#off target part 2

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-10

MARY LEE WALSH: His sister?

COUNT GRADUON: You fools! Get her!

CHRIS: It is good that my sister has come to the rescue, but I still have no girlfriend… not only that, but she is in trouble and I am unable to help her…

ALotCC: There is a way out!

CHRIS: Ancestor, please share your wisdom!

ALotCC: Realize the number of new friends you’ve made along your Love Quest, in person or over MySpace.com, and believe that by stopping your foe will help them in some way too!

CHRIS: It’s hard to concentrate with low energy.

ALotCC: In that case call upon the Anchuent powers from your royal ancestors to give you a morality boost. Also, believe in your sister to protect you. May the Anchuent powers protect you!

You’d think Mary Lee Walsh would have heard of Crystal by this point, since the Jerkief and W-M Manajerk report to her, and they’ve been bested by her and really ought to have told Mary Lee that there was this second Chris who was a girl and kicked their asses.

This is not the time to complain about not having a girlfriend, Chris. But it does kind of confirm my theory about the raison d’etre of Crystal - she’s between Chris’s mom and a girlfriend on Chris’s little hierarchy of women - she’s more energetic than his mom is but she’s still not a girlfriend.

In what is to date his final appearance, the Anchuent Leader of the Cherokian Clan reminds Chris of his Mary Sue powers once again. This is consistent with his earlier characterization as an exposition dumper.

Chris really didn’t make a ton of friends along his Love Quest, either in real life or on Myspace. At the time I want to say he just had Megan and Anna McLerran.

I like that even when Chris just portrays himself as a floating head, he still draws the medallion.

Au revoir, Anchuent Leader of the Cherokian Clan.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-9

CRYSTAL: CHRIS!

CHRIS: Crystal, thank you!

CRYSTAL: Sit tight, I’ll get the key.

CHRIS: I’m at a loss of energy…

CRYSTAL: Mary Lee Walsh! You have tortured my brother’s body, heart, and soul for the last time!

Crystal is there to save him at the last second, for max drama, shocking Mary Lee Walsh. Again, Chris fails at perspective and has the carrier much larger than the carried, this time Crystal and Chris respectively.

This seems to be the same cauldron Mary Lee Walsh has used earlier and the same mysterious purple substance, presumably something either toxic or incredibly hot (those little circles appear be bubbles). This replaces the shark-robots from the Transformers sequence.

Chris claims to be at a loss of energy, energy likely being one of those nebulous concepts of Chris’s, like inspiration.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-4

CRYSTAL: I’m coming Christopher!

SFX: BAM!

CRYSTAL: How dare a jerk hit a lady like that? Oh no!

CRYSTAL (thought): They have Chris… I have to go after them! But I don’t know where they went. I know how to find out though!

CRYSTAL: Electric Hedgehog attack…

Caption *Telekinesis*

JERKIEF: Are we there yet?

BAGGET: No, we’re just a few minutes away from serving Mary her worst enemy on a silver platter!

CRYSTAL (thought): Mary? They must be heading to PVCCitizens! Getting there on fast feet will be faster than borrowing Chris’s car. So…

Chris tries that anime thing where fast running or movement is represented by fast lines moving in the background in the first two panels, Crystal running through a pink anime field and the Jerkief punching her out in a red one.

Jerkief straight up punching Crystal out is easily the most effective he’s been the entire comic. Seldom do villains try something so direct, which is probably why Chris is so easily able to defeat them. Good job Jerkief!

Crystal goes flying and lands on her ass. Now, Chris is a firm believer in classic chivalry so Crystal takes specific offense to being struck. Nowhere in chivalry does it say you’re supposed to just stand there and let a lady beat you up though.

Chris is among many to confuse telepathy with telekinesis. Telekinesis (Greek tele-, far away from, and kinesis, movement) is moving things with your mind, telepathy (tele- plus -pathy, from Greek pathos, suffering, used to refer to someone with a condition) is communicating with psychic powers. Humorously, this confusion is also made in Tara Gilesbie’s magnum opus My Immortal, Sonichu’s closest living relative.

Jerkief is asking “Are we there yet” approximately one minute after getting in the car.

Also, now, apparently, Mary Lee Walsh wants to eat Chris. I wouldn’t eat him, Mary, the meat would be super fatty.

Crystal finally decides to turn into Crystalina, which, again, would have been helpful much earlier.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-3

BAGGET: Here’s a tatoo on the house!

CHRIS: AAAAAH…!

BAGGET: Hog-time him, tighten up his dominant hand, and toss him into Crackder’s cockpit!

BAGGET: Just toss him in the back Jerkief, you ride with me! The rest of you head back to base in the car.

CRYSTAL: STOP IT! YOU’RE HURTING MY BROTHER! LET HIM GO!

Bagget seems to have a pretty poor understanding of what a tattoo is if he’s rubbing Chris’s face into the floor. I don’t even think ink is involved. I suppose he means to say that the burn he gets will leave a scar that never goes away like a tattoo, but a tattoo is when you get ink in your skin, not a burn.

It’s hog-tie, not hog-time.

Panel 6 is I believe the last reference to Excel Saga in this stupid issue. In Episode 16, there’s a parody of overly sentimental death sequences where a robot character, breaking apart, sheds a single tear into a pool of water, leaving dramatic ripples; Chris trades the tears for blood. Again, Chris fails to grasp the over-the-top parodic nature of Excel Saga and uses the same scene for what is supposed to be a dramatic scene in Sonichu. The sheer number of parodies played straight probably has something to do with Sonichu’s lack of narrative stakes; it’s impossible to take anything seriously. It’d be like watching Young Frankenstein expecting to scare yourself shitless to read Sonichu expecting serious dramatic stakes.

I don’t know why Bagget really has to specify Chris’s “dominant hand”, he’s right handed so it’s not like Chris would surprise them with a left handed attack or anything, and why not just tie up both hands?

Crackder’s cockpit here stands in for the police car Chris was taken away in, you can easily trace the real events underneath the overexaggerations Chris gives the comic - Chris was approached by managers, he sparred with them, the cops were called, Chris resisted arrest, the cops are forced to tackle him and take him away in their squad car, they take him to the station, at his trial his mother (here represented by Crystal) gets him out of trouble, Chris just added a little pizzazz.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-1

Caption: Drawn September 2nd, 2005

Title: SUB-EPISODE 8

Subtitle: Christian Chandler in Off Target Part 2

CWC BBoT: Last time I was encountered by a Jerkop in Power Ranger’s clothing. We battled and I paralyzed him, but then he summoned his change-bot and things became chaotic. I would have knocked that change-bot out it it hadn’t tripped me over. I was then captured. When a cry for help flew from my mouth, and into Crystal’s ears, Baget’s bot dropped me. Now as my sister goes through the crowd, I am falling to the ground hand-and-leg-cuffed!

CRYSTAL (thought): For now, this is the best I can do to break his fall…

Caption: *psychic*

Caption: *snag*

CHRIS (thought): A psychic catch?

BAGGET: ?

This sequel to Off Target Part 1 was written a good two months later. By then, Chris was out of danger, no one was pressing charges and Christian Weston Chandler had won once again against the Commonwealth of Virginia and the Virginia is for Virgins conspiracy. It’s quite likely Chris had this ending planned since day one - he’d always had Crystal running in to save him from his fate - but now he was comfortable with encapsulating it forever in comic form.

Again, like in Sub-Episode 5, the beginning of this story has always been packaged directly before this one, making this explanation moot once again.

Crystal is capable of using any electric hedgehog power that Chris has, which opens up several plot holes - why didn’t she summon some Punchy power and smash through the crowd? Why didn’t she Magi-Chan earlier and teleport over to Chris’s side, or use Angelica and fly over the crowd, or use any attacking abilities to hurt Bagget and/or Crackder… come on! You’re Mary Sues! Act like it!

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-13

MARY LEE WALSH: No way! Their power has recovered ten-fold! I have a bad hand!

COUNT GRADUON: I’ve got you covered, Mary!

CHRIS: Mary Lee Walsh! I will never forgive you for shattering my heart and soul!

CHRIS: We are going to see to it that you never shatter any more hearts or souls ever again!

CRYSTAL: I’m ready bro!

CHRIS: Blue thunder!

CRYSTAL: Orange thunder!

CRYSTAL: Our unique and wonderful souls…

CHRIS: Shall crush your evil hearts and dark souls!

CHRIS: Aim for the crystal ball!

“I have a bad hand” refers to card games like poker, where a hand of cards can be poor and likely to lose against an opponent. Mary Lee says this to imply she is suddenly at a disadvantage in this fight. Unrelated to that statement, her hands are drawn abysmally.

Graduon’s statement implies that his power and his power alone can protect Mary Lee, why he doesn’t at the same time crush Chrs-Chan Pure is unknown.

Using their Chrs-Chan Pure powers, Chris and Crystal summon electric attacks. Blue thunder and orange thunder appear to be dictated by their coat colors.

At the bottom of the page, Chandler leaves a large section of the page blank white, implying he planned out this page particularly poorly. Putting Crystal’s speech bubble a little higher would have made more sense too.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-12

Caption: Warrior of love and honesty, Chris-Chan!

Caption: Soldier of soul and heart, Crystalina!

BOTH: We are…

Caption: Chrs-Chan Pure!

Chris and Crystal’s titles are in line with a lot of over the top anime titles, as well as Sailor Moon’s catchphrase “I am the Sailor-Suited Pretty Guardian who fights for love and justice - I am Sailor Moon!”

The name of this super form, Chrs-Chan Pure, was confirmed to be a typo in Sonichu 12, where it reappeared as Chrys-Chan Pure, presumably to refer to both of its members, Chris and Crystal.

[taffysannotatedsonichu]

Sub Episode 8 Page S-11

CRYSTAL (thought): I can’t get to the key, and I can’t fight them all alone…

CRYSTAL: !

CRYSTAL (thought): I’ll give Chris some of my power!

CRYSTAL (thought): Please recover, brother!

CHRIS (thought): I can feel the energy…

CHRIS (thought): This is so Pretty Cure~

CWC: I’M BACK!

Here Chris and Crystal combine into some sort of super ultimate form, Chris-Chan Pure. Crystal uses some of her powers and infuses Chris and he returns to his Chris-Chan Sonichu form.

“I can feel the energy” calls to mind a beloved statement of Chris’s, based on a line from the game Katamari Damacy, “I can feel the cosmos!”

Pretty Cure is an anime in the genre of “Magical Girl”, a popular genre in Japan about young (preteen or early teen) girls with magical powers such as being witches or fairies who go on adventures. Pretty Cure is a very standard Magical Girl anime about two girls who fight the forces of darkness. Chris’s transformation here is a parody of the transformation sequence from Pretty Cure, although Panel 9 more closely resembles a Jackson Pollock painting than anything from anime.