Piro's rant marks this as the strip when Largo officially ceased being a co-writer of MegaTokyo.

Piro speaks:
One of the things i figured would happen when we announced the split is the inevitable 'oh, mt wont be funny anymore without largo' threads, where people will feel that the funny bits are gone forever because rod is no longer involved in the comic.
No one has worked harder to maintain some level of humor in this comic since day one than I have.
I dont want to get into a discussion about just how much rod actually did write - i think you might be suprised by some of the so-called largo jokes that actually came from me. For example, the entire Mosh Mosh revolution arc was my doing, including the bad translations of l33t. Ed helped me with the l33tspeak in that one, but rod himself had little input. "There is power all around us" was my doing. "Ph33r my lack of b33r" i wrote on a post-it pad at work one day. Rod introduced l33tspeak and gamer humor into Megatokyo, but both of us applied it to the strip.
Rod's idea of dealing with the story once was to wrap all the story arcs in 2 comics and kill off several of the characters so that we didn't have that 'dreaded continuity' to deal with anymore.
I have no problem with rod getting credit where it's due for all that he did for mt, but don't dismiss my part in the edgy largo-side of MT.
Of course, the only way to really aleviate all the fears i've been hearing about how MT is gonna get all girly and weepy because rod isn't involved anymore is to just show people. There's no point in trying to argue facts or explain things. The truth doesnt mean anything, its perceptions that people work on.
Many will always be convinced that i am incapable of pulling off any gamer or l33t humor in MT. My appologies if i *prefer* the shojou-ey side of MT, but that doesnt mean i dont respect the side that balances it all.
But like i said, no point in arguing about it - i'll just have to show you

Piro speaks:
well, i think the only thing i can do is move foreward and try to make things work. I *DO* understand and relate to the fact that the largo side of MT is very important... and frankly, i think i've been avoiding it on purpose for the last few months - you can think of it as a function of leading up to a desire to go solo, really - so in essesnce, now that things are cleared up, you might find that i will produce a far more balanced comic than i did when i was pushing towards my own side of things in the last 3 months or so.
I dont know if that made sense, but like i said, time will tell. I'll try to take care of everyone the best i can

Piro speaks:
well, 'all men are fanboys' is my joke. the idea to make Boo largo's concience was rodneys ^_^
but lets not get into a 'who came up with what' converstaion. Original ideas are one thing, making them work is another.

Piro speaks:
I just want people to know that it's NOT going to be a drastic change - i am committed to making sure that MT remains the mix that makes it what it is now - and i hope that i can live up to people's expectations.

Piro speaks:
First off, creative partnerships do not always work out. Ours did not stand the test of time. Many tend to end very badly - ours did not - we both wanted Megatokyo to continue and we worked things out so that i could continue with it solo. Otherwise, i would have moved on to other projects. You cannot judge our decisions because you do not know all the details, nor is it really anyone's business. Rod and I are good friends, but our creative partnership split up. End of story.
Yes, there are a lot of things that Rodney is into that I am not into. I am not a hard core gamer. I cannot write industry bashing gaming jokes. Frankly, i think i've done a pretty decent job with largo since i started writing the story solo (which was a long time before we officially broke up, btw) I'm sorry if i cannot cater to everyone's tastes. I'm just one guy, and i am doing the best i can.
I don't have to do the Largo storylines. In fact, i'm sure MT would survive just fine if Largo went home and i just concentrated on Piro and his problems. I could easily do that, but I don't, because Largo is a very important part of Megatokyo. If you look at your favorite american comics, they often have a large variety of writers and artists who work on them. If you dont like the new writers, you don't follow the story. It's your choice. Same here, except all i ask for is your attention.
Megatokyo has changed. It will change, it will grow, it may go in directions that some readers find uninteresting. It is a HUGE mistake to try to change what you are doing because you are trying to please other people. If the changes and growth of Megatokyo are such that it changes so that people dont like it anymore, then it will die its own, natural death.
There's nothing wrong with that. Rod and I started this project because we followed our own ideas and said to fuckall with what other people thought. If you can succeed doing that, then great, if you fail doing that, thats fine too.

Piro speaks:
When Rodney and I split our creative partnership it was already long dead, and was a formality. I had two options - end Megatokyo completely, or pursue it as a solo project. Because Rodney and I valued Megatokyo and its audience as much as do, me continuing MT solo was the best option for everyone.
One of the challenges for having done anything even remotely decent in the past is that everything new that you do is constantly compared to it. People change, ideas evolve, interests change. It's only natural that MT might take a bend more towards where I personally wanted to go, but that's been whats been happening since it started - and part of what lead to the creative breakup.

Piro speaks:
Most of the story elements in megatokyo are my work, rodney's main contributions to the story were humor elements and large humor concepts (for example, 'Great Teacher Largo' was his idea and concept, i worked it into the plot.) Rod and I worked on the story stuff together, really - i did story, he did humor. The nature of MT changed long before rod left MT because he found he was contributing less and less to the story i was writing - rod's humor style is great for one shot, free form gaming humor (like the Go for the Beer strip, or the wack a mole strip) but situational humor was not his thing. He used to have these crazy crazy ideas, and i'd work them into the story somehow. I miss some of that, really, since i have had to come up with my own crazy stuff in recent years.
And no, there were no plot holes. there are some mistakes as well as some difficulties with some things, and much has developed over time, but i have made sure that everything ties together somehow. The funny thing is, my overall concept hasn't changed, but no one has grasped it yet (from what i can tell, really) so that just makes it that much more fun to keep building the story.

Piro speaks:
Rodney (Largo) and I started the comic over three years ago mainly because he felt that we could do a webcomic. Up until then, i had done nothing but illustrations. The basic concept for Megatokyo was developed in less than a day, and we did a few comics. the first batch Rodney wrote, and from that point on we collaborated on producing comics. He wrote the joke/humor side of things, or came up with jokes/ideas that I incorporated into the story.
Over time, Rod found it harder and harder to come up with writing humor or ideas that would fit with the story in the comic. Thats why the OSE comics surfaced, to give rod a chance to write some things. Over time, i gradually did more and more of the comic, while rod tried to come up with humorous concepts and ideas that i could work in (Great Teacher Largo, for example). The last full strip that rod wrote was the 'wack a troll' comic, which was a one shot strip.
Creative partnerships sometimes dont work out. Rod and I have such different approaches to what we do that i think the breakup was inevitable. Of course, part of what made MT work and created that duality that makes it what it is was the fact that he and i were trying to make two totally different comics. For example, Rod literally wanted to have zombies killing and destroying things around them, i refused to do that - the dynamic caused the duality that is the core of the comic.
Eventually, Rod had stopped contributing to the comic all together, as we had stopped working together. I approached him about continuing MT on my own, or letting it die and moving on to something else. We worked things out, and i've been doing it ever since. Rod did not leave the comic because he got married, that had nothing to do with it. Also, it's amsuing sometimes to see what people credit Rodney with writing that I did, and what I get credited for that Rodney did. The main reason for the change in flavor in MT isn't so much that Rod isn't writing things anymore, its that i don't HAVE to accomodate his approach anymore.
That being said, the side of this comic that rod inspired is very important, and I've worked very hard to try to keep it balanced. Yes, things change - people bitched and complained about things we were doing back then too - not funny anymore, whats with all this romance crap, etc etc. You really can't make everyone happy, but if you, as a creator, are not happy with what you are doing, thats when you really need to rethink what you are doing.
I'm quite capable of t3h funny, you know. I just didn't have a lot of it with me last year. At least MT has a solid storyline, so that when i am not feeling funny, there is something there for readers. The funny can always come in, when its appopriate.

Piro speaks:
It's something i hear every week and will hear forever (and will probably be a deciding factor in why i might wrap up MT at some point rather than continue it at a particular point in the story). I think at this point its an accepted fact that there is a significant number of readers (and ex-readers) who will always feel that MT lost it's 'edge' when Rodney left. Hey, whatya gonna do? They feel cheated that the comic started with the mixed vision of two people, and it irks them that that it has changed over time. Long dead subject, really. The horse has been beat to death and into the ground so much that there is nothing left but a stain in the sidewalk.
What's sad for me is how much i worry about how much seriousness i can pull in Megatokyo, to get those parts of the stories done, before i feel that the patience of those who want t3h funny starts to where thin.

Piro speaks:
There really is a very serious desire in me to finish Megatokyo and move on to something else. I love MT, it's very important to me, but i also feel like there are things in it that have nothing to do with me, and even tho i have at this point pretty much left most of them behind, they will never really go away. I'm not belittling rodney's contributions to the comic, i'm just saying that this comic is a very personal thing for me, and when it's that close to you, you sorta don't want anyone stuck in the middle of it, no matter how long ago it was. Seraphim has had far more impact on MT than rodney ever did, but no one ever even seems to notice that. Also, a significant portion of the stuff that rod gets credit for I actually came up with. The thing that is gone from MT is not Rod's writing, it's his *influence* on Megatokyo. That influence has been replaced by this ghost influence pressured on my by fans of the elements that he inspired.

See also: Fred's rant under strip [660] and a newspost Rodney made shortly afterward.