Namonaki Inu no Uta

[YamaDora]

It was made because Takahashi visited Finland. The story apparently has a message for the Finnish Ginga fans.

[Wolpard]

It was made because Takahashi visited Finland. The story apparently has a message for the Finnish Ginga fans.

What kind of message? It seemed like a fairly normal Ginga story to me... albeit redundant in the first chapter.

[YamaDora]

It was made because Takahashi visited Finland. The story apparently has a message for the Finnish Ginga fans.

What kind of message? It seemed like a fairly normal Ginga story to me... albeit redundant in the first chapter.

I don't own the story myself so I haven't read it, but there should be be a sidenote somewhere saying something along the lines "Ginga has taken over Finland" or something like that. I don't think the message is in the story itself.

[Dragon]

Aaa, so this is why John is all over GNG promo art, because John was a favorite there? O:

[Digsu]

Aaa, so this is why John is all over GNG promo art, because John was a favorite there? O:

I don't think John is particularly super-popular in Finland, just a popular character among the fandom in general.

Also this is obviously just my guess, but I don't think John being retconned into being from Finland is because of his (supposed) popularity with Finnish fans, Yoshi just wanted to "bring him back" in the form of Andy and decided to throw his Finnish fans a bone on the side. Similarly I'm assuming that Namonaki Inu no Uta being "dedicated" to his Finnish fans was an afterthought and the story was intended to just be a generic story about one of the many, many "nameless" dogs who fought and died in the battle against Akakabuto.

[Dragon]

Yoshi just wanted to "bring him back" in the form of Andy

Veeeerry true, you can really tell Yoshi freakin' loves John. I almost feel bad he killed him off early, but it was such a touching scene, I don't regret it.

[Raki]

I actually liked the side story of them :3