This is the section where we're rigorously questioned about The Way Things Are. We'll try to be serious, promise.

Q: ARE YOU MAD?
A: Well, it's not like we were trying to be subtle about it.

Q: Why do you use Japanese names? Your characters aren't Japanese, and they don't live in Japan.
A: Don't be so certain. "Teremo" is a corruption of the masculine form of "Terra," and there are a lot of Earth languages on Teremo, not only Japanese. The tweeters speak corrupted German as their native tongue, the kamenbito think that Japanese is some ancient magical language, and Teremo's "Common" is really English (though the text bubbles in the comic transliterate a bit for clarity; the cast would probably have a bit of trouble communicating with us if they came to our world). We'll allow you to draw your own conclusions from that, but rest assured that we aren't taking Japanese just to be wanky fangirls. We're using languages we know a bit about for a specific reason, you will NEVER hear anyone shouting "BAKA SATORU-CHAN KAWAII!!" or similar in Shy.

Q: Why doesn't _____ look like ____??
A: Seriously? Because there's nothing sexy or compelling about the bad guys in Mario. Did you play Mario tennis? Wouldn't you have rather been pitting your Peach/Daisy team against a Satoru/Kaito team? The sexual tension would be through the roof! And after the game, when they're all sweaty and tired, they.... er... anyway, bastardizing people's childhoods aside, it's not like there's a dearth of Mario comics or cartoons that all look exactly the same. This is really just a new twist. You can't really relate to the compelling adventures of a cartoon dinosaur or whatever a shyguy actually is under their masks and robes.... right?

Q: super FUCKING happy tree??
A: Yes. Lumi was convinced "super happy tree" had to be a mistranslation, but after finding a Japanese copy of Yoshi's Story, she confirmed that it was a DIRECT translation. We found a way to handle it in the comic, which you'll see eventually, but the "fucking" snuck in there somehow during the creation of Shy and it stuck.

Q: Who are the kids in the prelude comic?
A: Nori and three other children. Don't assume black hair = Satoru, black is the most common haircolour for Masked People!

Q: lol furries?
A: lol no.

More of your burning questions to be answered soon!