don’t want this nice little Asuka/Shinji pairing destroyed. It’s kinda cute, in a “omg he’s such a dork” kind of way.
The note about Pilot school was a nice touch, btw.
…
Pimp Gendo must be canon.
MAKE IT HAPPEN.
Are those two the Neighbors or Friends?
The neighbors in Unit 2. Also friends/acquaintances in that “you live next door” kind of way.
The curse of the Internet.
I hate to make this my first comment, because I LOVE this webcomic… but as a German, I have to point it out: In German, nouns always start with a capital letter! So Asuka would say ‘Mein Gott’ instead of ‘Mein gott’.
Now that my nitpicking is over, I can say how much I love to see both of them here. I hope to see more of them in the future. ^^
I don’t mind the grammatical assistance, thank you for letting me know. I’d rather be corrected than have a glaring language error on the page. 😀
If you ever want to use Finnish for some reason, let me know. 😀 English-speaking friends say my language not just looks weird written, but is pronounced even weirder. (Of course I say the same thing on pronunciation about English. :-P)
I’m SO depressed that I TOTALLY missed the “Asuka, Unit 02” comment back then. Goodness
D: So did I!! Maaaaan, I need to re-acquaint myself with Evangelion.
At least I caught the reference this time. 😀
(loving the fanart)
I wonder who they are…
don’t feel bad, I had to look them up too!
Man, I found this funny on it’s own, and didn’t even notice the link to the old joke. Just now went back, read it again, and felt quite silly for not getting the Asuka/Unit 2 (as opposed to apartment 2) reference the first time around. I guess so long as unit 4 isn’t mentioned we’ll be okay (bad things happen there) wait…Tom & Selkie don’t live in #4 (or #3), do they? I don’t recall seeing a number, and either way that would be all kinds of wrong within the context if Eva jokes are being tossed about.
Anyway, it’s past midnight, and I’m probably making less sence than I’d like to be making. Good show with the comic so far, and good show with playing TF2 😀
Gah, proof of tiredness: I refered to Todd as Tom. Like I said, time for bed.
Todd and Selkie do live in Unit 3, next door to the Ikaris. And I never considered the idea of them as Evangelion Unit 03. That is kinda wrong. XD
So shinji FINALY hit puberty?……. well kinda
I always thought she would terrify him into being a good provider.
Hates the Eva, I do. Hates it.
Hmm, yes. “Secret Director Commentary” a.k.a. mouseover text will never work on mobile or touchscreen tablets (which seems to be the way tech is going) because there is no mouse to hover over with.
Though I’m on a laptop, my own minor complaint/suggestion for mouseover text would be to keep it short, like 2-3 lines. It only appears briefly and reading a large block of text that keeps disappearing after a few seconds is really annoying.
Suggestion 2: Never put any important info there. As you’ve already been alerted, many people can’t see it at all under any circumstances, others are technically capable but forget to check it.
Use it for a quick pun or witty remark that occurs to you after the page is done:
Example:
“Secret Director’s Commentary: Think I should have had Shinji be hooked on a giant robot game, or would that have been pushing my luck?”
Asuka: “Are you going to actually get a job?”
Shinji: “You kidding? That was the job interview! I’m starting with Blizzard next week!”