Empty At The Core – Chapter 8, Act 2, Strip 46

Halloween might be over, but the nightmare just continues for the coin-monster.

It’s not massive inflation galloping its way, this time – but High Velocity Armor Piercing Discarding Sabot Tracer Hearts (HVAPDS-T-H) coming your way in large numbers and at (naturally) high velocity isn’t exactly a picnic, either. Aside from the high velocity, the business end of those hearts is pretty pointy – and made from depleted uranium.

But what was supposed to be a nightmare for the monster turns into a nightmare for the hero instead – who fails to pierce the monster’s armor at any point, because the monster came pre-pierced in the very location he was aiming for (and hitting, of course, since he’s a hero and not a disposable stormtrooper). Gregory is appropriately frustrated by that unexpected failure – perhaps even more than appropriately, since he should have been aware of his non-existent chance of success to begin with. After all, when does the first attack on a newly-revealed enemy ever succeed? Be that as it may, Gregory puts some honest acting effort into his display of frustration – and it probably takes a bit of extra effort, if only because wearing an elementary school uniform with pink accents for such an occasion would naturally tend to counteract the effect to some degree.

A zeni coin was a natural choice for the coin-monster’s body, due to the Japanese setting…or at least ambiguously Japanese setting. >_> Contrary to Gregory’s assertion, though, it’s far from the only coin that features a hole right in the middle. While uncommon (but not completely unheard of) in Europe, it’s been a very common feature in coinage from different parts of Asia and Africa at different times. The advantage is, apparently, that you can carry them around by a string – and that also saves you the effort of counting them, since you can derive the number of coins from the length of the string. Or perhaps you should say that the advantage was that…for while holed coins are still in use and production by a considerable number of countries, it seems to be mostly a nod to tradition these days, without much functional purpose left.*

More on Thursday.

*Well, aside perhaps from the advantage that a holed coin would make a coin-monster based on it invulnerable to an extremely well-aimed burst of fire with HVAPDS-T-H ammunition. But I kinda doubt that that consideration featured prominently in the design decisions.