Meatballs

Sorry for the title I guess ಠ_ಠ

Do you remember that lady here? No? Well, no wonder, here’s a little reminder. She didn’t say who she was back then but now you can see why she was all excited about getting a body sample. If you don’t know the song I recommend looking it up~ It’s something my mom used to sing me when I was very little but back then  I didn’t care about the meaning. Now it feels a bit creepy…

Anyway, I need to thank you for those votes! Replay was struggling a little bit during last week but it’s still 1st or 2nd on the Topwebcomics list! This is thanks to you! I am very grateful, as higher position gives Replay more new readers \(-ㅂ-)/ ♥ ♥ ♥  I don’t know why I need more readers, maybe for the server to crash more often, but sure feels nice to think that so many people enjoy this little experimental project of mine~

New page next week and in the meanwhile you can enjoy some doodles on the Twitter or Facebook as I plan to continue practicing.

107 comments on “Meatballs”

    • Takoshi Wolfite Reply

      Yea that almost left me short one important appendage, did it stop me from repeating that stupid mistake…nope*scares roommate, who lets out an ear deafening scream*

      • xthorgoldx Reply

        Also, holy crap your art has improved since last year. Dog Nurse (she’s not in the gallery! What gives!) hasn’t made an appearance since December of last year – the difference is palpable.

        • NotImportant Reply

          She doesn’t even have a name!
          Happy you say that it improved, I certainly learned a ton during last year, hopefully I can learn even more in the next one~!

          • Dusk

            I would say so as well your art style has changed a lot in just the passing of one year. I think you’re awesome at it now but I can’t wait till Christmas next year to see how well you can own up to this awesome style 🙂 best wishes and merry Christmas.

          • NotImportant

            Thanks and merry Christmas to you too! Even though it’s still a while until it actually comes~ …

          • Dusk

            yea I actually feel bad that I didn’t get time till Friday to veiw your awesome art. on an un reladed note how is your Japanese ? intermediate ? also the song was a nice tuch to the character dipiction for a nameless character really adds realism and depth 🙂

          • NotImportant

            Thanks! I’m trying hard, making comic sure is challenging… Glad you guys my experiments!
            My Japanese? Hard to tell, to be honest, I am studying kanji with Wanikani right now, learned grammar up to the intermediate once before but it was a long while ago so I don’t remember everything. I understand a lot, but there is little I can say. Reading sucks (that’s why I am studying kanji).
            I’d say something between beginner and intermediate 🙁

          • Dusk

            Ii due my study on anki but i used to use the japanese from zero series. the rest is just ridiculous amounts of time spent late at night listening to radio and podcasts. I’ve got books were the audio follows the kanji but i always end up listening to the tape. I’m with you, kanji suck. don’t worry thought the mose you speak the more you’ll be able to say. starting out , I couldn’t pronounce Rs but now i can all but nail it. sadly I’m still stuck saying wight, instead of right, （分かりません）

          • NotImportant

            Luckily for me for people from Poland pronunciation problem is non existent. So one less thing to worry about… I am good with listening thanks to anime and games, reading and grammar being my biggest problems but those are solvable with time. I’m sure I can learn this language. Good luck to you as well!
            May I ask what is your current level and why did you decide to master Japanese?

          • Dusk

            i’m a martial artist. I want to go there, learn swordsmanship, and japanese metal working if possible. my goal will require living there for an extended period of time and so i need to know the language. I’ve only been studying seriously for 2 years. but i’m great at speaking and good with grammar. my weakness is kanji as i only know 5-600 but i manage. I’m great at listening and have a decent vocabulary. I study 3 hours a day not including radio/shows and i’v completely watched over 100 anime (i’m sick of anime) I found your comic by chance and got hooked after I said this looks like some thing different and cool. I hope we can become friends 🙂 (also that this time the message actually sends)

          • NotImportant

            Martial artist! Practicing or teaching? And what kind? Kendo? Karate?
            And you sure got me into a learning mood. I plan to start studying very seriously after I’m done with my master thesis which is dragging terribly. For now I just focus on kanji with the little time I have, then grammar and I’ll probably just go to a language school for conversations practice, we’ll see.

        • Lukkai Reply

          Rightfully so! It looks awesome and feels quite natural at that.
          (Also girl is quite capable with a knife, it would seem!)

          Her face in panel three is also absolutely perfect! (^_^)

          • NotImportant

            Thanks! I’m still learning something new with every page, very exciting~!

  2. Refugnic Reply

    Hmm…wasn’t it about a duck getting beheaded or something? I’m don’t speak French, but I think I heard something about it once.
    I know it’s a children’s song, however it only works as long as the parent doesn’t really think about the meaning. 😛

    Thanks for the reference and you’re right…I had completely forgotten about her. (To be fair, there’s a whole lot of cute girls in this comic, it’s hard to remember all of them. Oh and I’m plain terrible with faces :P)

    Now, regarding the comic…if those are, indeed, testicles (as the title suggests), it would imply that the demons have need for organs like these.
    Which would mean, that there are two different genders and that they are capable of reproduction.

    Of course they could also be hermaphrodites, capable of fertilizing themselves, that’s hard to tell at this point.

    Sooo…who is she? The doctor’s apprentice? She sure seems absorbed enough in her work to be sure. 🙂

      • Refugnic Reply

        Hmm, that would make sense. Still kinda disturbing to think that it’s a children’s song, wouldn’t you agree?

        Imagine if the children later go out, see a pigeon or something and decide to act out the song.

        • JW Reply

          Consider how gruesome some fairy-tales are, originally, I wouldn’t expect much better from nursery rhymes.
          And most children have a better sense than to act out whatever they hear, and those that don’t would do horrible things regardless of what they hear.

          • Dæmon

            Yeah, I know what you mean. I mean, what the evil sisters did in Cinderella to fit in the slipper was _gruesome_. I mean, one cuts off her heel, and the other her toes…. And in “Ring around the Rosies”, the rhyme is about the black death. Not a kid’s worth though, what with it just being a fun game. Of course, the internet has GOT to have ruined at least one childhood with knowledge like that. I mean, kids these days can look up whatever they want, and their parents probably don’t give a single damn about it. Or at least, that’s how it is in America (Or Utah, never sure which it is, and I never have been on literally anything even remotely like this). And added to that, most if my peers grew up on Halo and the original CoD as toddlers, while I actually spent my time getting the tar beat out of me, like a ” normal” kid. Regardless, we’ve had numerous discussions saying this, but normal is more if an exception as either Refugnic or JW said, and as my parents and Debate coach said, it’s a fallacy, not a fact.

            Still, the things kids sing all over the world can be disturbing, and they don’t even know it, or k is what the original story was like. You look at the Stockholm Syndrome fueled story of Disney’s Beauty and the Beast, and you.learn that it not only wasn’t what Disney said it was, but the Beast wasn’t nice at ALL.

            Cinderella was a story of a girl who thought she was in love, and the man she loved couldn’t even remember her face, yet chased after her anyway, which doesn’t sound like love to me.

            Hansel and Gretal was a story of siblings who were left out to die by their father, not to mention being taken in by a witch that they BAKED IN HER OWN OVEN.

            Not a kid’s story, ANY of these, by today’s standards.

          • JW

            Maybe in Cinderella’s story the prince had prosopagnosia (inability to recognize faces).

          • Refugnic

            Let’s recount the facts about Cinderella: She was dressed in a totally fancy gown, dolled and cleaned up with her hair all being nice and done.
            The only time he met her was at a ball, where there was music and hundreds of faces, many of which most certainly demanded the attention of the prince at one point or another. The prince had never seen Cindy before and she made a really hasty exit before they even got much talking down (seeing how he didn’t even get her name or anything, they really didn’t talk much).

            Now, the next time he sees her, she’s in rags, dirt in her face, her hair a mess and her posture that of a peasant rather than that of a princess.

            Now, I’m terrible with faces to begin with, but quite personally, I wouldn’t have suspected that this was the pretty girl I met at the party either.

            How you present yourself really does matter.

            Though yeah, to get back to the topic: Many of the old fairy tales were really drastic for two reasons.
            Number one: Bad experiences (and drastic/terrible stories categorize as ‘bad experience’) get remembered far better than Lovey-Dovey-Happy stories.
            Number two: They never were meant to entertain. They were meant to educate. To warn of follies like vanity or hubris. To be wary of the world out there. To work hard instead of slacking off.

            I could continue that list, but I think I made my point.

    • NotImportant Reply

      Why the hell would that be about testicles Refugnic, I associate the word “meatballs” with a type of dish (which I don’t particularly like)! Please tell me what made you think about reproduction organs because if there really is anything on that page that suggests that I will need to fix/remove it right away ಠ_ಠ

      • Refugnic Reply

        Eh, my mind likes to go places again as it seems.

        But yeah, here are my thoughts, albeit arbitrary.

        She points to a pair of round lumps of flesh.
        Now, my biology is not the best there is, but the only organ in the human body resembling that which comes to mind pretty much right away are the little round things stuck in a bag of skin between my legs.

        These are aptly nicknamed ‘balls’ and while I will admit that I do not know what exactly they are made off, labeling them as ‘meatballs’ is not as far fetched as one might think from a distance.

        Plus, she hinted that what she found was ‘interesting’, which would make it some sort of special interior/organ, which she likely did not expect to find in it.
        And while I’m at it, there is a distinctive likeness of the item above the meatballs to another part of the male anatomy.

        Now, those meatballs don’t look like brain to me, so if they are not testicles but still interesting enough to be pulled from the abdomen and labeled as #1 I am left to wonder…what are they supposed to be?

        On a side note, I do think it interesting, that their general build appears to be largely identical to that of humans, which opens up an interesting line of thought, as in: What happens if a person gets killed by a demon? Do they really remain dead?

        I’ve come across a number of creatures (only in fiction, fortunately ;P), which inject their offspring into their victims by biting them, where they gestate and either take over the host until they are ready to ‘blow the joint’ (leading to a limited time of Zombie-ism) or remain undetected until they’re ready to emerge.
        During this gestation period, they may well be consuming and adapting cellular material of their host, giving them genetic information influencing their later form.

        In fact, one of my own creatures, the ‘Lupus Infernali’ (my apologies for straying here, but I am trying to form a theory by comparison here, feel free to call it complete bullshit) procreated like that. It infected their victim and the ‘Baby Lupus’ absorbed the genetic information as well as the knowledge from the brain of it’s victim prior to killing it. It then often posed as its victim in order to get close enough to other prey in order to strike and have the cycle begin anew. Vicious buggers, to say the least.

        To get back to my point…assuming that they have the same internal build as humans, who’s to say that most of the demons they are encountering haven’t been humans at some point, terribly altered in both mind and body by some sort of mutagenic poison?
        I could also imagine that ‘demonity’ could work like a sophisticated virus, causing the mutations and getting orders from some sort of overmind over a specific radio frequency.

        Okay, feel free to disprove me. Feel free to laugh at me. But theorizing is half the fun, isn’t it? 🙂

        • NotImportant Reply

          I have no idea what to do. Cry in the corner, redo the next page to explain that those are unidentified internal organs of no known purpose with strange colorful scribbles on the surface or just laugh it off.
          Why did you decide to focus on those two balls where there are plenty of other meat-parts put aside… ‎(ﾉಥ益ಥ）ﾉ ┻━┻
          I don’t like where this is going so here: demons can’t and don’t reproduce.

          • Refugnic

            You asked for my opinion, I gave it.

            That doesn’t mean, that you did a ‘bad job’ or anything (so get out of that corner this instant!), it’s just that my mind sometimes likes to go places.
            You can add that info on the next page if you want, however even if you do, it still doesn’t explain, what’s so ‘interesting’ and ‘quite a find’, except that they could be considered ‘unusual’, because the young lady doesn’t have the slightest idea, what they might be.

            Eh, there are multiple other parts of meat set aside, however you will have to agree that these two are the most prominent of them.
            And if I tried, I could probably find more comparisons all the same.
            However if you say they aren’t testicles and that demons can not reproduce, that’s perfectly fine and acceptable by me.

            Though this begs another question…if they cannot reproduce, where do they come from in the first place?
            Because ‘natural selection’ and ‘breeding’ kinda goes outta the window with no reproductive organs to speak of.

            This, once again, takes me back to my theories (feel free to tell me to shut up :P)
            What they know as ‘demons’ are nothing short of organic weapons, created to kill and eventually die and nothing else.

            If this was a Sci-Fi-setting, I would expect there to be some sort of Lab, where the demons are being ‘manufactured’ by taking living specimen as base material, infusing them with the mutagen I mentioned before.
            However since this is a fantasy setting, there probably isn’t a mutagen, but much rather some wizardry at work, which somehow defies the laws of thermodynamics and creates the demons from thin air…why do I find myself liking the idea with the mutagen better?

            Ah well, not my story, not my problem to worry about. 😀

          • Refugnic

            Though now that you mention the ‘colorful scribbles’…I mistook them for rather large veins, however on closer examination the other organs don’t seem to have them. (Well, the only other internal organ you can really see clearly is the colon she so lovingly yanks out of the abdomen, but that one at least seems to look ‘normal’.)

            I wonder if they are some sort of runes engraved on these organs. Possibly giving them that super regeneration, which makes the warriors of man struggle so much.

          • Charismoon

            First time commenting, but I’ve been reading your comic for a long while. Anyways, I never saw any of those organs as testicles. I saw them as brains or something similar. I don’t think you need to redo anything. People’s brains will go where they go, regardless of the look lol.

            Personally, I feel you shouldn’t have to change anything about your comic. People’s minds will take them where they take them. Mine took me to seeing brains, his took him to seeing testicles. *shrugs*

          • NotImportant

            Haha thank you, thank you for putting my mind at ease… And for reading as well!

          • Refugnic

            While I do still do not see these things as ‘brains’, I do agree with you on the vital aspect of your comment, Charismoon.

            People will interpret it any way they want to interpret it. Okay, so my mind went straight to the gutter.
            But that’s not your problem, NI, that’s mine.

            You’re doing a bang up job on the comic and (almost) no matter what any of us may say, even if one of us was the freaking pope, don’t let anyone talk you into changing it into something you don’t want it to be.

            The ‘almost’ is there for the exception of typos and continuity errors (like the missing headphones a few pages back), though I do believe that the correction of these is in your best interest, isn’t it? 😉

          • NotImportant

            But of course it is, so please continue to inform me about those. And with those meaty things – you comment and misinterpretation made me realize that I did if fact miss something (little detail that was in my brain and nowhere on the pages) so I will be adding one page after this one that will explain a bit more. It can’t be helped..! Let’s hope I’ll be able to make it before Monday haha… ha… =_=

        • Dæmon Reply

          Speaking of the you mentioning the “colorful scribbles” you mentioned, they do look like veins. Perhaps, NI, you could edit that.so they don’t automatically make people’s minds go to the gutter like Refugnic’s and mine diid? I mean, with Hebrew writing on the magic circles, why not use that or some other archaic runes instead of lines, unless of course next week’s comic explains that for you. To be perfectly honest, I thought it looked like testicles because of the approximate shape and the color of red making me thing of blood. I didn’t notice any lines when I looked on Monday, but now that I think about it, that only reinforces the connection. If they were squished lines of writing, it may make more sense it _not_ being a reproductive organ, versus lines of writing, which would be interesting enough in and of itself for her to say that in the first place.

          • JW

            A man goes to a Psychologist and says, “Doc I got a real problem, I can’t stop thinking about sex.”
            The Psychologist says, “Well let’s see what we can find out”, and pulls out his ink blots. “What is this a picture of?” he asks.
            The man turns the picture upside down then turns it around and states, “That’s a man and a woman on a bed making love.”
            The Psychologist says, “very interesting,” and shows the next picture. “And what is this a picture of?”
            The man looks and turns it in different directions and says, “That’s a man and a woman on a bed making love.”
            The Psychologists tries again with the third ink blot, and asks the same question, “What is this a picture of?”
            The patient again turns it in all directions and replies, “That’s a man and a woman on a bed making love.”
            The Psychologist states, “Well, yes, you do seem to be obsessed with sex.”
            “Me!?” demands the patient. “You’re the one who keeps showing me the dirty pictures!”

            Aside from that obvious joke/retort.
            I hadn’t noticed before, but those organs (whatever they are) seem to have moved between the first and last panel. *dun* *dun* *dun*
            If that’s intentional, that’s very creepy. If not, it’s still very creepy to think about if it were real.

  3. huro Reply

    oh god, a friend of mine sing that song when she is bored x.x
    now i don’t think i will find it cute anymore ^^”

    • NotImportant Reply

      I’d say a song about plucking feathers from a bird wasn’t very cute from the very beginning!

      • Refugnic Reply

        Do I need to remind you, that not quite everyone is fluent in French? I dare say, that most people who sing the song have only heard it somewhere, thought the melody nice, but have no actual idea what the words are about.

        So yeah, the song never was very cute. The person singing it, having no idea what the song is about, may well be. 🙂

          • Refugnic

            That implies, that people are actually interested enough to pull up Google in order to expand their horizon. 😛

            That said, assuming you are referring to Google Translator…I only use that in times of utter emergency, where I actually need to know a translation and an actually good translation is not available for whatever reason. 😛

          • Refugnic

            How funny. For me it’s Aunt Google (capricious and only gives me what I actually want when I pretty much spell it out in every painstaking detail :P).
            And I didn’t say that I was too lazy (and you have seen my other comments and still call that lengthy?).

            What I said was, that people usually don’t care enough to actually bother. Big difference. 😉

          • Dæmon

            You think HIS are lengthy? Look at my two taller-that-my-screen-in-portriat-mode comments for ridiculous length in a comment! That, by the way wasn’t bragging, it was surpirse you didn’t say me, what with the rediculously long comments I can do. As of this school year, I have yet to get an essay paragraph below 500 words, so I think that he’s got pretty short comments compared to my behemoths in writing comments.

            All jokes aside, his comments can be long, but I don’t always remember to press enter when I want to start a new thought process, so I can be more than a.little rediculous with the length of a comment.

          • NotImportant

            Oh Dæmon, you are the winner of course, when in comes to length. But at that point of discussion it wouldn’t make much sense to compare his laziness with your standard-comment-length~

          • Dæmon

            Wait, that was seeing lazy? I didn’t grasp that part. Sorry if I upset anyone.

          • Dæmon

            Wait, that was being lazy? I didn’t grasp that part. Sorry if I upset anyone.

        • Dyce Reply

          Actually, most people who sing it are just french people… It’s well known out there. And nobody think half as much of it than you seem to.

          • Refugnic

            I believe it’s well known far beyond the borders of France (or wherever else they speak French). However yes, I am known for thinking too much about things. 😉

          • Lukkai

            It is quite well known (and commonly sung in kindergarten and such) in Switzerland. There’s also a German text I’ve stumbled upon, which is actually a bit more plain-spoken. Including a verse that goes like “and they will twist your neck”. I’m having a hard time finding it online though. Probably would have to check my old boyscout songbooks. Pretty sure it’s in there somewhere.

      • JW Reply

        Well, you can’t very well eat the bird with the feathers still on. I don’t really see the problem, provided the bird is dead when you pluck it (unlike how they harvest goose-down).

          • JW

            Really? That wasn’t anywhere in the version I found. Huh.
            Seem like an awful lot of trouble to go through; first you have to catch the thing alive, and then pluck it while it’s squirming to escape.

          • NotImportant

            Maybe it’s not in the lyrics…? I could have read about the origin somewhere. I didn’t make it up, that’s for sure lol.
            And yes, apparently someone didn’t like being woken up by the birds. Very much.

          • Refugnic

            How funny it is, that the majority of the discussion on this page appears to be about misinterpretations and the song she sings so joyfully, completely disregarding all the beautiful gore and the Doctor’s fun-as-always attitude. 😀

            Oh and just who likes to get woken up by birds? Though I wouldn’t go as far as to tear out their feathers just for that.

            And the origin (or meaning) is right in the first line of the Wiki article you quoted, that’s probably where you got it from.

          • NotImportant

            Might be! And personally I’d say it’s pretty cool to be woken up by birds’ song rather than construction workers or traffic. I get woken up by my hungry/bored cat, which isn’t very pleasant either.

      • huro Reply

        with the right person, ambient and tools (almost) anything can be cute, and scary as f* at the same time. The same friend made me learn that ( i will never use her watercolor pencils again…ever!)

  4. Rateus Camp dweller Reply

    That is disgusting, I’m glad I read this just before lunch rather than just after I’d eaten or I might have made a mess of my keyboard. Eugh. Queasy.

    • NotImportant Reply

      Sorry! I read r/wtf while eating dinner so I might be a bit more resistant. Could have gone a bit too far this time.

      • Rateus Camp dweller Reply

        Don’t worry, I’m a bit of a wuss. I passed out once in Biology class when our teacher was showing us how blood flowed through a heart. She stuck her finger in the bottom and then out through the top and I just collapsed :-/. I’ve never been more mocked in my life!

    • Refugnic Reply

      Meh, a few years ago, I had my lunch while looking at a fetus in alcohol and some other stuff.

      This is pretty harmless, if you ask me.

      In fact, it reminds me of two movies, the first one being Jurassic Park (feeding of the T-Rex) and the second one being the comedy ‘Dracula – Dead and Loving it’, where Prof. Van Helsing opened up a corpse and one student after the other fell over from the stench and stuff. All except for one, who stood tall until the dear Prof., slightly agitated, cracked the skull (with a hammer from the sound of it) and removed the brain for further study.

      Pretty macabre, but still funny as long as you don’t allow yourself to be disgusted by the implication. 🙂

      • Tzaphqiel Reply

        To be fair, the student in “Dracula – Dead and Loving It” managed to stand up because he was standing towards the back of the room and wasn’t part of the string of students told to pass around the intestines. And although I thought you would have mentioned the staking scene, I guess that’s more over-the-top humor than disgusting humor anyway.

  5. Spoonless Reply

    This guy kind of reminds me of Dr. Stein from Soul Eater, at least as far as his visual design. Especially the last two panels of the previous page.

    • Dæmon Reply

      Yeah, I can see that. WAS Franken Stien of Soul Eater the inspiration for Dr. Stefan, NI-sama? (I’ve never done that, so how did I do…?)

      • NotImportant Reply

        “Ni-sama” sounds like you are addressing an older brother so I guess it doesn’t work too well lol
        And it could have been, because I did watch Soul Eater and liked that character a lot but to be honest messy look and a lab coat is something rather standard. To my defense Stefen also has a thinking cap and a shotgun, which also add to his design. And he doesn’t travel by chair heh.

        • Dæmon Reply

          Well, what do I use instead? Senpai or Senpai? I really don’t understand theses things, and it’s a rather ironic situation since I want to go to Japan someday. I have always wondered what the temples really look like, and haven’t settled on pictures since it doesn’t give the same feeling to me.

          • NotImportant

            It’s okay, you don’t have to use them, neither of us in Japanese so there is no real reason to do that lol
            And going to Japan is really worth it! I loved it there~

          • JW

            Just don’t expect the people there to look like they do in anime 😛

          • Dæmon

            Oh, com’on! Give me some credit. I’m not always as dumb as people think I am, and that’s saying something, because I can be pretty dumb and blunt aa all hell because of it. Well, at least I know that anime is over sexualized anyway, which is the important thing for that as far as I know. And, I really don’t know much, so how over the top is that thing compared to real life, anyway? I mean, I am ignorant, but it’s more being inept with technology unless I have someone there who can help me constantly. For instance, trying to search for a picture in fourth grade (though I can’t remember what I was searching for) brought up a bunch of porn sites somehow, and it took me a good five minutes of typing it over and over to realize I had my hand on the wrong keys and was typing something entirely different. I asked mom and dad for help with the problem, and they laughed when I did it again and they ended up having to type it in for me. It was funny, but not a very good experience for typing practice. And on top of that, I STILL can’t go above 30 wpm, no matter what I try. Well, that and I ended up giving up typing until about 9th grade. By then, I could type about 5 wpm, and that was on a website where the speed was’t like a spedomoter so much as a statistical average of the time and the characters in the page, which is far less accurate for typing speed. Over all, it wasn’t good for me, and I STILL have to use that site for school.

            Back to Japan now, and I was actually hoping to go there for a study program, or I could just study online and then save up to move there after a while. I hear the cherry blossoms are very beautiful in the spring. Wai, now that I think about it… NI, didn’t you say in one comic description that you missed your chance to go see them? And, didn’t you also say that you’ve also been to Japan? What is it like there compared to a place like Utah?

          • NotImportant

            I’ve been 3 times so far, 2 trips planned for the next year. I did see cherry blossoms and they are indeed beautiful! I loved the atmosphere as well, everyone being excited about the flowers, taking photos, watching trees, catching petals. Generally Japan is a country where I feel that people know how to appreciate simple things.
            But give me a break, how can I compare it to Utah when I have never been to Utah? I can compare it to Poland if you like~ And school in Japan is hard, very hard, I have heard, so prepare for rough years if you really want to go there to study.

          • Dæmon

            Eh, the newest plan for school was online anyway, so I’d be pretty much moving there for a while and writing on what I have found D out about life there, about the culture, and other things like that, but if I could, I’d do an exchange program. The main problem with that is the huge gap between American schools and Japanese, since I can barely handle regular education as it is in America. I’m not dumb, in fact my Language skills and my ability to draw is a huge advantage for a career choices versus only being good at certain sports. I mean, I am athletic to a degree, but I have skills that give me a few options to fall back on if I don’t like a particular career, or if I need to change what I am doing. My writing needs work, there’s no doubt about it, but it’s at a level far above where it usually is for teenagers here.

            Quick thing before I move back to the school topic, since I will likely forget if I don’t say it here, Utah is the place in any movie that shows an arch made of rock, unless it’s CG or animated. Essentially, Utah is the place where Ceder city and the surrounding areas, Moab and its digging zones, and the deserts with the unique arches and various rock formations all around the state are used in movies, in games, greeting cards, and pretty much anything to do with art or the business thereof. Essentially, if you have seen the arches in a video, a movie, a game, or any desert in some cases, this is that place. We are a HUGE film state for certain types of films, the inspiration for any sort of amazing rock formation, and pretty much went from the Salt Lake Valley being a desert with a single dead tree to a thriving community in less than a hundred years. This also happens to be the place where the Utes, both the University and the Native American tribe, got their names inscribed in history. This is the home of Real, our soccer, or as some of you say it (and which I prefer) football team got started. Wow, I didn’t even know I knew that much about Utah.

            Anyway, back to the school of choice thing, I was thinking of doing my art degree there, online, and writing my master’s on what I have found life to be like there. Of course, I’d be doing school online and meeting with some professors every now and then, but that would be for tests, extra instruction, and other matters that I’ll probably think about when I come to them. The cherry blossoms would be nice to see while I’m there, and maybe I’ll even go to an actual school for a semester just to try it. I honestly don’t know yet. All I do know is that I plan to see some temples while I’m there, and will likely go to Kyoto to do so. I mean, the nature of life there seems so peaceful compared to here, and I like that. Yes the big city is still dangerous, and I have to be careful of Yakuza clans, but that seems far less common (based only on logic and the fact that it is everywhere in anime and games, and if often overdramatized and taken to far worse extremes) than it would be in real life. Yes, I know they exist, and yes I know I need to be careful, but I think that the ability to keep my head down is something I can’t manage, however I can usually tell who could possibly be a Yakuza type of person, and normally I’m pretty wary of such individuals, eve going so far as to not warm up to them until I’m absolutely sure they aren’t that kind of person. Actually, that goes for general assholes, now that I think about it. Anyway, I’m pretty incompatible with most people here, and want to see if I can get a better sense of belonging somewhere else in the world, and I chose Japan since it has an atmosphere I can enjoy, even in a city, which I normally don’t feel like I’m safe and comfortable in. Although it would be far more packed, the nature is all around me and open there, unlike here in Salt Lake in particular, where while there’s a fair amount of recreation nearby, I don’t feel comfortable without a bit of nature or something that can keep me occupied at all times. Yeah, American homes are pretty big, but that would only add to the challenge of moving, since the amount if things I want to keep would have to be smaller than they would here. Not to mention that in America, everything g has to be new, which I prefer Japan’s way of blending old and new, which seems far more fitting for my lifestyle. If my research is off in any way, I should likely be stopped now and told that BEFORE I move there. And, no, this isn’t all from manga and anime. I actually talked to my grandfather and an uncle, and a couple of other people who have either come from or have been to Japan.

          • NotImportant

            I am not sure if online tutoring is all that popular in Japan so be sure you that plan is even available before you decide on it.
            About Utah – I can see the pictures in Google, but I still can’t compare peoples mentality or the way the live and that’s what you asked about, right? I wouldn’t be able to compare Utah to Japan unless I lived there for a moment.
            That part about Yakuza made me laugh haha, it’s true that they like to show them in anime and games but in reality you just can’t bump into a serious mess being a gaijin (foreigner). They don’t care about you unless you try to open up a bar hah. Even if you walked into their place unaware what you were doing they would probably just have a good laugh and escort you outside with a push on the back.
            That also tells something about Japan which you might not like. People will find it hard to open up to you. You will be always treated like a tourist, outsider. You will never belong. I am fine with that but some people feel very lonely and homesick for that reason.

  6. Zero Reply

    The poor thing will always remember what it lost.

    Owait…is demon…can regenerate them.

    • Refugnic Reply

      I actually think it rather careless, that she would handle the interior of an unknown species with just the gloves for protection. For all she know, the fumes from inside the creature could poisonous or the blood could be acidic (though that one’s not very likely, seeing how those fighting them managed to keep face. :P).

      Furthermore…these creatures are known to keep moving despite lethal wounds (you know, losing your head tends to be pretty lethal :P)

      I could imagine multiple smaller creatures residing within the demon as well (all of which are equally dangerous and we still don’t know what those meatballs are all about)…now let’s imagine that the colon suddenly came to life and started attacking the Doc with gastric acid…ouch, I say. 😛

      • JW Reply

        I don’t think she has much choice other than to be careless. They don’t have a lot of resources.

  10. Doom Reply

    Pretty science lady, yay! Her glasses are cute. I wish her good fortune in her research and her continued survival.

    On the subject of pretty girls: I like the sketches you’ve been tweeting, NotImportant. Ada continues to be my favorite. You dressing Sofia in many pretty outfits is very nice. I particularly like December 4th: Ada exploring a wilderness, November 28th: Ada exploring a damaged building, and December 1st: Sofia in a field, playing with the pretty flowers.

      • Dæmon Reply

        I wish I could look at them, but with certain personal problems of mine, I can’t use social media for anything.

        • NotImportant Reply
          • Dæmon

            Sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you, but my parents won’t let me have any sort of account, or I would totally follow you on twitter or some other social media site. If I upset you, it wasn’t intended. I really am sorry for it, but my parents are adamant about it. I mean, these problems could be life threatening if I didn’t follow them, and I’m already sticking my neck out doing this. I mean, I would totally do it on more sites, but the extent of my commenting is going to be here and maybe a couple of other sites that are a little less well known. If Facebook wasn’t so insecure, I’d be there looking at them, trust me! That goes for social media in general, and I really don’t like breaking the rules, but with the webcomics I read, this one had some serious discussions I could get into, and one day I finally cracked down and commented on them. It wasn’t meant to be hipocracy, it was meant to be me trying to get into a discussion and finally give my thoughts, like I would with anyone in a group or class I’m in. This wasn’t meant as a permanent rule break, it was intended as a one time thing. Sure, it ended up not being that, but my brother screwed up Facebook so bad, my parents would be SERIOUSLY pissed if I went to somewhere like that. Trust me, it’s not my choices that messed it up for me. I’m sorry if I upset you, but I would be there if I could, not just here waiting for them to be added to the gallery. I’m not sure what about my wording not offended you, but that’s not how it was meant, it was meant as me saying, “I’d be there for you if I found, but there are things preventing me from supporting you more than I already do.”

          • NotImportant

            No one is upset! No need to be so sorry 🙂 And as JW said you can still come here daily, click on the sketch in the Twitter box and enjoy, no need for account or anything. I thought you have them blocked by your parents or something so I pasted the images only.

          • JW

            You don’t need an account to read Replay’s twitter stream. It’s all public.

            I keep at arms length from social media as well. Sometimes I’m tempted to get a twitter account, but since someone already took my username, I just don’t feel like it anymore. I just use it for datamining for work 😛

          • Dæmon

            Sadly, you’re right, it is blocked. It’s only due to the fact thaty parents blocked it a long time ago, and I kinda doubt it’s unblocked for my laptop and desktop, both of which I share with a younger brother, and I haven’t bothered to find out if it was ever unblocked. On top of that, I didn’t know that you don’t need an account to browse it. Plus, the way fine was typed with an exclamation mark immediately sent alarm bells of in my head, to the point that I almost literally could feel them going off and could audibly hear them ringing, with the fact that it sounded in my head like you had had a very bad day up to that point by the writing and wording of everything you had typed until the very end, which I didn’t get to until I had responded and gone through all of them. All in all, I felt guilty and didn’t want to do anything else with the comic for a little while afterwards. There was a.major miscommunication there, and I don’t know whst caused it, but when someone says something like that to me, in that particular way, I either asked too much of someone, or I piseed them off, or I did something else to frustrate them.

          • NotImportant

            I am very sorry then, you should probably know that it’s generally very hard to upset me, I don’t like conflicts and don’t get angry easily. So take comfort in that and feel free to assume that I am just joking around when you feel I might be angry 🙂

          • Refugnic

            There is actually a simple solution to Daemon’s problem. Upload the sketches to the gallery like you did for some of them.
            That way, he should be able to look at them. 😉

          • NotImportant

            I don’t want to add so many low quality things to the gallery… D:

          • JW

            You could add a separate section for these sketches or whatever you wanna call ’em.

          • Refugnic

            First off: Low quality? What you dub as ‘Low quality’ is better than anything I could ever draw, you know?
            So yeah, I think a separate section in the gallery labeled ‘Sketches’ wouldn’t hurt at all.

            People will know that you haven’t put as much effort into it as you did into the full pages or spread pages, but still be able to enjoy the sketches without moseying over to Twitter of Facebook.

  11. Tzaphqiel Reply

    Excellent work so far! I’ve been looking forward to each new page for a few months now, and I haven’t been disappointed yet. Keep up the good work!

  13. Marscaleb Reply

    As someone who knows what that song translates to, I must admit I am impressed that you chose to have her singing it at this time.

  14. Crestlinger Reply

    ^ Organs donated to the comic creator, now inked and ready to be put on display.

  15. SotiCoto Reply

    YAY! The most important character of the comic is back, and up to her elbows in gore! ALL HAIL THE GLORIOUS MEGANEKKO MASTER RACE! <3

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