Have no idea who the characters are or what series they are from but the first two pages were very well done.
It's because you read too randomly to ever pay half a minute to search the names.
Nope. I've done it before and it never made a difference. o_0
I learn mostly through doujins themselves and not the original series when it comes to this stuff, haha.
I do that a lot too, especially stuff like this and Touhou.
I must say that while the doujins are great, they haven't really pushed me to check out the original the way stuff like Nanoha and Bodacious Space Pirates did.