San: Three Kingdoms Comic

San: Three Kingdoms Comic is a now-defunct Webcomic run by Peng Guo, using basic arts, but mostly focusing on irony and humor. Basically, take the epic Romance of the Three Kingdoms novel (and inspiration from the Dynasty Warriors series), then retell it, with the hilarity dialed up to OVER NINE THOUSAAAAAAND!!. Includes lots of Flanderizations, Double Entendres as well as lots and lots of cameos and Shout-Outs.

It ran from 2003 to 2011, then became moribund for several years before apparently moving to a new site, which itself vanished shortly afterward.

It can be read here.

Tropes used in San: Three Kingdoms Comic include:

• Torture, Dismemberment And Outright Murder Are Okay When It's Female On Male
• Anachronism Stew: McDonald's in Ancient China. Not to mention Cao Cao and his sniper rifle, Cao Cao's men with a machine gun, Cao Cao's credit card...
  • Or recently, Kaku Bunwa, and Facebook...
    • As of ep. 219, That Other Wiki and... TV Tropes?!
• Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking (Dong Zhuo's list of atrocities here.)
• Art Evolution: As new Dynasty Warriors games and designs come out, the character designs have been changed; starting with Dynasty Warriors 6 and Pang Tong's introduction a number of strips have overtly involved the characters noticing (or in Zhuge Liang's case, not noticing until it's too late) the change.
• Art Shift: "Why are we drawn in Toriyama style?"
• Badass Grandma: Mother Dong.
• Baleful Polymorph: In a parody of "The Frog Prince", Zhen Ji is introduced to Cao Pi after he has been turned into a frog. Apparently, kissing him just isn't enough...
• Berserk Button: Tell Zhuge Liang that Yue Ying slept with Cao Cao. Or think that Yue Ying is non-Chinese. Or heck, Da Qiao just about anything.
  • Don't break out into a fight during Zhou Yu's funeral in front of Xiao Qiao, don't say to Zhang He that he isn't beautiful...
• Beware the Nice Ones: So you think women are merely Disposable Woman here, as in the novel? Da Qiao is a crazy Clingy Jealous Girl who pretty much snaps everyone who pisses her off. Yue Ying when angry can send Zhuge Liang and his main forte into their graves.
• Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: Ma Chao in his debut. Drags enemy around with his horse, beating the formerly Lu Bu-beating Mother Dong (She's terminally ill), and can dance on a dress.
• Butt Monkey: Cao Ren, with his Catch Phrase "Let me goooo.... I'm still virgin.....". Also Zhang Liao being the unwilling subject of love interest of Guan Yu, and Little Ping just about any time Zhuge Liang and Yue Ying get frisky.
  • Oda Nobunaga from Samurai Warriors (also Sanada Yukimura) is slowly turning into one. Justified that Peng himself didn't think the Sengoku era is convertable into a funny comic, so this is all he can do for the franchise.
• Call Back: Remember when Zhang Fei crashed into Cinderella's carriage while drunk? Apparently, her shoes fits him too.
  • Huang Zhong remembers very well Zhuge Liang's scam.
• The Cameo: Kaku Bunwa from Ikki Tousen replaces her namesake character (Jia Xu) in this comic, even though he technically appeared during Dian Wei's last stand. Still unknown whether it will clash with the new DW7 design of Jia Xu.
  • And Doctor House
    • Similarly, Jang-Geum from the popular Korean period drama Jewel in the Palace
• Camp Gay: Guan Yu, much to Zhang Liao's dismay. Cao Ren, too.
  • Zhang He and his PRETTY BUTTERFLIES.
• Cool Shades: Guo Jia, later Huang Zhong.
• The Ditz: Zhang Fei, writ LARGE, at least in early strips.
• Dung Fu: Since he was tricked into taking laxatives, Dian Wei had to fight with buckets of his own shit.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Huang Zhong, from before the Red Cliff battle, leading up to the event mentioned in Shout-Out below.
  • Cao Pi and Zhen Ji are first introduced in this Fourth Wall Mail Slot, Cao Pi as a younger clone of Cao Cao before he appeared in Dynasty Warriors with an actual character design.
• Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Red Hare is actually a giant red bunny, and some jokes involve very literal 'interpretation'.
• Expy: Partially lampshaded by Zhuge Liang. Zhao Yun's Dynasty Warriors 6 is drawn to look like Sasuke Uchiha, complete with Konoha crest and clouds. Later on, his proposed wife whom he refused is drawn EXACTLY like Sakura Haruno. This went full force with #223.
• Even the Guys Want Him: Guan Yu. Apparently Zhang Liao too.
• Fourth Wall Mail Slot: Some of the earlier strips were these.
• Freak-Out: Zhang Liao, whenever something involving him and Guan Yu is about to come up. For good reason.
• Gonk: Sometimes the result of a Gross Up Close-Up. Nearly every woman invokes this when any of them are mad. Xing Cai has the scariest one, scarier than Zhang Fei's infamous shout.
  • Also, Madame Wu thought Liu Bei was one.
  • And then there's Sun Shang Xiang...
  • Played with in Pang Tong's case; his Gonk face is just a mask with which to test Sun Quan (who does "judge this book by its cover").
• Groin Attack: Huang Zhong goes Dio on Zhuge Liang's balls.
• Funny Foreigner: Subverted: Sun Quan is 100% Chinese, but his exotic look makes him thought to be a foreigner and it has been his Running Gag.
• Heavy Sleeper: As it seems, Lu Meng has been sleeping during all of Zhou Yu's funeral... standing upright.
• Ho Yay: A Running Gag that's Played for Laughs.
• Hulk Speak: Wei Yan. He does this in Dynasty Warriors as well.
• I Know Karate: Zhuge Liang's "Fist of the North Star" works just fine against the scholars of Wu... but is worse than useless against women.
• I'll Be in My Bunk: As seen here.
• Improbable Weapon User: Popsicles and... shish kebabs?
  • How about rulers? A lamp? A flyswatter? A giant fork with a dumpling on the tip? One with a roasted duck instead? A TV Remote? While he's not in all of the examples here, all of Taishi Ci's appearences involves oddball weaponry.
• Incredibly Lame Pun: Gan Ning sells pirate DVDs. 'Cos he's a pirate. Geddit?
  • Again with Gan Ning, which involves breaking his back for selling bootlegged copies of Brokeback Mountain.
• Inexplicably Identical Individuals: Liu Bei mistakes Lu Fan, a Wu strategist, for Lu Bu, despite that the latter is dead since a few years and that the two of them are not being related outside of their identical family names.
• Line-of-Sight Name: Guan Yu invokes this... and fails.
• Look Behind You!: Guan Yu's tactic to defeat Hua Xiong. And... LOOK! BAOZI FAIRY!!
• Love Triangle: Type 5 between Zhou Yu, Guan Yu and Zhang Liao. Zhou Yu is gay for Guan Yu despite him being completely oblivious about it. Guan Yu wants Zhang Liao who then would want to go so far as killing himself to get away from him.
• Naked People Are Funny: "He may kick me out but is stripping me really necessary?"
• Nice Hat: Several, but Cao Cao's deserves special mention for having a duck.
• "Not Making This Up" Disclaimer: Not surprisingly, these become necessary after a while, as seen here.
  • A different font is used to indicate direct quotes from the source material, as seen here.
• Palette Swap: Zhuge Jin, Zhuge Liang's Wu-aligned elder brother, looks exactly like his younger brother except that he wears red instead of green. As always, Zhuge Liang weaponized this to his favor.
• Porn Stash: As seen here.
• Punny Name: Guan Yu(Feather) and Guan Yu(Fish) are pronounced almost exactly the same. This has been weaponized at least twice although one of them had an interesting response.
• Put on a Bus: Guan Ping, after a mental-scarring event of Zhou Yu's 'indirect kiss', gets himself on a bus.
  • Similarly, any characters Killed Off for Real (excluding non-canon "deaths") are shown being sent off on vacation or somesuch.
• Rule of Funny: Besides the source material, the only cause of what happens in the strip.
• Running Gag: Frequent references to Korea are made, since the author of the comic is Korean.
  • And Baozi.
  • And the gay jokes.
  • And the females getting a Gonk face somehow.
  • And many characters ends up going to McDonald's for some reason (And Guan Yu ends up burning the place).
• Shout-Out: Zhuge Liang can turn into Kenshiro at whim, though most of the time it's not doing any good. Also, Huang Zhong recently uses Dio's signature "MUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDAMUDA!!" and WRRRYYYYYY!!!!
  • Then there's 'Darth Chao' vs 'Han Skywalker'...
  • Note the site's banner design, which treats the character "San" like the "A!" from Azumanga Daioh.
  • Zhuge Qiao in the last frame looks familiar...
  • Wait, Kan Ze is a Transformer!?
• Slasher Smile: Sun Shang Xiang in the final frame of ep. 200. And Zhang He (see Berserk Button above).
• Speak of the Devil: Cao Cao... to the extreme.
• Stripperiffic: Huang Gai. Huang Gai is male. They blame Koei for this.
• Stupid Sexy Flanders: 'Cao Cao is sexy...'
• A Taste of the Lash: Zhou Yu's method of punishing Huang Gai for his insolence is to strip him and give him 100 lashes. There's just one problem about that: Huang Gai is way Too Kinky to Torture.
• This Is Sparta: This is DONGWU!
• Too Dumb to Live: Liu Bei, much to Zhuge Liang's dismay, but at one point Zhao Yun ends up with the Idiot Ball and saves Liu Bei as a result.
• Too Kinky to Torture: See A Taste of the Lash.
• Uncanny Family Resemblance: Many characters who is known to be a family member of a character who appeared in Dynasty Warriors at the time of the creation of the strip and never appeared or appeared as a generic officer, will look like a clone of the character.
• Verbal Tic: Pang Tong says 'honey' a lot...
• Visual Pun: when Ma Chao debuts and the much-loved Five Tiger Generals^[1] are unofficially complete. For context, the first frames are intended as Foreshadowing, but rather than the Five Tiger Generals thing it's about five actual tigers escaping from the zoo ie. the Five Tigers have been unleashed.
• What Kind Of Lame Power Is Grabbing And Squeezing Guy's Balls Anyway: Sima Hui's Dragon Claws Of Western Mountain, which Sima Yi immediately lampshades and refuses. At least it has a fearsome name...
• Your Mom: Subverted, Xu Shu wanted a way out of the fire attack at Chibi. Pang Tong suggests his presumed dead mother. Understandably, Xu Shu is angry until his mother calls him...

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All right, that's the end of the page. Enjoy the indexes.
Oh come on, there's gotta be more, right?
When people updates, there's gonna be more so no need to worry. I gotta go.
Please, this page is just too much fun to read...
LOOK!! BAOZI FAIRY!!

—WHERE!? WHERE!? -the editor ran off- ... Rats!

1. ↑ Ma joins Huang Zhong, Zhao Yun, Zhang Fei and Guan Yu as Shu's legendary generals