Check back next week for more! Thanks for reading!

Hello!

I’m going to be attending the Tokyo Design Festa (English page here!) this weekend to scope out how much of a challenge it will be to get a booth there next time! If you are around and want to hang out, drop me a mail!

Because working full-time in Japan means I can’t easily attend all the big western comic conventions, I want to start building a reputation in the far east and see where it’ll take me. It’s like stepping into a whole new world, and I am really excited in seeing where Crazy Sunshine will end up in the future.

If and when the time comes, I would love to get some feedback on some of the merchandise I would like to show off.

If you have any experience of owning your own, personal online store (that specializes in webcomics and webcomic merchandise) or convention booth, know of any great places to print off business cards, banners, wall scrolls, posters and other convention goodies, or have any tips or tricks at attracting customers (or ultimately, what you would like to see from a Crazy Sunshine booth), let me know in the comments below or on the forum!

Thanks for always supporting the site, and if you are in Tokyo this weekend, let’s go grab some over-priced crushed ice and talk about how hot the weather will be!

Image © Hiroki Yanagisawa 2010

I also redesigned the chief to look more fearsome, while keeping his incompetence with electronics intact.

You can see his original design here!

See you next week, when we find out the reason behind this odd confrontation!

Ever fallen over thinking there was one more stair on a staircase, as if someone magically removed it?

Ever thought “There’s no way the weather will be bad today!”, then walked out into the apocalypse?

Well, now you know why! Meet the Unlit Unity, a voluminous race of demonic troublemakers that cause nothing but headaches to everyone around them!

Enough of this overture though, check back next week for the third page of ORIGIN! Thanks for reading!

I’m just gonna hand the narration over to Lacie, one of the protagonists. Even though she’s broken the whole layout of the comic, I’m hoping she’ll at least stick to the script…

If you want to keep up with all the latest ORIGIN updates, why not head over to Facebook and give it a like? Not your thing? No fear! During my break last week I made a forum! You can use it to talk about loads of stuff, including the webcomic! Go ahead and sign up, it’s totally free to use and lots of great discussions are already underway!

This page’s discussion can be found here!

All drawing and no play makes Jkun a little plump boy.

I am having a really hard time losing weight in Japan. It’s not something that has happened recently, either! So, I want to talk about how I am trying to fix it and get rid of my gut.

Location

The biggest problem is also the hardest to remedy; my location. Out in the sticks, 30 minutes drive from any big cities. Moving house is out of the question, so I tried to make the best of it by signing up to the nearest gym. It takes a good 2 hours out of my evening, and during that time, I only get 50 mins exercise from it! The travelling, especially after work and during rush hour, takes up more time than I spend plodding along a treadmill!

Then there is the cost of petrol, driving to and from the gym every day. That alone costs about 3,000 yen ($30) every 4-5 days, that’s just over $100 a month by only driving to the gym! Eek!

What I am trying to do is budget the cost of that, in addition to the incredibly expensive 8,000 yen ($80) a month membership fee. I am trying to keep positive, thinking that “$200 a month will get me slim!” but it just isn’t working. Maybe it’s got something to do with…

Calories

Japanese supermarkets, for the most part, have no laws regarding they display the amount of calories in their food. This makes ingredient and food shopping incredibly difficult, especially since 99% of the brands are not listed in online diet programs and calorie counters. Of course, I eat a lot of salad and make my own lunches and dinner, and try to avoid the prepackaged zombie food that Japan is notorious at shoving in their customer’s faces.

One of the hurdles I face in this department are Japanese staples, for example, rice, fish and seafood, all of which contain an incredible amount of calories and carbs and for the most part are still layered in fat and grease. I try to avoid them as much as I can.

Another is just the fact some foods have no nutritional facts listed at all. Especially regarding traditional food and restaurants. Even if you are confident what you are ordering looks healthy, you absolutely cannot gauge just how bad it really is for you.

Ramen noodles are a prime example of this. This specific dish is absolutely terrible, sometimes exceeding 1,000 calories per bowl, but looks and tastes just like soup with noodles. So, how I get around this is to visit many different restaurants and try to find at least a few with a calorie list for their food.

Then, I use those restaurants as benchmarks. So, for example, say one restaurant’s chicken fried rice is 500 calories for 100g, I would consider every other restaurant’s chicken fried rice is the same unless it’s stated otherwise  then make an average. But in the end, it’s all eyeballing and incredibly annoying, especially when all they tell you is the calories, and not the amount of fat and carbs that are thrown in there too.

Cost

Then there is the cost of food. Back in the UK, healthy food is more expensive than pre-packaged TV dinners. Naturally, the same thing occurs in Japan. However, even the simplest of ingredients are sometimes triple the price of their western counterparts. Like $5 for 50g of chicken, $2 for a measly 500ml of milk, and upwards of $8 for 4 (four) strawberries. But as for rice and fish? Hella cheap. You can cop out and get over 10kg of rice for a measly $3, but then you’re stuck with 300+ calories per 100g, and a truckload of carbs to boot.

Considering I already spend $200 on gym membership, including travel, adding the expenses of daily healthy food shopping pushes my budget to $300 a month. All for the sake of losing weight.

But recently…

…it just isn’t working. I have spoken with two personal trainers, planned out a fairly decent yet incredibly expensive diet plan (forcing me to travel two towns over to get certain ingredients, some which make me vomit like fermented red beans and bananas) and doing a mix of upper/lower body muscle training with lots of cardio 4-5 days a week. Nothing has changed in the last 6 months.

It’s starting to really irritate me. I could have spent all that money on a Cintiq for starters, or maybe I am just not doing something right?

Or maybe…

I should just keep trying, and finding out new ways to shed this belly despite being put in a multitude of inconvenient positions. Looks like that big, shiny graphics tablet will have to wait, for now.

From what I am told, Japanese diets work for Japanese people and Japanese people alone. The majority of Japanese people have an incredible metabolism and a mere 20 mins of recommended walking a day means they can eat 2-3 bowls of rice at a time. On paper, that’s 900 calories for rice alone per meal, something that completely blows my mind!

So, tell me, what are you doing to get into shape, any hurdles you currently face, or if you have any tips or tricks that could work internationally!

Thanks for reading! Let’s keep doing our best, eh?

Image courtesy of Rakuten’s Hakata Ichi

Now introducing Crazy Symposium! Crazy Sunshine’s official forum!

Registering an account is easy, and you can use this in tandem with each comic’s comment section to discuss the webcomic, the current ORIGIN story arc, or, well, anything!

Please read over the Getting Started guide here and General Rules here!

Keep it clean and have fun! See you next week!

So, Seekers of Adoulin. Where to begin.

Final Fantasy XI’s fifth expansion, released five years since it’s previous one, Wings of the Goddess. I’ve been playing XI since the EU release, but times have changed greatly since back then. The game got much easier with the introduction of Abyssea and the increased level cap from 75 to 99.

Well, Square Enix kind of caught on, and did everything they could to make Adoulin hard as shit.

Incredibly high level enemies, coupled with limited exploration and a handful of reported 4-5 hour boss fights, it looks like I’m going to need a whole bunch of new friends if I want to be able to continue my adventures!

The World

Adoulin is a beautiful place! The first major city to include “waypoints”; teleports that warp you around every nook and cranny of the city and more! You can even buy runes that allow a handy, albeit costly, method of travel to any of the starter and outpost cities, too!

As for the battlefields, I can’t exactly say I’ve experienced much of them. This is due to the “limited” exploration I mentioned earlier. While it is possible to get to areas much further away from the city, unless the world’s “colonization” rate increases and outposts are created, hiking there by foot is your only means of exploration. But with incredibly high level, true sight enemies everywhere, one slip up and you’re right back at square one.

There are shortcuts, though! In order to advance through the new areas quickly, you can team up with other players and demolish fallen trees, roots, walls of enemies, or cavern walls that uncover shortcuts. However, these “Rieves” respawn every 15~ mins or so, which means it’s completely possible to stuck without a way home unless you bring a method of warping!

Currently on Sylph, the colonization rate is about 25% for each of the starting areas around Adoulin, and waypoints are available at the outposts. This makes getting to the connecting areas a little easier. Unfortunately, it’s those connecting areas I want to explore! Even if I got there, without a map I would be completely lost!

So how the hell do I get maps?!

Coalitions

This is where Coalitions come in. Every few hours you are granted a ticket that allows you to participate in specific assignments. These mini-quests are much akin to Campaign Ops from Wings of the Goddess, and increase your standing within each Coalition. For example, accepting quests to “clear the way” from the Pioneer’s Coalition, then smacking those pesky roots and trees out of the way to make shortcuts for other players, grants you respect and rewards within that Coalition. Charting certain areas from the Scout’s Coalition, and delivering goods needed to build waypoints further away from the city through the Courier’s Coalition allows you to purchase new maps, and eventually the ability to warp to new areas without having to go there by foot.

Sounds fun, right? The only problem is, these new “perks” such as battlefield waypoints, maps, and more are calculated every earth week and are determined by how many players cooperate to raise the “Rank” of each Coalition per server. Currently on Sylph, absolutely nobody is working for the Scout’s or Courier’s Coalition, therefore no new maps or warps are available for anywhere except the starting areas. On other servers, they are. So get your fingers out, guys! For the sake of pioneering!

Enemies

No matter where you go, there will always be a bunny that can kick your ass. Solid advice over the years, and still holds true to this day. However, when tiny pink butterflies can also kick your ass, you know Square Enix aren’t fucking around.

Recently, SE have had a ton of fun giving every new enemy Area of Effect spells and abilities. From Voidwatch to Meeble Burrows, everything wanted not only you, but all your friends dead as well. They said they would calm down on giving enemies overpowered abilities with the release of Adoulin, but I have still to find an enemy that doesn’t tear me a new one upon engaging it. Even those pesky butterflies have this horrible move called “Black Out”, which inflicts AOE silence, paralyze, and blind!

Oh, and don’t get me started on the Umbril, pictured above. These night-only creatures can inflict a 90% paralyze rate effect and HP-crushing bio effect in addition to smacking around a light armored job for 180-200 a hit. Luckily you can just sneak right by them. If you get caught though, so long, it was nice knowing you.

Missions

What missions? None yet! Like Wings of the Goddess you were introduced to the city, the new protagonist, a bunch of comedic one-liners, and then thrown straight into the mini-quests through coalitions. The actual quests, however, are a ton of fun. The localization team were really on the ball with some of the translations, and as always, NPC dialogue is funny as heck. I’ve done about half of the new quests, and loved every second of them, despite how pointless and unrewarding most of them are!

Gear

There’s been a lot of controversy about the new gear in Adoulin. though a high-level dungeon event called “Skirmish”, it appears players can obtain augmentable weapons that flat out beat existing Legendary weapons. While I only own Apocalypse and Verethragna (if that even counts as a Legendary anymore!) it makes me kind of sad to see my efforts going to waste, especially considering (under good circumstances  you can obtain these so-called “new Legendary” weapons a heck of a lot easier. But, we’ll just have to wait and see. Perhaps the old Legendaries will get a new coat of paint through updates, or perhaps these new weapons will get patched. Ah, the fun and grinding of an MMO never gets tiring, does it?

I guess I should mention the other gear you can buy straight off the bat from NPC is also very good and well needed after the flurry of situational side upgrades we’ve been feeding off of through Salvage II, Voidwatch and Meeble Burrows.

Jobs

Two new ones this time; Rune Fencer and Geomancer. An elemental resistant, evasive, and parrying tank that wields a Great Sword, and a cross between a Black Mage and a Bard.

I took Geomancer to 58 recently, and must admit it’s quite fun. You can cast AOE elemental spells on yourself that inflict damage on nearby enemies while not harming you, and cast an arrays of “auras” around yourself or at a fixed point on the battlefield that give bonuses to party members, or detrimental effects on the enemy.
As for Rune Fencer, I am staticing it with some friends from the UK! It’s currently at level 40 and so far…eh. It feels like a gimpy Dark Knight subbing Red Mage, and nothing at that low a level casts magic that can potentially hurt, nor do I have access to any ground breaking job abilities yet. The fun thing is, it’s a light armour job that has an A+ ranking in GREAT SWORD. What the fuck were SE smoking on that day, I wonder? Either way, I am looking forward to getting it to 99 purely to see my character swinging that giant thing around while wearing Thaumas gear. Since we are exping normally via Fields of Valor, it might take some time, though.

Conclusion

Eh. I dislike having to depend on everyone else to allow me to have fun, and the difficulty curve – especially coming straight from Abyssea, Meeble Burrows and Nyzul Isle Uncharted is just insane. For someone who plays casually and only with 2-3 other people, it’s not exactly the best expansion so far, but hey! These things take time. I said the same thing about Wings of the Goddess and it turned out to be a huge laugh! Campaign was fun as heck! The same goes for Abyssea. I was incredibly wary at first (a public timed event with crappy exp, poppable NMs and low drop rates, are you insane?!) but look how that turned out in the end! I go there almost every day now!

So yeah, not great, but not bad. It rekindled my desire to explore again, but I just wish there wasn’t so many methods of cock blocking me from doing so.

Thanks for reading!

You can find more information on FFXI over at my other blog here.

All images © copyright Square Enix 2013

After I build up a couple of weeks of buffer, Crazy Sunshine will return and delve back in time to discover how each of these characters met in the first place though an array of epic Crazy Sunshine Chronicles!

More information on this chapter and more can be read in last week’s blog entry if you haven’t done so already!

Also, for a super secret sneak peak at what’s in store, and to hopefully keep you on your toes throughout the next fortnight, check out this Podcast from Twxxd! It covers a whole range of topics including the recent site and character changes, information on the upcoming story arcs, a few odd facts about Japan and lots of rambling.

See you on the 24th!

Crazy Sunshine: ORIGINS

The big project that I have been working on for the last two months is going to start, simply titled “ORIGINS“.

Up until now, Crazy Sunshine has been a gag-per-strip webcomic, following the day to day lives of Lacie, Shelbie, Peppermint, Candy, Daifuku and Mochi in an alternate universe. However, there is much more to this universe than what I have shown throughout these simple, comedic strips. So, I would like the chance to expand and improve both my skills at writing and drawing by introducing character backstories, and how this band of misfits met.

Timescale

You might be thinking; “What the heck? Storytelling? Over the next year? Fuck that, dropping this garbage!” Well, before you do, all I ask is that you give me a chance. There will still be a lot of comedy throughout the story, and I am going to try my very hardest to get as much content out of each weekly update as I can, without scenes dragging on for weeks or months like a lot of other story-based webcomics.

So, it’ll be rushed, like your previous story arc, right?

No, not at all. I am hoping the week-long wait per strip and comment system will act as a great way to build up hype, while still trying to keep a good pace for readers who read multiple strips in one big chunk. Whichever category of reader you fall into, I hope you’ll enjoy every page.

Layout & Basis

“ORIGINS” will be released in chapters, through the current Crazy Sunshine Chronicles system, with the usual eyecatch pages being used as title cards. The number of pages per chapter is still unknown, but so far they are quite long (12+) per chapter, and I am hoping to release around 6 or 7 chapters throughout the year or so with some small breaks to recover inbetween.

The story is focused on how each of the six characters up until this point met each other, a history on their lives prior, a look at the world they live in, and the various races that inhabit it. There will be loads of new characters and faces, and hopefully, every question that has been asked that I couldn’t answer, will be answered.

Why exactly are you doing this again?

Crazy Sunshine is a very… strange gag-per-strip webcomic with very…unique characters. So unique that a lot of readers don’t “get” it straight away, and ask a lot of questions regarding the character’s history. I would like to address all of the questions over the course of the next year.

Why are you really doing it?

Crazy Sunshine and the gang have been on my mind since 2005. I have a story to tell, and I believe that if I don’t do it now, I never will. This is finally my chance to tell it while continuing to grow as an artist by getting it all out of my system.

So, what was the point of all these strips up until now?

A test. A test to see if I could meet my own deadlines, create comics and other content that readers would enjoy, and prepare myself for the story I have always wanted to tell.

What about the character designs? Why change them if you are going back in time?

The character designs were changed for the very purpose of this story. The old designs will not be making an appearance, the story will start with what the characters are currently wearing now.

Aww, but I liked the old designs!

You’ve still got 100+ pages of old content prior to this story arc, those previous comics aren’t going anywhere!

Lastly, will there be lots of Shelbie in this?

Not for a while. Each chapter isn’t focused on one specific character such as Treasures of Eastern Estuary, and Shelbie’s story is actually quite late in the timeline. However, when she does make an appearance, you’ll be quite surprised!

Thanks for reading! I hope I cleared some stuff up for you. The first chapter’s title card will be up next week! Look forward to it! As always, if you have any questions, please leave them below and I’ll do my best to answer them. No spoilers, though!