Okashina Okashi – Strange Candy is a

webcomic Webcomics (also known as online comics or Internet comics) are comics published on the internet, such as on a website or a mobile app. While many webcomics are published exclusively online, others are also published in magazines, newspapers, or ...

hosted on Comic Genesis, a free hosting provider for webcomics. It is drawn by Emily Snodgrass (Emi-chan) and written by Allison Brownlow (Tanzy), Karen Olympia (Kourin), and J. Baird (Xuanwu). It was started in 2001, with Brownlow as its first writer and Olympia added to the team in October 2001. Baird became the primary author in 2004. The comic celebrated its 1000th strip on April 11, 2013. The comic concluded on July 26, 2018, with a final pin-up on August 2. ''Okashina Okashi'' is considered one of the three most important comics in the fields of education and public health — alongside ''

Penny Arcade ''Penny Arcade'' is a webcomic focused on video games and video game culture, written by Jerry Holkins and illustrated by Mike Krahulik. The comic debuted in 1998 on the website ''loonygames.com''. Since then, Holkins and Krahulik have establish ...

'' and ''

Dinosaur Comics ''Dinosaur Comics'' is a constrained webcomic by Canadian writer Ryan North. It is also known as "Qwantz", after the site's domain name, "qwantz.com". The first comic was posted on February 1, 2003, although there were earlier prototypes. ''Din ...

'' — for facilitating the development of art-based research methods and a variety of educational projects."Picturevoice: Health Communication Through Art." Presentation. Society for Public Health Education 60th Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, PA. November 6, 2009."Healthy Holidays: Lessons Learned from a Community Education Event." Presentation.

American Public Health Association The American Public Health Association (APHA) is a Washington, D.C.–based professional membership and advocacy organization for public health professionals in the United States. APHA is the largest professional organization of public health pr ...

137th Annual Meeting. Philadelphia, PA. November 11, 2009.John Baird. Comicvoice: Community education through sequential art. Pop Culture Association - American Culture Association, St. Louis, MO. April 2010"Comic Projects in the Classroom: Using Interactive Sequential Art to Enhance Education." Workshop.

University of Texas The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 students as of fall 2 ...

University Charter School 2nd Annual Teach & Share. Austin, TX. October 18, 2010."Using Interactive Art to Enhance Math Education." Presentation.

South by Southwest South by Southwest (SXSW) is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, Texas. It began in 1987 and has conti ...

Education (SXSWedu) 2012, Austin, TX.John Baird and Dana Newborn. The Effect of Age on Comic Narrative Creation. International Journal of Comic Art 13(2), 2011. Baird frequently uses the comics in his volunteer teaching exercises. This involvement began when Baird used the comic as part of his classroom exercises while teaching for Hess Educational Organization, an English education provider in the

Republic of China Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...

and

Singapore Singapore, officially the Republic of Singapore, is an island country and city-state in Southeast Asia. The country's territory comprises one main island, 63 satellite islands and islets, and one outlying islet. It is about one degree ...

. Similarly, he used the comic again when he volunteered to teach the ''

Create a Comic Project The Create a Comic Project (CCP) is a youth literacy program and webcomic created by John Baird. The program uses comics, many taken from the Internet, to encourage children to write their own narratives.Diwan, Faizan. "Kids can learn through comi ...

'', a free after-school youth literacy library activity in

New Haven New Haven is a city of the U.S. state of Connecticut. It is located on New Haven Harbor on the northern shore of Long Island Sound. With a population of 135,081 as determined by the 2020 U.S. census, New Haven is the third largest city in Co ...

, Connecticut."Comic Tournament in New Haven." Grand News Community Newspaper. April 2009. This work has garnered praise from Secretary of Education

Arne Duncan Arne Starkey Duncan (born November 6, 1964) is an American educator and former professional basketball player who served as the 9th United States secretary of education from 2009 to 2015 and as Chief Executive Officer of Chicago Public Schools ...

and Pearson CEO

Marjorie Scardino Dame Marjorie Scardino ( Morris; born 25 January 1947) is an American-born British business executive. She is the former CEO of Pearson PLC. Scardino became a trustee of Oxfam during her tenure at Pearson. She was criticized by ''Private Eye' ...

. Both Snodgrass and Baird have appeared at conventions speaking at amateur artist panels and manga in education panels.Ushicon Panels - 2003
Shepherd, Jeremy. "Otakon 2009: Manga, Literacy, and Children." http://anime.advancedmn.com/article.php?artid=5565 Snodgrass is an amateur artist who does not make a living from her online strip. In August 2007, Snodgrass branched out with a spin-off comic set in the Beauty Man Garden, a fictional chain of restaurants in ''Okashina Okashi''. The comic was called ''Mini BMG''. This attempt at another comic "fizzled pretty quickly" but Snodgrass hopes to relaunch it someday, hoping "to plan better and have more comics done."Snodgrass, Emily

;

Plot

A group of strangers are sucked into the alternate universe of UberTokyo. They must try to find a way home by using plotholes to teleport between dimensional realms. Each realm is stated by characters to be a parody of a given genre of

anime is a Traditional animation, hand-drawn and computer animation, computer-generated animation originating from Japan. Outside Japan and in English, ''anime'' refers specifically to animation produced in Japan. However, , in Japan and in Ja ...

manga are comics or graphic novels originating from Japan. Most manga conform to a style developed in Japan in the late 19th century, and the form has a long history in earlier Japanese art. The term is used in Japan to refer to both comics ...

video games A video game or computer game is an electronic game that involves interaction with a user interface or input device (such as a joystick, game controller, controller, computer keyboard, keyboard, or motion sensing device) to generate visual fe ...

, such as sports,

sentai In Japanese language, Japanese, is a military unit and may be literally translated as "wikt:squadron, squadron", "task force", "Division (naval), division (of ships)", "group (air force unit), group" or "wing (air force unit), wing". The ter ...

fantasy Fantasy is a genre of speculative fiction that involves supernatural or Magic (supernatural), magical elements, often including Fictional universe, imaginary places and Legendary creature, creatures. The genre's roots lie in oral traditions, ...

, and horror. The comic archives are split into several distinct story arcs, called "Lands," each representing the world being visited in that arc. Known lands include: * Amazon Land * Shōjo Land * Pr0n Land * Space Drama Land * Sports Land *

RPG RPG may refer to: Military * Rocket-propelled grenade, a shoulder-launched anti-tank weapon **''Ruchnoi Protivotankoviy Granatomyot'' (Russian: ''Ручной Противотанковый Гранатомёт''), hand-held anti-tank grenade laun ...

Land * Monster Bear Land * Dream Land * Mahou Shōjo Land The lands are generally unrelated to each other, though some characters do appear in different lands (ex. a group of winged men from Space Drama Land playing as a Killer Croquet team in the Sports Land). Also, alternate universe versions of main characters, such as Yamichi and Minami, have appeared. Recurring plot points in the series involve the ''Beauty Man Garden'', a restaurant chain where all the waiters are bishounen and wear only extremely short aprons; a pair of cat boys, Spike and V, who monitor the group's progress from afar; and the schemes of Evil Overload Kerisu, the series' main antagonist, who wants the female main characters to serve as his groupies.

References

External links

Okashina Okashi
- Main site
Mini-BMG
- Main site of spin-off comic, ''Mini-BMG'' *

{{DEFAULTSORT:Okashina Okashi - Strange Candy 2000s webcomics American comedy webcomics Anime and manga inspired webcomics Science fiction webcomics LGBTQ-related webcomics 2001 webcomic debuts

Plot

See also

References

External links