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Fourth Manzai - No Con Like a Decepti-Con

Kaji Motomiya

on Dec. 2, 2011

-THE JOKE-
The manzai routine focuses on two things: Comic Con and Halloween. It was intended for release 10/30/11 before my laptop broke down and fucked everything up. So we'll talk about how I managed to get around this so late…

First off, the title is a reference to the shortened "abbreviation" of the word "convention" in Comic Con, as well as word-playing on the word Decepticon. The first part, "decepti", comes from the word "deception", which is how Matoku plays her jokes this comic. The Con is a reference to…Comic Con. The word as a whole, Decepticon, is the antagonistic side of the Transformers series, which is usually one of the subjects of Comic Con.

The first joke in the comic is subtle; the DeLorean is the signature symbol of the Back to the Future movies, which nerds (in a good way) will fan over. I used it as a reference to the type of people who would go to Comic Con, those who love the nerdy geeky stuff proudly (like me =D). The Time Scooter is a reference to the DeLorean in the Nickelodeon cartoon, "The Fairly Oddparents," which was the main character Timmy Turner's mode of time travel, and it often traveled backwards when going to the past. Cartoons are also some things Comic Con would host on.

Panels 5 and 7 have a sort of identical joke, with Yomita saying one thing and saying the exact opposite in the next.

As mentioned this comic was supposed to be released on 10/30/11, and October 30th is infamously known as Mischief Night (and Gang Initiation Night, hope you were all safe that night). Thus, this comic takes place then. Yomita references to the day when she calls Matoku a "mischievous prankster".
The lack of enthusiasm in panel 4 was pretty much my reaction when I couldn't go to Comic Con this year. Depression signified with "…"s.

A little tidbit; Matoku said she traveled back in time 2 months ago. While this comic takes place on October 30th, I reworded the jokes (even changed them) only this month; the two months is a reference as to when this comic was supposed to take place in from current time.