Looking Back at Comiket 75

Comic Market 76 or Comiket will be starting tomorrow and as I’m typing this, there are probably people already queuing up overnight to get in. Ever since hearing about comiket, I have always been fascinated by it and wanted to take a look. When I was living in Japan, I took the chance to see it for myself, the world’s largest comic book fair.

Comiket catalogs are sold weeks before the event in many bookstores. Although they are sold during comiket itself, it is recommended that you get them ahead of time to plan your route and battle strategy. It’s a war in there and going in without planning will only end up in disappointment. That is of course, only if you have a lot of things that you want to purchase. I took a look at the comiket catalogue when it first came out but nothing really caught my attention. Was never a doujin person anyway.

A total of half a million people attend comiket in the duration of 3 days. Knowing that, I went at a later time hoping I wouldn’t have to wait in line for long…. I was in line for an hour..

Discovered a Saber Lily itasha on the way to Tokyo Big Sight. Unlimited Codes was out for about 10 days before Comiket 75 and they already made an itasha?

Comiket episodes in Genshiken and Lucky Star weren’t exaggerating in their depictions of the event. Stood in line for about an hour before I could go in. Would probably have been longer if I had been there earlier. Was mailing people on my phone the whole time to kill time.

I don’t know if it was just me, but I noticed a larger amount of females to males. Hmmmm

I see it! The entrance!

Being my first time, I got really confused on where to go when I first entered. Luckily there were huge signs telling people where to go.

Bad blurry pic of the sea of people.

Went to the East exhibition hall first to take a look. While admiring the scenery, I realized that everyone around me was female. Looks like I walked into the yaoi and BL section without noticing. Ran out of there in no time.

Had a look at some of the other works but nothing really impressed me enough to buy. Walked around for about 30 minutes before I decided to head to the West exhibition hall.

This hall is where all the industry heavyweights (Key/Visual Arts/TYPE-MOON/Aquaplus etc.) are located. I figured since I was all the way here, might as well get in line for at least one booth.

The question is which..

It came down to these two. TYPE-MOON or Visual Arts. Ultimately the TYPE-MOON fanboy in me prevailed (the queue was shorter too) and I proceeded to stand in line.

On the way there (queue was LOOOOONG), the red cross set up a tent there for blood donations. Considering that 500,000+ people attended comiket, they must have gotten a significant amount. If any of you got a blood transfusion in Tokyo recently, remember that the blood of otaku runs through you.

Was nearing the booth only to have a guy come out and say that the posters were sold out… I bought a TYPE-MOON neck warmer and artbook instead. Checked out the CAPCOM booth next and bought some more stuff. Sigh.. and I said I wasn’t planning to buy anything at all. Luckily I withdrew money the day before.

Nendoroids on display back then. Most of them are out by now.

Washinomiya limited edition Lucky Star New Year set. I have the full set!

Nendoroid puchi Nagato-chan. Probably sold out by now.

No photography allowed. But hordes of people who snapping away in front of the displays. Pretty hard to get a good shot with people crowding around.

Unpainted GSC Saber Lily. I think this release was delayed recently?

Haruhi gekisou figures

Everything was pretty much sold out at this time, so I just took a stroll and circled around the hall. Next up, was the cosplay section~ Lots of great looking cosplay but a lot of bad ones as well XD.

Ragnarok cosplay. Was really into it during high school. It’s still popular?

Team Rocket and Satoshi. Meowth costume is awesome.

Fate/Stay Night gang. LOL

Lulu and Yuna

Reimu? Don’t know my touhou very well.

Vocaloid gang.

C.C and Euphemia.

No idea.

These guys were funny.

Haruhi.

Looks familiar.. not too sure which character this is.

Sailor Jupiter, Venus and Mars.

Piccolo.

Dragonball gang. I think they look more accurate compared to the live action movie.

Suigintou.

C-Cloud?

Cosplay grounds.

So many people..

On my way out. People are still queuing.

The line was looong. Glad I wasn’t in this line…

Tokyo Big Sight.

Everyone with their loot after a hard days work.

Taking a break, checking out their spoils of the day.

On the way out, was told of an itasha exhibition just around the corner.

Miku Racer.

Lots of Miku.

International Smoke Cheese Team.

Nyoro~n

ARIA

Omochikaeri

Fate/Lucky Star

Kagamin

Misuzu

Haruhi

Did this guy use google translate or something?

Lucky Star

Macross Frontier

Shana

Primula

Vocaloid Itachari

That was the last picture I took before heading back. Spent a good 4-5 hours there (waiting in line included). So glad I came to winter Comiket instead of the summer one. Can’t imagine being in that place with thousands of people in the heat. Ugh..

Although with a huge amount of people, the staff did an incredible job controlling the crowd. Everything was orderly and well organized. The Japanese have definitely mastered the art of queuing up. I’ve been in a fair share of lines in Japan but nothing can compare to this. Queues are everywhere in Japan, whether you’re waiting to go in the restaurant or waiting for your train to arrive, the Japanese are in line. It’s almost as if it’s a national pastime.

No pictures of my loot as it’s not with me at the moment. But here’s the bag I got from the TYPE-MOON booth.

Neko-Arc

.. and the rest of the TYPE-MOON gang.

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