Comiket 79 report
It's been a long time coming, but here's the inaugural otaku blog post, and we begin with a report from Comiket 79!
For those who aren't familiar with the event, Comiket is basically the biggest otaku convention in the world, with well over half a million attendees flocking in from all over Japan to the Tokyo Big Sight twice a year. The main purpose is the sale of doujinshi, which are basically fan-created manga, songs, games, etc. As you might expect from otaku culture, much of it is devoted to ero (hentai) content, so be wary of viewing the pictures following at work.
Comiket is always held at the Tokyo Big Sight on Odaiba in Tokyo.
The day starts very early, with people starting to line up the night before. I was there at a far more reasonable 5am.
At around 8am, a couple hours before opening, they'll stand everyone up and start compressing the lines to prepare for entry.
By this point, the line will be 30-40 thousand people long, and snaked around the whole island.
As opening approaches, they'll start moving the line into the Big Sight grounds, splitting people off into East and West Halls lines.
The Big Sight is divided into two major buildings, the East and West halls. Usually only one or two halls would be rented out for any given event, but the sheer size of Comiket requires all 10 halls.
Each hall is easily the size of a football field.
Pretty much every hall gets completely packed. You can see the West-3 sign at the top, marking one of the corporate booth halls.
Comiket is held over 3 days, and circles will only show up on one day, usually grouped together by genre/theme (Touhou/yuri/BL/etc.) You're a seasoned otaku if you can name this circle.
The exception are the corporate booths, which are always in West 3/4 and remain all 3 days. This is the Dengekiya booth, showing off lots of Oreimo + Index goods.
If one word describes Comiket, it would be "lineups". There are lineups for circles, for getting between halls, for using washrooms, even for the cosplay area. Everyone brings a DS or PSP or something else to do while waiting.
On day 3 it took me around 45 minutes to traverse the 100 meter path adjoining the West and East Halls. Insane.
You've probably already noticed that there are a ton of people at this event, but pictures really don't do the sheer mass of otaku there justice. It's really hard to imagine a crowd so dense that you get literally swept along if you lose your grip on the ground unless you've experienced it yourself. So while pictures may not convey what 550,000 people looks like, maybe a video can:
Pardon the camera handling; I'm not exactly pro at it and being constantly jostled didn't really help either. Here's the corporate booths in the West Halls. Can you pick out the Oreimo PV playing as I pass it?
The corporate booths are popular because they tend to sell limited edition goods that are only sold at that Comiket, so if you want your hands on them, that's the only time to get them.
I'm a huge August fan. Expect me to disappear for a while when Aiyoku no Eustia comes out.
You probably know that dakimakura are "love pillow" covers, but did you know they also made curtains?
Would you have the balls to hang these in your room?
Very nice guitars. +5 otaku points if you know what eroge these are from.
Corporate booths tend to have a lot of cosplaying employees.
Towards the end of the day, a lot of booths hold special seiyuu/developer events where special guests will appear and do interviews.
Type Moon had a very colorful booth this winter.
This is the cosplay area. The average cosplayers at a Comiket alone easily outnumber most American conventions.
I don't usually spend much time in the cosplay area (because it would reduce precious lineup time for circles and booths) but I went down this time to take a look. Here's a Touhou crew.
That Uiharu is amazing...
How many of you can name all the vocaloids?
An all-girl Arakawa Under the Bridge crew..
This Reimu had 30 people around her taking photos the whole time. Notice the suitcases - you're not allowed to cosplay to or from Comiket, so everyone has to bring their costumes, then lug around their baggage the whole time.
At 4:30 the announcement goes out over the intercom that Comiket is over for the day, and everyone starts making their way outside.
It's December, so it's already getting dark by the time it finishes, and the sun's about to disappear.
So there you have it - Comiket it a nutshell. Afterwards there's a huge rush for the second hand doujin shops like Melonbooks and Toranoana where people try to get any ones they missed (at an inflated price, of course). I'll cover that in my next post, which will focus more on otaku culture in general. Feel free to leave comments/questions!
Comments (86)
Is there a reason they can't cosplay to/from Comiket? Are those girls you see cosplaying in Akiba on TV/anime actually breaking a law by doing it publicly?
How many goodies did you get? :)
http://mazuisubs.com/otaku/img/otaku1_12.jpg
"That Uiharu is amazing..." Sooo true!!
And this was rather interesting, thanks for putting up so much regarding it. Seems to function very differently from North American cons. Especially the cosplayers being separated out like that, seems kind of strange to do it though.
Do you visit Japan on a regular basis? Twice a year perhaps?
What sorta pricing is there on those doujinshi? cheap?
Also, same question as Alex, is there an issue with cosplaying or something? :D
last question: who accompanied you to the event? Saw someone in the reflection of the cabinet. Was it some guy from Eclipse or something? (thinks back to that post about meeting up with Eclipse you made a while back)
Where are the Keine cosplayers?!
- What ? Didn't knew that. Man, that must be a pain in the ... :( It's truly magnificent to see people so devoted. Warms my soul :)
the green black one left below
nya hahahahahahaha
as expected from comiket....
you right, that uiharu is amazing...
hohohohoho
looking forward to next event...
next time make sure you tell us when you're leaving, i'll sneak into ur suitcase
Forelune: Kudo from Little Busters
Kai: There needs to be a separate space for the cosplayers because there is literally no space within the actual buildings to pose for shots.
Iwaac: I've visited every winter for 3 years now, but that may come to an end soon!
Doujinshi vary between 300 yen to 2000 yen depending on size/color/paper quality.
Norgus, my backup TL, also came with me.
Invisiblemoose: There are very, very few non-Japanese. That said, everyone's way too busy buying stuff to really care about anyone else.
holy fuck, its nice leaving closer to the ecuator
Ah, that makes sense. Wasn't thinking. So easy to pose at the ones here.
Thanks again for the peek inside, really curious about the culture there (even if only see a slice of it).
In the vid, it sounded like you were humming. Maybe on the next one you could sneak in that humming they do in all the beginnings of Index and Railgun series. ;)
Hmm mm hmm, hmm mm hmm, hmm mmm hmmmm
Hardcore otaku :P
Also, anyone know what series the characters on the Type-Moon poster come from?
I thought that the way they presented the event in lucky star was exaggerated...seems like the opposite is true.
^
you?
Or maybe a better question would be how much does the average person spend at Comiket?
I hope one day i will go too :) thanks for the videos and pictures they are all great!
And as i see they are all normal young people , i always thought when u look at an otaku , u can immediately say "he/she is an otaku". Besides almost all of them were stylish :D
And that crowds reminded me of a scene in Lucky Star ^^
Eno: They used to be a lot more anal about pictures, but these days as long as you aren't in the way, they don't tend to care. The exception is the seiyuu/developer events, for which they usually have staff looking out for people taking pics.
xineohp: Really depends on what you're interested in, but I probably blow around 30,000Â¥, and mostly in the corporate booths. I have no idea what the average is like, but the final stats estimate total spending for C79 at around 20 billion yen (~$200 million US), divided over 550,000 people = ~$363 per person. So I guess I'm actually below average.
(a lot more informative than just looking at Konata from Lucky Star buying stuff, lol)
That they didn't catch you doesn't mean anything. I was there this winter as well and I have seen staff stopping people from taking pictures. Still same as before.
By the way, for everyone who is thinking about going to Comiket - even though taking pictures at cosplay square is (still) allowed, it is a good manner to get the cosplayer's permission if you want to upload the pics on some public server (well visited blog/web page etc.) Keep in mind that not everyone wants to be seen at Comiket. Because the situation with uploading photos without permission has been getting worse, the Comiket staff is now considering tightening the cosplay square rules or, in the worst case, extending the "no photos" rule to the cosplay square as well.
Please, people. Comiket still has a nice, friendly atmosphere. Keep it that way.
I am also interested in those Type-Moon characters. Are those two from a game or just mascots?
maybe i sould go!!!!!!
Looking at the pictures though, Comiket looks like hell .. For a newcomer who hardly speaks Japanese, too xD.
Have been there for Winter Comiket 76 with some friends. Some of the few foreigners ;)
It's fine in Japan that a whole bunch of people gather in a set place at a set time to make money selling naughty pictures of commercial video game and anime characters.
But in Amercia, we can't even watch certain music videos on our iPhone while waiting for the bus because of "Contractual License Agreements"???
The words, you can make out to be called "Mahou Tsukai no Hako" = Magician's box